I used to read magazines…
When I was in middle school and high school, I began a tradition every August. When my family spent a week at the beach, I would buy all the teen magazines I could find and study them like a guide while I sat on a beach towel hoping to get even a little tan.
Back then, I went to a very poor religious private school and was used to khaki and navy pleated skirts and white polos. This was not the cute sexy uniform that most people imagine on private schoolers. It was unflattering, and the rules regarding accessories were so strict, you were lucky if the hoop earrings you wore were allowed (big ones were banned because a girl had ripped her earlobe on the playground one year, or so they told us).
Because of this, I had absolutely no knowledge of fashion, or even much of a wardrobe of my own, besides ugly long skirts which I wore on Fridays, which were “dress up” days at school.
So when August rolled around, I would sit on the beach, memorizing every page of Seventeen and Teen Vogue and Cosmo Girl and dreaming about the day when I would be stylish and confident and popular. The pages of those magazines held another world, the world of public school, a world without uniforms. Every year I would read those magazines and promise myself that THIS year would be different. That THIS year I would fit the personality profile outlined in Elle Girl, the “How to Be Friends with Everyone” or “How to Get the Guy.” But every year I would fall just short and repeat the cycle the next year.
Now I look back on my sheltered mindset and laugh. I guess those fantasies were wonderful while they lasted, but I would never be like one of the girls in those magazines. Mostly because they don’t really exist. Everyone is insecure, and most girls look past the editorials of Teen Vogue and settle for Northface jackets, ugg boots, and messy buns.
But I would never even reach that point. And today, I look back and smile a bit, thinking about how crazy I was to not embrace myself for who I was. Because it was fun to pretend, but I wouldn’t really want to be that girl. I’d much rather be the unique and quirky person I am today.
The magazine industry is beginning to fail, and I don’t wonder why. Of course the internet age has ushered in some serious competition, but also maybe girls of the most impressionable age are getting wise and realizing that magazines are nothing but one long ad, dedicated to making you feel like you need to consume more and look prettier to be worth anything. And that’s something I think we’re all tired of.
Cheers,
<3Elle
(Of course I can’t discount magazines in their entirety. After all, they DID teach me to use baby powder for greasy hair, and that pantyhose gets out deodorant stains, and that eyeshadow primer is absolutely necessary…but all the same, I think I’m done for good. There’s only so many times that you can read about the dangers of too much tanning.)
