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sassy

Smells like teen spirit: A few thoughts on Sassy 2.0, or whatever we're calling it

Social Commentary post by Andi Zeisler, Submitted by Andi Zeisler on November 15, 2010 - 1:20pm; tagged Jane Pratt, sassy, Tavi Gevinson, women's magazines.

Well, what do you know? I was just gearing up to write a post about the Bitch library’s recent acquisition of a full set of Sassy magazines—the first issue! the Kurt ’n’ Courtney issue! All the issues!—which were a gift from the fabulous Rita Hao, forever friend of Bitch and a member of our National Advisory Board. And then the news came down the Intertubes that tiny wunderkind style blogger Tavi Gevinson will be teaming up with founding Sassy editor Jane Pratt to launch a new teen magazine at some point in the not-too-distant future. According to a somewhat vague post on Gevinson’s blog, Style Rookie:

You guys may know how I feel about Sassy. You also may know that I've been babbling about how I think our generation should get one, too. Jane Pratt, founding editor and then EIC of Sassy, also became aware, and emailed me, and we've met a couple times, and it looks like we're going to start a magazine for an audience of wallflowerly teenage girls.

(I am trying so hard to be cool and professional right now.)

(Trying. so. hard.)

Of course, it won't be Sassy (or the rebirth of Sassy, or Sassy 2.0) and nor do we want it to be. For one, you can't try to recreate something that good. For another, while I can read old issues of Sassy and relate, the world has changed a bit in the past 15 or so years, and that whole Internet thing happened, and this world calls for something different. Something that will use Sassy as a point of reference for the whole teen-magazine-that-doesn't-suck thing, and something in which Jane Pratt will take part, but something that is not trying to recreate the other something a bunch of us love and don't want to see copied.

Cue the ladyfashion blogosphere going apeshit.  

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Ten Things to Hate About Jane

Article by Andi Zeisler, Lisa Jervis, Rita Hao, appeared in issue Fighting Back; published in 1998; filed under Consumer culture; tagged advertising, body image, fashion, Jane, magazines, publishing, sassy.
Fighting Back

When we heard that Jane Pratt, the former editor of Sassy—the sharp, celebrated teen mag that above all was absolutely unwilling to pull its readers into the spiral of insecurity and product consumption so endemic to all others in the genre—was launching a new grown-up glossy, we, along with other feminist pop culture junkies nationwide, squealed with excitement. Then Jane launched. And we weren’t excited anymore. Here’s why.

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Sassy Responds

Not to Us, Of Course...
Article by Lisa Jervis, appeared in issue Issue #2; published in 1996; filed under Social commentary; tagged magazines, mainstream, media, media critique, misogyny, sassy, stereotypes, teens.
Not to Us, Of Course...
Issue #2

...
but to other perceptive and right-on readers who are as upset as we are about the changes. And guess what?
The editors are defensive as hell.

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1 comment

Bait and Switch Sassy

Article by Lisa Jervis, appeared in issue Premiere; published in 1995; filed under Social commentary; tagged gender roles, magazines, media, misogyny, sassy, sexuality, stereotypes, teens.
Premiere

Back in March a horrible thing happened. After a few months of checking the newsstands for my beloved Sassy, wondering what the hell was up and why I couldn’t find it anywhere, suddenly there it was—mutilated almost beyond recognition. Peterson Publishing (they also own Guns & Ammo) bought Sassy, replaced the entire staff, and gutted the editorial philosophy—and the new staff is trying to pretend that it’s the same magazine it always was.

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