Girls' Life (October/November 2011)

Title: Girls' Life (October/November 2011)
Editor: Karen Bokram
Publisher: Girls' Life Acquisitions Corp.
Copyright: 2011
ISSN: 10783326

Description
Girls’ Life is a fashion, beauty, and advice magazine aimed as middle and high school-aged girls. It has much more text per page than the other two magazines I reviewed for this project. There are four separate reader question-and-answer features, five advice features, two quizzes, one page of reader-submitted embarrassing stories, and three multipage articles. The table of contents is divided into the following areas:

• Fashion
• Beauty
• Boys, Besties & Life
• Health & Body
• GL Faves

Girls’ Life has lower production values than the other two magazines. Its pages are thinner and less glossy and have fewer photographs. The ads are exclusively teen-targeted instead of a mix of teen and adult, and all of the ad models appear to be teens. There are far fewer of them, too—out of 100 pages, just 20 are ads. Eight of these ad pages are for the Teen Read Week Book Club sponsored by the ALA. 

Critical Evaluation
Girls’ Life’s writing style is yet more obnoxious than Seventeen’s due to rampant use of abbreviations (e.g., fab, delish, brills, insta, etc., etc., ad nauseam). Like Seventeen, some of the features are falsely advertised. The item under the headline “7 Ways to Eat Whatever You Want (Seriously)” describes how to make lower-calorie choices in various situations—not a bad thing, but not exactly eating whatever you want, either. The other disturbing thing about this feature is that there’s no discussion of why you can’t just eat whatever you want. Is this about health, or is it a guide to getting started on disordered eating?

Most of the content is innocuous, though. The advice sections, though overly boy-focused, encourage girls to be nice and be smart. There are a couple of places for girls to get answers to health and body questions that are reasonably informative. But like in Seventeen, the token social issue article (here on teen addiction) is more titillating than informative. Finally, Girls’ Life ranks between Seventeen and Teen Vogue in terms of diversity and about the same as Seventeen in terms of promoted products’ affordability. 

Why is this title included?
This title is a little more wholesome than other teen magazines, though it's still focused on the consuming topics of appearance and romance.

Teen Vogue (November 2011)

Title: Teen Vogue (November 2011)
Editor-in-Chief: Amy Astley
Publisher: Conde Nast Publications, Inc.
Copyright: 2011
ISSN: 15402215

Description
Teen Vogue is a fashion, beauty, and celebrity magazine founded in 2005. It is aimed at high schoolers and adults. Its younger cover girls, articles on high school-related issues, and much lower page count distinguish it from its big sister, Vogue. It features beauty tips (in this issue, “Five pros debunk the biggest hair myths”), fashion ideas, profiles of people with fashion sense and/or careers, advice for those aspiring to careers in the fashion industry, and celebrity photo shoots. Items in the November 2011 issue include:

• “Dakota Fanning’s Makeup Must-Haves”
• Horoscopes
• “People watching: Fashion’s Night Out”
• A description of a “bargain” fashion trick: an intricate manicure inspired by the prints of the latest designer lines ($60)
• Music and movie reviews (using the term loosely)
• Three different photoshoots of winter wear.

Many of the same ads seen in Seventeen appear. Makeup ads predominate, followed closely by fragrances, skin and hair care products, clothes, and accessories.

Critical Evaluation
Teen Vogue is definitely less horrifying than Seventeen. There are no promises of quick fixes that “make you instantly prettier” and no mention of flattering your body type. This magazine is (or is trying to be) serious about fashion. The clothes are not exclusively hideous (though still utterly mysterious to me), and the writing is much less obnoxious (there are many, many fewer exclamation points). There are even two articles that actually merit the term, each several pages long and offering some real information on the topics of a) “It Girl” Alexa Chung and her new show and b) dealing with social exclusion and the role that social networking plays in magnifying its effects.

However, there’s plenty to horrify here, too. Teen Vogue has a slightly higher percentage of ads than Seventeen—27 before the first content appears and a total of 60 out of 150 pages. Like Seventeen, most of the features are essentially ads as well. Furthermore, it’s much less egalitarian than Seventeen. Almost all the products in Teen Vogue are objectively expensive, while Seventeen has a much lower price range and includes many items that are downright cheap. In addition, Teen Vogue’s models and profile subjects are almost all white. And though this isn’t necessarily the magazine’s fault, its cover girl comes off as insufferably conceited.

Why is this title included?
This popular magazine is aimed at older teens.

Seventeen Magazine (November 2011)

Title: Seventeen Magazine (November 2011)
Editor-in-Chief: Ann Shoket
Publisher: Hearst Magazines
Copyright: 2011
ISSN: 0037301X

Description
Seventeen is a magazine aimed a 12 to 24-year-old girls and women. The focus is on fashion and beauty, but there are also features on love and dating and social issues. Each month the cover features a female celebrity and the corresponding article contains a photoshoot, information on her life, and her “tips” on fashion, beauty, love, etc.

The November 2011 issues features Heather Morris, an actor on the hit show Glee. Other items include:

• Thanksgiving dinner tips—foods to eat and avoid
• Thanksgiving weekend activity ideas
• The “Best Boyfriends in America” and their girlfriends on their relationships
• Missing girls and their stories
• “Body Peace Awards”
• Girls fight back against sexism and rumors
• “Sneaky Ways to Turn Him Down (the Nice Way)!”

Another major feature of Seventeen is advertising. Of the 150 pages of this issue, 55 contain only advertisements. Sometimes it was hard to tell what was an ad and what was “content.”

Critical Evaluation
My initial reaction to Seventeen—which I hadn’t read in many years, and never regularly—was horror. There are red flags all over the cover: “Perfect Legs, Butt & Abs: No Workout Required!” “Look Cute and Confident: Hair & Makeup Ideas That Make You Instantly Prettier!” In many ways, horror is warranted. Advertising dominates. Not only are over a third of the pages of the magazine devoted exclusively to advertising, many of the features are indistinguishable from ads. They promote certain items of clothing and makeup and list purchasing information. The phrase “your routine” is used frequently. In order to follow the suggestions given, girls would have to spend hours on their personal hygiene and beauty routines. Seventeen seems to assume its readers already do so. There is a fair amount of emphasis on romance and what boys think of girls. Improving one's appearance, though, is the magazine’s overwhelming focus. What’s more, the “articles” are only a couple of pages long. The rest of the copy consists of blurbs of only a few words.

But there are mitigating factors. The piece on perfect body parts was not about a scary diet pill, but was a step-by-step guide to an aerobic dance routine. No workout is required only in the sense that this is supposed to be a fun alternative to a normal workout. There are several features on positive body image (though much of the rest of the magazine’s content works against positive body image, in my opinion). The models and profile subjects are racially diverse. A couple of the articles tried to address social issues. The one about fighting back against “nasty rumors” was reasonably successful (though very short), but the one on missing girls and women was frankly bizarre. As far as I can tell, it used safety tips—of which there were about four—as an excuse to print lurid stories about tragic cases.

Did I mention that the featured clothes are almost without exception hideously ugly?

Why is this title included?
This very popular teen magazine appeals to a broad age range.