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Original poster

Early Noughties teen mag ridiculousness

665 replies

SmidgenofaPigeon · 27/02/2021 10:21

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 Confused

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 Grin

OP posts:
Thread gallery
31
WeeWillyWanky · 27/02/2021 14:22

@SuburbanCrofter

a steady boyfriend called Steve or Greg

who would pick you up on his motorbike Grin

Yes! And as your sped off from the school gates, all the girls he spurned would be burning with envy!
theDudesmummy · 27/02/2021 14:22

I go a bit further back, I was a teenager in the 1970s. In the country where I lived then we could only get Tammy and Jinty (shipped from the UK), my granny bought them for me every week. A lot of things in there were quite UK-centric and I didn't understand everything, but I LOVED them!

IAmJackieWeaver · 27/02/2021 14:23

Just 17, and in particular Melanie McFadyen's problem page, gave me the relationship and sex education sorely missing from my upbringing.

And for that, I say thank you to them!!

theDudesmummy · 27/02/2021 14:23

I just remember there always being pictures of the Bay City Rollers in them...they really puzzled me for some reason...

gurglebelly · 27/02/2021 14:23

I used to love More, Mizz and Just Seventeen. I can't remember which one this gem came from, but I remember an article about kissing, and they described French kissing as 'both open your mouths and swirl your tongues round and round each other like slugs mating' 🤣

GeordieGreigsButtButtZoom · 27/02/2021 14:23

They would use "boyf" for "boyfriend" and "Crimbo" for Christmas, which I hated.

They got me drinking tons of water though.

ChristOnAPeloton · 27/02/2021 14:24

What was the one that was written entirely in teen speak, and there was always a quiz to find out if you were a sassy and sussed chickstrel? Bliss or Sugar? Good times.

All the beauty tips were about Rimmel makeup, wearing two slip dresses at once, and mini hair clips in Johnny Depp’s favourite “freshly washed hair” and every now and then they’d give away a free shiny mini backpack.

The 90s were the best time to be alive for a teenager. I will fight anyone who pretends otherwise.

theDudesmummy · 27/02/2021 14:24

I remember, on the advce of either Tammy or Jinty, putting lemon juice on my nose every night for probably a couple of years, to try and get rid of my freckles (it didn't work).

Wondermule · 27/02/2021 14:26

@PlinkPlink

Oh god I lived for Mizz magazine!!

I remember one issue they gave these free daisy anklet things. I was obsessed with it just a few bits of metal and a few plastic daisies but I was convinced it was so cool.

They always used to use the word 'parp' for fart on the embarrassing reads bit. Why? I have never met anyone who has used that word in RL.

Or they would print an unflattering photo of a celebrity (usually Pink or Christina Aguilera) looking hot and bothered, complete with an arrow saying something like SWEATY PITS!!!
GeordieGreigsButtButtZoom · 27/02/2021 14:27

Why didn't they tell you, when giving you the "egg white will make your hair shine" thing, to use cold water to rinse???

staydazzling · 27/02/2021 14:29

Great story!!!Grin

i used to collect bliss! aw those were the days!

theDudesmummy · 27/02/2021 14:31

Now you've got me poking about the internet looking at vintage frint pages from the 70s (when I should be working! Such memories! Jinty was actually quite weird, it was quite sci-fi orientated...

Early Noughties teen mag ridiculousness
theDudesmummy · 27/02/2021 14:31

I remember it was using egg white to make a face mask (which I also did for years...)

sunshineandshowers21 · 27/02/2021 14:32

my auntie used to always pass her copies of more onto me from when i was about 13 - my mum would have gone bonkers if she’d have known! when i was 15 and just started having sex with my boyfriend i used to try and do the positions of the week to impress him Blush some of them were much harder than the pictures would have you believe! i used to love bliss and sugar too. me and my sister used to make up embarrassing stories and send them in to win prizes. we actually won a few times, i think the stories included accidentally flashing a crush and farting in a crush’s face during a play fight 😂

GeordieGreigsButtButtZoom · 27/02/2021 14:33

@theDudesmummy

I remember it was using egg white to make a face mask (which I also did for years...)
Well it's probably easier to get cooked egg off your face than out of your hair!
Hm2020 · 27/02/2021 14:35

I remember reading bliss and sugar aged about 11 and they where very sexual I used to hide them from my mum. But shout and mizz where ok apparently I remember a girl of 12 writing in that whenever she gets drunk with her friends she vomits and it’s embarrassing so they’re advise was drunk a glass of water between every drink Shock

CovoidOfAllHumanity · 27/02/2021 14:40

This thread is proper making me giggle. Very nostalgic

I have definitely tried the oatmeal face masks and lemon juice in my hair
Obsessed with Rimmel make up which I had no idea how to apply. Clear mascara including in your eyebrows I recall was a thing.
Loved the crappy free flip flops and beach bag. Excellent for the seafront at Bognor
Mooching round the shopping centre of a weekend trying on clothes you couldn't afford to buy and weirdly obsessed with stationery in Paperchase.
Ah 90s teendom

My own DD is 14 now and she has never bought a teen mag to my knowledge. I fear that Tik Tok and YouTube tell her all she needs to know...
She does still like a pointless shopping trip and some overpriced stationery though.

WinterHoliday · 27/02/2021 14:40

I remember Catch! I still have one somewhere as I kept a few random magazines. I wish I still had copies of Just 17 and Mizz though. I used to love buying magazines when I was a teenager.

The Clothes Show magazine also used to do features on people out clubbing and where they bought their clothes from. Two of my friends were pictured and I still have a copy of this too.

CaffeineAndCrochet · 27/02/2021 14:41

Back in the days before data protection and GDPR was a thing, I was on the penpal pages of Shout. My home address was printed. I think I got about 800 letters sent to me.

Original poster
SmidgenofaPigeon · 27/02/2021 14:42

@Thirtyrock39 that was Diary of a Crush!! I loved that! The heroine was called Edie and was very cool and a bit rock chicky, and naturally couldn’t understand how all the boys were in love with her slim frame and blonde hair and ‘weird too big green eyes’ HmmGrin

OP posts:
Sammysquiz · 27/02/2021 14:45

I remember one of the magazines - J17 I think - was obsessed with a particular group of male models. They’d call them ‘the boys’ and print endless topless posters of them. One was called Howard (I think) and had long hair, and the one I fancied (or wanted to be my “boyf”Grin) was called Rufus.

Why do I remember stuff like this & not any of the important stuff I’m now meant to remember in my job??!

Cheeseandlobster · 27/02/2021 14:45

@CaffeineAndCrochet

Back in the days before data protection and GDPR was a thing, I was on the penpal pages of Shout. My home address was printed. I think I got about 800 letters sent to me.
Oh gosh me too. In Bunty though. I cant fathom it now. Printing the full address of 9 year old girls Shock

So impressed that others remember Catch. I would love to re read some of them

Werkwerkwerkwerkwerk · 27/02/2021 14:46

I'm sure I remember some advice in one of them about body language and your crush will turn their feet towards the person they fancy. Cue lots of weird behaviour from me in class, casually fixated on the feet of my object of desire!!! How mortifying!

Werkwerkwerkwerkwerk · 27/02/2021 14:48

Love your nostalgic story OP by the way!! Bought back lots of memories - glitter spray, butterfly clips, green nail polish, So...? body spray, and pale pink lipstick. And that was just to go to the park!

cakebythepound1234 · 27/02/2021 14:48

Oh wow, this thread is such a blast from the past! I used to love More, Sugar, Bliss, Just 17, Cosmo. Does anyone remember the sealed sections in the middle they would sometimes have which had graphic descriptions of stuff like how to give blow jobs? I was terrified my dad would find them, I'd have been mortified if he'd seen the filth I was reading with my pocket money!

There's a sketch by Amy Schumer where she's an editor of one of these types of mags and they are trying to come up with sex tips to put in the magazine and naturally, they are all ridiculous. Always makes me laugh as it's so accurate to how these mags were with their awful sex tips!