Ultimately,Currie concludes that the lived experiences of adolescent girls are not radically different enough from the preions the magazines suggest to encourage individual formation of alternative modes of subjectivity.Citing the“normalizing”power of school culture,Currie writes that girls'experiences in school reinforce or are reinforced by magazine images of femininity.“While girls recognize that magazine standards of feminine beauty are unrealistic,experience tells them that the cultural mandate to be beautiful conveyed by these texts is real,”claims Currie.Currie,Dawn H.,Girl Talk:Adolescent Magazines and Their Readers,p.245,Toronto:University of Toronto Press,1999.“In conclusion,”Currie writes,“the power of the text lies in its demonstrated ability not only to construct a reading subject who accepts dominant definitions of being a woman,but also to normalize the dominant order as it is experienced through school culture.”Currie,Dawn H.,Girl Talk:Adolescent Magazines and Their Readers,p.245,Toronto:University of Toronto Press,1999.Magazines seek to document and reproduce the social world of adolescents;this textual mirror may offer a truthful enough representation of teen life that the“improving”suggestions of the publication become normalized and not extreme.That is,the lived experiences of teenage girls are not directly informed via literal translations of magazine texts.However,the extra-normalizing power of these“teenzines”is a real consequence of their reading.
The relationship created between reader and magazine is fostered through text;the naturalness with which the words can be read and the articles'arguments understood pacifies the reader and may allow her to drift more willingly into the space created between publication and reader.By understanding the cognitive development of adolescents,magazine publishers and writers can take advantage of the appropriateness of certain texts and vocabularies.According to Piaget,early adolescents at the formal operational level are just beginning to“apply operations not only to objects,but to hypotheses,formulated in words.”Evans,Richard I.,Jean Piaget,The Man and His Ideas,translated by E.Duckworth,p.26,New York:Dutton,1973.The teen magazine as developmental guide is rife with hypothetical identities;under the guidance of the editors,a reader may contemplate,presumably through manipulation of fashion and makeup,for example,a number of personalities.The illustrations of these potential selves are constructed and made more effective by utilizing specific and timely terminology.For example,while a teen magazine like YM or CosmoGirl may not employ the most sophisticated vocabulary or metaphor,the use of teen-specific slang makes the text nearly incomprehensible to those readers outside the influence of teen culture.
Embarrassing Stories and Undercover Socialization
The inclusion of reader-written,embarrassing anecdotes has heightened the popularity of many teen magazines;the developmental appropriateness of this magazine mainstay,in which social guidance is offered in the guise of commiseration,should be of particular notice.The texts of these columns,titled,“Say Anything”in YM,“Trauma Rama”in Seventeen,and“Why Me?”in Teen,consist of a collection of embarrassing incidents in the magazine readers'lives.Readers are encouraged to write to the magazine's editors with their own tales,which,if published,will garner ratings on an editorial scale.YM rates its readers'tales with a system of stars:a single-star rating translates to a sympathetic“Glad It Didn't Happen to Me”;a four-star humiliation offers the advice“Better Switch School Districts.”Teen magazine utilizes a rating system based on flames;one-flame stories are considered less embarrassing than stories rated with four flames.Seventeen uses a three-tiered rating scale and offers a sarcastic one or two sentence commentary on each anecdote.Although the submitted tales are supposedly the work of magazine readers,the jargon and tone of the stories themselves belie either a strict reader adherence to the slang and writing style of the magazine or heavy editing.The anecdotes may reference certain popular teen styles(by designer name)or use teen-specific shorthand(like“b.f.”for“best friend”or“b.f.f.”for“best female friend”)to create a tone of inclusion.
As with the editor's letter,the embarrassing stories column utilizes developmentally appropriate text and mimics an interaction between the reader and the publication to encourage readership.The encouragement of submissions,as well as the rating of those published writings,suggests a real communication between magazine reader and magazine staff.The ratings or comments issued by the magazine staff imply an interactive empathy and personal interaction not unlike that created in the editor's letter.Occasional inclusion of celebrity shame and staff humiliations serves to widen the empathetic discursive community created in this column.