1
Wolcott
Ethan Wolcott
Mr. Doerr
8:30-9:30
March 4, 2006
Mindless Teen Magazines
The myriad of media influences present in our society is evident in many forms. The television, the radio, films, and others all have a moderate effect on the people that subject themselves to it, whether they are conscious of it or not. A historically strong media form is print. Walk into any convenience store, gas station, large retailer or just bland newsstand and there are swarms of magazines of all kinds of genres. A powerful group is the teen magazine, targeted at young females. Magazines such as Tiger Beat, Cosmo Girl!, Teen People, and Seventeen are all fairly similar, and are marketed to the same audience. Sadly though, it is often observed by those the magazines are not directed toward that there is a tremendous paucity of “valuable” articles, but more a plethora of articles that teach young women to focus on fashion, boys, make-up, and celebrities. This is often criticized. Many people fear that the younger generation is being brainwashed by these magazines to focus on trivial parts of life, rather than gaining knowledge of the world around them, and learning to love them for who they are. Through the flood of beauty articles, misleading advertisements, and relationship stories, teen magazines dumb-down young females into mindless Barbie dolls.
With the total number of pages from the March, 2006 issues of the four magazines, Seventeen, Cosmo Girl!, Tiger Beat, and Teen People equaling 613, 71% of that is made up of advertisements. These advertisements are largely made up of clothing companies and make-up solicitors. The gigantic problem with these advertisements, though, is the models portrayed in them. Every single one of them has a skinny, beautiful, flawless model in it, regardless of what is being sold. They are perfect examples for both genders of what is nearly impossible to achieve physically. There are some people who believe there is hope. “Increasingly, magazines like Seventeen and Cosmo Girl! Have been featuring young ladies who are overweight, or short, or have big noses or small eyes. The message is that girls like this are beautiful, too, and teenagers seem to be listening.” (Farrelly 1) They must not have looked at the magazines, because there are no pictures of regular girls, just hoards of boys and girls that society sees as a perfect physical form. And quite sadly, the more of these pictures that invade the pages, the more the reader believes it’s the physical form that they should strive to achieve. This leads to an entire younger generation with eating disorders and horrendously low self-esteem. In Teen People, there is to their credit a strong article about bulimia. However, it is preceded a few pages by a milk ad featuring the flawless Kelly Clarkson, most likely digitally retouched. “Most ads tell girls you must fit a certain mold to be successful. You must be passive, thin, attractive, and sexy (and own the latest stuff) to be happy. It’s too narrow and it does enormous harm to girls who are trying to figure out who they are and who they want to be.” (Pasanen 1) This is disgustingly true, and does not seem to be getting any better. Essentially, these magazines, being that they are made up of 71% ads, are just gigantic billboards for impossible goals that corrupt the young mind into focusing on achieving that perfection, rather than learning to love them for whom they are.
The articles buried within the swamp of ads don’t help the individual much either. One would think that the remaining 29% would be quality in order to make up for the 71% wasted pages, and they would be wrong. Only 3.8% of the collected pages of these four magazines are actually used for quality stories. Quality stories that help the individual better themselves inside, rather than outside. These are articles about bulimia, rape, underage prostitution, broken homes, drug abuse, staying safe on spring break, regretting sex, the stupidity of high school parties, and other stories that actually help the young lady progress into a mediocre state of maturity. There are still no current event reports whatsoever, so the reader is forced to never look outside their little world, but at least they’re moderately helpful stories. Depressingly, the remaining 25.2% of the magazines is devoted to fashion tips, make-up tips, how to flirt, prom dress comparisons, and celebrity gossip, just to give a generalization. All of it is completely pointless in all honesty, and does nothing but lower the reader’s self-esteem, and confine them to the childish rules and false realities of the world of high school, forbidding them to think about life beyond those four, insignificant years. “Throughout the last thirty years, teenage girls have depended on magazines like Seventeen to help through times of need, but I’ve realized that the magazine doesn’t do a good enough job. It lowers the self-esteem of teens and makes them think they aren’t good enough.” (Chavanu 8) It lowers their self-esteem by not raising it. There are no stories that teach them to love the person they are, but rather teach them to love flawless celebrities. These celebrities embody all the impossible physical attributes that lead to eating disorders. Young women look at these pictures, and wish they could be these famous people, and that leads to drastic measures. Also, the beauty tip articles only teach the reader how to be beautiful by certain standards on the outside. Not a word encourages personality traits, or originality, but rather eye shadow, and lip-gloss. By idolizing the unattainable, teen magazines do nothing more than bring the reader into a lower state of self-esteem, rather than an increase, but undoubtedly forces the reader to strive for that perfect form, often despite the consequences.
The relationship articles that linger within the pages serve no purpose of progress. From a male perspective, it is safe to say that the dating tips and flirting methods are completely useless, and will only lead to painful rejection if put to practice. This painful rejection will do nothing but bring the reader into a slight depression. Besides being useless, the articles teach the young female to look at relationships as a primary objective. Instead of test-taking tips or career assistance, the young woman is given fully illustrated phone scenarios with the opposite sex, imprinting on their minds that finding somebody to be infatuated with is far more important than planning their own future. It is just another tool for creating a seemingly picture-perfect world for the reader, without portraying the slightest hint of reality and the important dilemmas to come.
The dating advice, ridiculous advertisements, and beauty tips contained within the pages of the majority of generic teen magazines do nothing more than blind the young female audience of the world around them, and force them to strive for unattainable goals, often at dangerous costs, hoping to gain a life equivalent to that of a Barbie doll. There are too many magazines and too many companies that advertise to hold anybody solely responsible, but the problem exists nonetheless, and could potentially seriously threaten generations. The publishers may someday put in articles that pertain to actual reality, but until that day, an easier solution is to just talk to the kids about what they’ve read. Twelve year-old children are reading magazines marketed for mature teens, and they’re getting a twisted perception of the world they are about to enter. At the very least, we can all be aware of the absurdity.