Early Noughties teen mag ridiculousness

[SmidgenofaPigeon]

Does anyone remember the little nuggets if totally ridiculous advice they’d give you in teen magazines?

I used to be an avid reader of Shout! magazine. The main goal of these magazines seemed to be being popular and having boys notice you obviously, and were filled with totally mad tips on how to achieve these things and not be a ‘geek’ who wasn’t interested. Which is totally inappropriate advice these days, happily.

I remember one was ‘if you are invited to a party, arrive late and leave early! You are a social butterfly who has had to squeeze the party in between other engagements’

Happily I HAD been invited to a party in my local pub function room that very weekend! I spent a long time applying glitter hair mascara to my fringe to make it clump together attractively (why) and I think I even had on one of those fetching skirt with trousers combos with a vest top from Tammy girl. I got my dad to drive round the block a bit so I could try to be late, but it didn’t take very long and I think I turned up at ten minutes after the start time. I had a few dances to All Saints and Steps and drank a couple of cans of Coke and an hour before it was due to finish, I did a big show of having to rush off.

Now, we lived in a very small town. There was NO WAY any other parties were happening on the same night. But desperately trying to stick to my social butterfly narrative I said goodbye and off I went.

I sat round the corner in the bus shelter until it was time to get picked up. While everyone else was having a nice time at the party

What a knob! When I got to school on the Monday everyone was saying it was rude to leave the party early and I felt like such an idiot.

Can anyone remember any more of the ridiculous things they used to spout in these magazines? I’d love to get my hands one now as I think it would be hilarious

I loved all those mags, I had Hi when I was about 12/14, mizz, just 17, then More was always handed round the sixth form common room with position of the fortnight.

I have to say though, I learned a lot from those mags. My mum was rather old fashioned about sex, her only advice was 'say no, wait till you're married' so without those mag I would have known nothing about contraception or what was normal about puberty etc.

Wow this has brought back the time when my dad came home from working away with presents for us all. I was into heavy metal music and dressed accordingly... dyed purple hair, black lipstick and nail varnish, long sleeved band T-shirt’s, camos and army boots. He did alright with my younger brothers, cars and smash hits magazine. Me? I got a copy of mizz and a sylvanian family set 🤣

I actually still have a magazine from 2005! I think it's Shout. I kept it because a family member has something they wrote published in it. I can share a few pages from it if you like?

@GreenandPinkFlowers yes please!

@GreenandPinkFlowers yes do share! I'm going to see if I can find any too!

I remember Cathy! I'm sure she started to straighten her hair if I remember correctly

I remember all the 80s ones too - I remember Just 17 starting up and being really exciting. There was this great theory believed as total fact by us all that the letters to the problem pages were actually written by squaddies who spent their spare time making up letters with fictitious sex problems to teen magazines

At the time it seemed very racy but now, compared to the easy availability of porn, it seems very wholesome that young girls had this female centred shared experience to explore their burgeoning womanhood.

The magazines did always encourage you to wait until you were 16 to have sex, and if your 13 year old friend had a 30 year old boyfriend then you were encouraged to tell a trusted adult. Is there anything similar now?

Although I didn’t consciously recognise it at the time, what most strikes me now is the hypocrisy - the advice sections were all about loving yourself as you are, then the fashion and beauty pages were the same super-thin models month after month. When I come across body-positive Insta accounts etc now I always think how as a (chubby) teen I literally never saw photos of bigger women meant to look attractive or fashionable - maybe some dowdy ‘before’ photo but otherwise nothing...

On a lighter note, I remember J17 had a regular section about DIY/up-cycling clothes, where I learnt how to insert a triangle of extra material into all my jeans to turn them into super trendy (early ‘00s) flares

I was a Jackie reader, so wish I had kept a few copies to read back on now.

@FlippinNoah

I remember feeling a right rebel by reading 'Just 17' when I was 15 🤣

I was 15 when 'Just Seventeen' (as it was back in the day) first came out, and I remember thinking it was incredibly sophisticated as the problem page didn't just advise girls to 'say no' to sex (as did the dinosaur 'Cathy & Claire' page in 'Jackie' ) but actually accepted that some girls would have sex and gave sensible advice on contraception. (This was pre-AIDS, or at least pre-awareness of AIDS as something anyone could get - I'm sure the advice got tailored to 'always use condoms' further down the line, or at least I hope it did.)

I also remember the feature where they stopped people on the street and asked them where they bought their clothes. I always thought most of them looked incredibly cool and nothing like I ever looked, being someone who took a while to find my way style-wise.

I do remember though that the fashion pages in Just Seventeen were pretty strange. Every outfit seemed to be comprised of leggings (years before most people actually wore leggings) and a massive shirt, a bit like how Boy George used to dress back in the day, and nothing like how most girls I knew liked to dress at the time. Weird.

I remember one problem page letter where this girl wanted a cat, her whole family wanted a cat, except for the dad. The advice was that even most of the family wanted one, 'nevertheless your dad is boss'. Even back then there were a few angry letters about the sexism of that in the next issue.

I graduated to Cosmo when I was about 18 and was back to the whole business of being wowed by all the sex talk and thinking it was so sophisticated, not having had sex myself yet. (You can probably tell from these anecdotes that I was a bit of a late bloomer. )

I was a teenager in the 90s, I can remember looking at More with friends on a school trip aged about 11 including position of the fortnight, I think I would be horrified now if my 12 year old son was doing that!

I used to love all the magazines - Just Seventeen, Mizz, Sugar. My Mum was never much of a fan of them. I read Smash Hits too for all the boy band type stuff!

I was 16 in 95. I bought more and shout and mizz over the years. Just 17 was the worst with all its naff language. Boyf and 'rents ffs. It was cringe

I loved shout, sugar and mizz. Good times. I remember I kept a stack of old shout magazines in my room as I obviosuly thought they would come in handy for future reference.

My specific grievance was these mags was them always recommending clothes abs make up you could only buy in london etc which isn't realistic when you live in penzance....the internet has changed a few things mind 😂

And yet, I do think a lot of the sex messages were quite positive, in a way I wonder if girls now are missing.

The message I took (as a v unattractive, def nowhere near sex young teen), was that it was ok to say no; you weren't a slag if you slept with people; you should wait until you were ready; sex should be fun and enjoyable for you too.
I read so many posts on here about crap sex and just think: why do you put up with it? Why have you ever put up with it?

Its actually Sugar! Here's the front page to get you all started 😁 December 2005 and Hilary Duff is the cover girl. There's a lovely article on page 58 on whether your family are wrecking your future or not (bottom left) 😁

I oh I used to sneak More into the house and hide in my bedroom to read it 😂 horrendous mag looking back, I remember a ‘tip’ which was to suck a mint before giving a blow job

@AllDoneIn I'm sure it raised a few eyebrows. I was a very 'good' girl

The sex advice was always “Just say no. If you do have sex, use a condom.”

Nothing about the fact a girl might want to say yes. Nothing about identifying healthy or unhealthy relationships. Nothing about other ways of building intimacy other than sex if you did want to wait longer. Nothing about actually dating or considering postponing serious dating until GCSEs were over. Just really really crap say no or use a condom advice.

Found my collection! I chucked loads away but kept a sample. I've found them in a box with my old Sindy dolls

@nevernotstruggling

I was 16 in 95. I bought more and shout and mizz over the years. Just 17 was the worst with all its naff language. Boyf and 'rents ffs. It was cringe

Boyf and what was the word they always used instead of snog? It was a word that has never been uttered by a human mouth, I assumed that was just what they called it down in London.

I don't think the picture attached!

For everyone wanting to see the cringe page... Here's a few snippets..😅

Oh no it's there