Kara Jesella - How Sassy changed my life: a love letter to the greatest teen magazine of all time

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How many peoples lives did Sassy change? A lot. And many of them wrote or called or met with us to give us the details. Thanks to all the fans who shared their stories. Even if we didnt quote you directly, your thoughts had a huge influence on this book.

We appreciate the generosity of everyone we interviewed, so many of whom were willing to take a funny/poignant/interesting walk down memory lane with us. Our inner fifteen-year-olds are especially grateful to the Sassy staff; we certainly couldnt have done this without them. A very special thank you to Mary Clarke, the very definition of a connector, who helped set the wheels in motion.

Like most books, this one took two-plus years from conception to completion. Wed like to thank all our friends and colleagues who patiently spent that time asking, over and over, So how is the book coming? and pretending to be enthused about the answer. Special gratitude goes to Elspeth, proprietor of Podunk, the best tea shop ever, where we spent hours nibbling scones and getting all our best work done. The average boyfriend would be less than supportive if his girlfriend came home after a few drinks and announced that she was going to write a book with someone she had just met. Not Mike DeMaio. Kara would like to say: I love you and thank you for the endless counsel and support. And wed both like to thank our parents. If it werent for you, we may have grown up in more interesting hometowns and not needed Sassy to change our lives. Finally, all that adolescent angst has been put to good use.

Thank you to our agent, Sarah Lazin, a font of great advice; we look forward to a long relationship. And to Denise Oswald at Farrar, Straus and Giroux, who we secretly hoped would be our editor from the very beginning. She certainly did not disappoint. And we cant forget Paula Balzer; once we convinced her we had a book, she set about convincing everyone else.

Wed also like to express gratitude to our tireless interns, all of whom are an asset to the publishing industry: Rebecca Willa Davis, Maressa Brown, Vanessa Weber, Melanie Klesse, and Amy Bleier Long. Thanks to Sarah Almond, Sara Jane Stoner, and Jessica Ferri for patiently fielding so many random queries and to Liz Menoji for sending us every Sassy fans dream care package.

The Rise

Later, there would be the infamous Kurt and Courtney cover. There would be the R.E.M. flexidisc. There would be the seminal junk food taste-off and the first-person sex stories. There would be Jane and Karen and Catherine and Mike and Neill and Margie and Kim, and there would be Christina Kelly, regaling the world with stories of the menstrual cramps she endured while interviewing future talk-show hostess Rikki Lake. But before that, there was Seventeen magazine, and it regularly ran cover stories like Bridal Sweet. This was the day Id always dreamed of, reads the copy. An accompanying photo pictures a beaming adolescent bride in her new husbands paint-splattered oxford shirt, eating takeout on the floor of their brand-new first apartment. But this wasnt 1957; this was 1987three years after Madonna seduced a generation of teenagers by singing about premarital sex in a wedding dress.

Despite the fact that it was spinning its wheels in a different decade, Seventeen retained its place as the grande dame, the de facto how-to-be-a-teenage-girl guide. It was the nations first teen magazine, and ithadnt veered from its civic-minded mission to create the worlds most proficient wives since its debut, right after World War II. The magazine was essentially an etiquette guide for the all-American girl, doling out no-nonsense advice on appearances and relationships in between fawning celebrity profiles, home-decorating how-tos, and a parade of Nordic-looking models. Its owner, Walter Annenberga Nancy Reagan crony and millionaire with a gold-plated toilet seat in his private planecalled it a national trust.

From the beginning, Seventeen practically invented the teenager as a category that could be marketed to, and the magazine lost none of its muscle over the subsequent forty years. Though it had spawned teenybopper wannabes like YM and Teen , its million-plus circulation and seemingly unassailable brand name made Seventeen the most coveted vehicle for advertisers. Big companies were convinced that if they could convert young consumers to their products, the girls loyalty would remain after a walk down the aisle effectively ended their adolescence. Half of all Seventeen readers would graduate to the decidedly retro Good Housekeeping and the mildly liberated Glamour in their adult years, and they were a marketers wet dream: soon-to-be happy homemakers and pink-collar office workers. They were the girls beguiled by the Jostens class-ring ad in the September 1988 issue, which featured a pretty young girl with a boyfriends lips pressed to her cheek; the tagline reads Guaranteed for Life.

But to achieve this promise of matrimonial blissnot to mention a spot in the homecoming courtthere were a number of things a teenage girl needed to know, and to that end Seventeen served up dieting tips, recipes, and relationship advice. High kicks and cartwheels arent the only things that count in cheerleading tryouts. Appearance can make or break you, too, a beauty story admonishes. Could you have possibly put on a few pounds over summer vacation? worries one of the de rigueur diet articles. Seventeen could help: Busy Bodies features two girls and their editor-approved exercise routine.

Sure, there were plenty of things to worry about in high school: getting fat, wearing the wrong clothes, body odor. But Seventeen taught girls how to master these traumas, and once they did, they could participate in all kinds of teenage fun, like rushing a sorority or trekking to Florida for spring breaksomething, one article enthused, you should do at least once. The beach, after all, was hunk heaven. How to get one of these hunky guys? Be patient, not pushy.

But Seventeen wasnt just invested in girls present; it was also invested in their future. Nestled beside the ubiquitous ads for modeling schools, weight-loss camps, and High School at Home in Spare Time were blurbs for fashion-merchandising colleges and courses like Learn How to Be a Secretary. The magazines editorial component was slightly more ambitious, featuring regular stories like How to Make the Most Out of Your College Visit. But lest you think that higher education was valuable for much morethan getting a Mrs. degree, an article called College Cool from the August 1988 issue should change your mind. Its a greatest-hits list of Wild Weekends, What Theyre Wearing, Where to Spy on Guys, and Hot Dates. Theres only one concession to academics: a severely truncated list of Best Classes. Other articles for the aspiring coed (a word Seventeen used liberally and entirely unironically) include Fighting the Freshman Fifteen: How Not to Eat Your Way Through the First Year of College and a fashion story featuring students at Tulane, a school best known not for its academics, but for its parties.

Seventeen was most American girls first piece of direct mail; 50 percent of them received the magazine. Hillary Clinton read it when she was a teenage girl, and so did the girl who grew up to be a hairdresser, says Caroline Miller, who became the magazines editor in chief in 1994. As such, its tastes were oppressively mass, with treacly profiles of mall queen Tiffany and hair band Nelson. It touted parentally approved entertainment in parentally clueless language: Its the underage rage these days as adult dance clubs open their doors to the under-twenty-one crowd. Fruit juice flows and the music pounds as the younger generation rules the night!

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