How Sassy Changed My Life (18 page)
Read How Sassy Changed My Life Online
Authors: Kara Jesella
“The intriguing thing about
Sassy
is that it managed to make you feel really subversive and underground and rebellious and smart for basically doing what every other teenage girl was doing: reading teen magazines,” says Melody Warnick, a
Sassy
reader.
Sassy
is that it managed to make you feel really subversive and underground and rebellious and smart for basically doing what every other teenage girl was doing: reading teen magazines,” says Melody Warnick, a
Sassy
reader.
Sassy
left its mark on every teen magazine that followed it. During Christina's tenure,
YM
banned articles on dieting; covered such
Sassy
-esque stories as punk-rock Mormon teens; and featured models with braces. The now-defunct
ELLEGirl
mirrored
Sassy
perhaps most obviouslyâit was targeted to the alternative girl, now a bona fide persona. All teen magazines can thank
Sassy
for providing them with a new way to cover celebrities, mixing mainstream and indie
culture. (Rita Hao sees this as something
Sassy
contributed to pop culture at large, “like how MTV plays Modest Mouse and then plays Hilary Duffâbut that was totally unusual for its time.”)
left its mark on every teen magazine that followed it. During Christina's tenure,
YM
banned articles on dieting; covered such
Sassy
-esque stories as punk-rock Mormon teens; and featured models with braces. The now-defunct
ELLEGirl
mirrored
Sassy
perhaps most obviouslyâit was targeted to the alternative girl, now a bona fide persona. All teen magazines can thank
Sassy
for providing them with a new way to cover celebrities, mixing mainstream and indie
culture. (Rita Hao sees this as something
Sassy
contributed to pop culture at large, “like how MTV plays Modest Mouse and then plays Hilary Duffâbut that was totally unusual for its time.”)
Sassy
was the first teen magazine to acknowledge that not all teen girls have the same banal desires, and so was born the niche magazine for teens. Today's teen magazines recognize the need to cater to a psychographic, much like
Sassy
did fifteen years ago. Celebrity-obsessed girls could buy the now-defunct
Teen People
, or fashion addicts can pick up a copy of
Teen Vogue
. Atoosa Rubenstein, a former
Sassy
intern, was the founding editor of
CosmoGIRL!
“I loved
Sassy
, but I didn't love
Sassy
for the same reason that many people loved
Sassy
. I didn't necessarily relate to the girl they were speaking to,” she says. “That girl was way edgier and cooler than I was. But what I really liked about it was that that girl was different. And I was different.”
CosmoGIRL!
came complete with a trademark “you go girl” tone and a “Born to Lead” tagline. It was geared toward the geeky, overachieving crowd, and Atoosa offered herself up as a role model to teens who didn't fit in. “It was essentially a love letter to the girl I was, which was a misfit and sort of an outcast but not necessarily the cool outcast; in a way,
Sassy
made that girl cool. What about the other girl who's just truly dorky?” says Rubenstein, who was editor in chief of
Seventeen
from 2003 to 2006.
was the first teen magazine to acknowledge that not all teen girls have the same banal desires, and so was born the niche magazine for teens. Today's teen magazines recognize the need to cater to a psychographic, much like
Sassy
did fifteen years ago. Celebrity-obsessed girls could buy the now-defunct
Teen People
, or fashion addicts can pick up a copy of
Teen Vogue
. Atoosa Rubenstein, a former
Sassy
intern, was the founding editor of
CosmoGIRL!
“I loved
Sassy
, but I didn't love
Sassy
for the same reason that many people loved
Sassy
. I didn't necessarily relate to the girl they were speaking to,” she says. “That girl was way edgier and cooler than I was. But what I really liked about it was that that girl was different. And I was different.”
CosmoGIRL!
came complete with a trademark “you go girl” tone and a “Born to Lead” tagline. It was geared toward the geeky, overachieving crowd, and Atoosa offered herself up as a role model to teens who didn't fit in. “It was essentially a love letter to the girl I was, which was a misfit and sort of an outcast but not necessarily the cool outcast; in a way,
Sassy
made that girl cool. What about the other girl who's just truly dorky?” says Rubenstein, who was editor in chief of
Seventeen
from 2003 to 2006.
Of course, today's teen magazines aren't entirely like
Sassy
. (In fact, Tae Won Yu, a
Sassy
fan and former designer at
ELLEGirl
, describes the experience of working there as “an exercise in pandering to the lowest common denominator and promoting some sick, alienated vision of teenagers as lame jerks.”) They are mostly adulatory toward celebrities, and they're more advertiser-friendly than ever before, especially now that luxury brands, like Dior, jeweler David Yurman, and Marc Jacobs, once relegated to women's magazines, are now targeting teen girls, and electronics companiesâonce the domain of teen boysâare shilling iPods, laptops, and video-game consoles. While teen magazines still show skinny models, feminism exists in the form of a love-your-body approach to clothes, more explicit sex education, and a general feeling of girl powerâthough none of these magazines would ever use the word
feminist
on their covers.
Sassy
. (In fact, Tae Won Yu, a
Sassy
fan and former designer at
ELLEGirl
, describes the experience of working there as “an exercise in pandering to the lowest common denominator and promoting some sick, alienated vision of teenagers as lame jerks.”) They are mostly adulatory toward celebrities, and they're more advertiser-friendly than ever before, especially now that luxury brands, like Dior, jeweler David Yurman, and Marc Jacobs, once relegated to women's magazines, are now targeting teen girls, and electronics companiesâonce the domain of teen boysâare shilling iPods, laptops, and video-game consoles. While teen magazines still show skinny models, feminism exists in the form of a love-your-body approach to clothes, more explicit sex education, and a general feeling of girl powerâthough none of these magazines would ever use the word
feminist
on their covers.
Christina says she always wants to tell people “I'm so sorry to have gotten you into this career. Working at
Sassy
was totally different than working at any of the other magazines.” Perhaps
Sassy
's ultimate seduction was to sell the lives of its young, urban editors as the greatest version of adulthood imaginable. But the magazine world completely transformed in the years following
Sassy
's demise. All the problems
Sassy
had in grappling with the mainstream media are still very much aliveâif not more so. One of the effects of the recession of the 1990s was a publishing industry much less likely to launch new magazines. The climate of media conglomeration
has resulted in big media companies that are unlikely to support overtly political publications, and magazines are more beholden to advertisers than ever if they want to stay afloat.
Sassy
was totally different than working at any of the other magazines.” Perhaps
Sassy
's ultimate seduction was to sell the lives of its young, urban editors as the greatest version of adulthood imaginable. But the magazine world completely transformed in the years following
Sassy
's demise. All the problems
Sassy
had in grappling with the mainstream media are still very much aliveâif not more so. One of the effects of the recession of the 1990s was a publishing industry much less likely to launch new magazines. The climate of media conglomeration
has resulted in big media companies that are unlikely to support overtly political publications, and magazines are more beholden to advertisers than ever if they want to stay afloat.
In some ways, independent magazines like
Bitch
,
Bust
, and
Venus Zine
feel utopian. With no large advertisers to contend with (their primary advertisers are girl-friendlyâand often girl-ownedâcompanies that hawk vibrators, knitting patterns, and books), they have the absolute freedom to say what they want. Schroeder, who is inspired by
Sassy
's wide circulation, is also cautious about the attached strings. “Some people think
Venus
could be like
Sassy
, but I don't know. It's harder and harder for magazines to jump in and do something different and still be big. I think about that a lot in my work nowâand how it failed for
Sassy
, and how much that sucked.”
Bitch
,
Bust
, and
Venus Zine
feel utopian. With no large advertisers to contend with (their primary advertisers are girl-friendlyâand often girl-ownedâcompanies that hawk vibrators, knitting patterns, and books), they have the absolute freedom to say what they want. Schroeder, who is inspired by
Sassy
's wide circulation, is also cautious about the attached strings. “Some people think
Venus
could be like
Sassy
, but I don't know. It's harder and harder for magazines to jump in and do something different and still be big. I think about that a lot in my work nowâand how it failed for
Sassy
, and how much that sucked.”
Independent media has its share of problems as well. Just as
Sassy
could sometimes feel like it was setting up a rigid worldview to which readers had to subscribe, today's indie magazines can have an equally unwavering set of principles to adhere to, as if you must have a working knowledge of Hélène Cixous, help unionize the Lusty Lady strip club, and own the complete Sleater-Kinney oeuvre in order to be part of their clique. They've created their own vernacular, but it's a largely insular one. With small circulations, they're mostly writing for an audience that already agrees with what they're saying, and what's more, a reader must have a certain access just to purchase the magazines, which aren't always available at big booksellers or at Wal-Mart. Ultimately, their greatest asset and their greatest downfall is that they aren't representative of the outside world.
Sassy
could sometimes feel like it was setting up a rigid worldview to which readers had to subscribe, today's indie magazines can have an equally unwavering set of principles to adhere to, as if you must have a working knowledge of Hélène Cixous, help unionize the Lusty Lady strip club, and own the complete Sleater-Kinney oeuvre in order to be part of their clique. They've created their own vernacular, but it's a largely insular one. With small circulations, they're mostly writing for an audience that already agrees with what they're saying, and what's more, a reader must have a certain access just to purchase the magazines, which aren't always available at big booksellers or at Wal-Mart. Ultimately, their greatest asset and their greatest downfall is that they aren't representative of the outside world.
In this diverse new media world, everyone wants to know: Could
Sassy
exist today? There are so many variables involvedâpolitical climate, economicsâthat it's impossible to say. But an even more interesting question might be: Would teenagers feel that they need it? In an increasingly wired world, girls look to one another for guidance. With popular social-networking Web sites like MySpace and Facebook, girls can connect to one another effortlessly, but the sites are devoid of any adult oversight, and therefore lack a certain authority. There is no one with more experience passing down adviceâno Kim talking about what it's like to have an alcoholic parent, no Margie talking about life with a gay brother, no Mike telling you why the Ramones are so seminal, no Mary advising you to zap zits with toothpaste.
Sassy
exist today? There are so many variables involvedâpolitical climate, economicsâthat it's impossible to say. But an even more interesting question might be: Would teenagers feel that they need it? In an increasingly wired world, girls look to one another for guidance. With popular social-networking Web sites like MySpace and Facebook, girls can connect to one another effortlessly, but the sites are devoid of any adult oversight, and therefore lack a certain authority. There is no one with more experience passing down adviceâno Kim talking about what it's like to have an alcoholic parent, no Margie talking about life with a gay brother, no Mike telling you why the Ramones are so seminal, no Mary advising you to zap zits with toothpaste.
In fact, as magazines' importance in American culture declines, it's another form of media that seems to have inherited most of
Sassy
's qualities: blogs. They are often written in a first-person, transparent, stream-of-consciousness style that is very similar to the tone of
Sassy
. Countless former
Sassy
readers have their own blogs in which to obsessively chronicle a mix of pop culture, activism, and their personal lives. And the obsessive way that
Sassy
chronicled celebrities is readily apparent in blogs like Defamer, which covers stars' foibles, as does its sister site Gawker, which also dissects
the incestuous Manhattan media scene. Blogs insist on the importance of their creators' voices; they assume that the writer has something worth saying, even (or especially) if it's just chronicling the seeming minutiae of their livesâa very feminist way of thinking of which
Sassy
was a proponent. And they are accessible and democratic in a way that zines never were, since more people have access to computers than to the independent bookstores and cafés that stocked the cut-and-paste creations of yore.
Sassy
's qualities: blogs. They are often written in a first-person, transparent, stream-of-consciousness style that is very similar to the tone of
Sassy
. Countless former
Sassy
readers have their own blogs in which to obsessively chronicle a mix of pop culture, activism, and their personal lives. And the obsessive way that
Sassy
chronicled celebrities is readily apparent in blogs like Defamer, which covers stars' foibles, as does its sister site Gawker, which also dissects
the incestuous Manhattan media scene. Blogs insist on the importance of their creators' voices; they assume that the writer has something worth saying, even (or especially) if it's just chronicling the seeming minutiae of their livesâa very feminist way of thinking of which
Sassy
was a proponent. And they are accessible and democratic in a way that zines never were, since more people have access to computers than to the independent bookstores and cafés that stocked the cut-and-paste creations of yore.
What made
Sassy
so special was that it created a persona for a teenage girl or adult woman who was both hip and engaged (a template that was taken up, somewhat readily, by indie rockers, gay men, and some straight men as well). The publication merged pop culture and politics, making a magazine seem like a viable realm to work out larger social questions.
Sassy
so special was that it created a persona for a teenage girl or adult woman who was both hip and engaged (a template that was taken up, somewhat readily, by indie rockers, gay men, and some straight men as well). The publication merged pop culture and politics, making a magazine seem like a viable realm to work out larger social questions.
“Though it likes a revolutionary pose, hip is ill-equipped to organize for a cause,” notes John Leland in
Hip: The History
. In its heyday,
Sassy
was often accused of being socially aware without being truly socially active; even the magazine's last publisher, Linda Cohen, pointed this out in her marketing plan, which called on the magazine to get involved in social programs rather than just paying lip service to being politically engaged.
Hip: The History
. In its heyday,
Sassy
was often accused of being socially aware without being truly socially active; even the magazine's last publisher, Linda Cohen, pointed this out in her marketing plan, which called on the magazine to get involved in social programs rather than just paying lip service to being politically engaged.
But maybe the distinction between pop culture and political engagement isn't entirely useful. What
Sassy
did, as a mainstream magazine for teenage girls, was reimagine what it meant to be an American girl, and what it would mean to be an American adult woman. So what if 1992's “Year of the Woman” was a PR construct, a political sham, with only five women elected to the Senate? What
Sassy
did was to elevate girls, to put them at the forefront, to make them part of the cultural zeitgeist. To make them cool.
Sassy
did, as a mainstream magazine for teenage girls, was reimagine what it meant to be an American girl, and what it would mean to be an American adult woman. So what if 1992's “Year of the Woman” was a PR construct, a political sham, with only five women elected to the Senate? What
Sassy
did was to elevate girls, to put them at the forefront, to make them part of the cultural zeitgeist. To make them cool.
The years immediately following
Sassy
's death saw an explosion of popular culture made for and marketed to girlsâbut it soon lost the hard edges of underground culture. Angry yet acceptable female musiciansâsexy, styled, apoliticalâabounded as Lilith Fairâstyle girl rockers such as Sarah McLachlan, Fiona Apple, and Alanis Morissette topped the charts. In 1997, Meredith Brooks was nominated for a Grammy for her one-hit wonder “Bitch,” which posited female anger as one of many feminine postures, one that could attract a manâa riff on the old Madonna-whore duality. The riot grrrl movement's “revolution girl style now” message was depoliticized and diluted in the post-
Sassy
years, becoming the Spice Girls' vapid proclamation of “girl power!” “It's probably a fair assumption to say that âzigazag-ha' is not Spice shorthand for âsubvert the dominant paradigm,'” observed Jennifer Pozner in a 1998 article about the Spice Girls in the magazine
Sojourner
. The idea of girl power didn't exist before
Sassy
; but post-
Sassy
, the girl-centric worldview the magazine espoused was watered down,
turned into an appealingly sexy slogan silk-screened on a tight baby tee. Being a rebellious girl no longer necessarily involved marching for choice or taking back the night; all you had to do was show your thong.
Sassy
's death saw an explosion of popular culture made for and marketed to girlsâbut it soon lost the hard edges of underground culture. Angry yet acceptable female musiciansâsexy, styled, apoliticalâabounded as Lilith Fairâstyle girl rockers such as Sarah McLachlan, Fiona Apple, and Alanis Morissette topped the charts. In 1997, Meredith Brooks was nominated for a Grammy for her one-hit wonder “Bitch,” which posited female anger as one of many feminine postures, one that could attract a manâa riff on the old Madonna-whore duality. The riot grrrl movement's “revolution girl style now” message was depoliticized and diluted in the post-
Sassy
years, becoming the Spice Girls' vapid proclamation of “girl power!” “It's probably a fair assumption to say that âzigazag-ha' is not Spice shorthand for âsubvert the dominant paradigm,'” observed Jennifer Pozner in a 1998 article about the Spice Girls in the magazine
Sojourner
. The idea of girl power didn't exist before
Sassy
; but post-
Sassy
, the girl-centric worldview the magazine espoused was watered down,
turned into an appealingly sexy slogan silk-screened on a tight baby tee. Being a rebellious girl no longer necessarily involved marching for choice or taking back the night; all you had to do was show your thong.
Like all magazines,
Sassy
was wholly a product of its time. Not only was underground culture making its way into the mainstream, but a Democrat was elected to the White House, Third Wave feminism was galvanizing a new generation, and campus activism was at an all-time high. Since then, the political climate in the United States has certainly moved farther to the right. Fundamentalist groups like Focus on the Family, which seemed like a reactionary fringe group during its campaign against
Sassy
, have gained a larger following.
Sassy
was wholly a product of its time. Not only was underground culture making its way into the mainstream, but a Democrat was elected to the White House, Third Wave feminism was galvanizing a new generation, and campus activism was at an all-time high. Since then, the political climate in the United States has certainly moved farther to the right. Fundamentalist groups like Focus on the Family, which seemed like a reactionary fringe group during its campaign against
Sassy
, have gained a larger following.
But the ways in which the world has changed only amplify why fans' nostalgia for
Sassy
runs deeper than just simple wistfulness for the grunge era.
Sassy
nostalgia is about revisiting the fantasy of a liberated adult life that the magazine promised its teen readers, a life that seems harder to live as the inevitable compromises of adulthood become imminent. It's not about longing for high school as the good old days before we got wrinkles or were saddled with grad-school debt or hadn't yet walked down the aisle. It's about longing for those moments that crystallized the
Sassy
ethic of engaged self-determination: the first time you read
Factsheet 5
, talked back to the TV, ordered a seven-inch from Simple Machines, stayed up late with your friends talking about sex, picked up a guitar, or marched for choice. It's about longing for a time when you really believed that you would be able to live
Sassy
's ethos. To readers,
Sassy
is still about hope.
Sassy
runs deeper than just simple wistfulness for the grunge era.
Sassy
nostalgia is about revisiting the fantasy of a liberated adult life that the magazine promised its teen readers, a life that seems harder to live as the inevitable compromises of adulthood become imminent. It's not about longing for high school as the good old days before we got wrinkles or were saddled with grad-school debt or hadn't yet walked down the aisle. It's about longing for those moments that crystallized the
Sassy
ethic of engaged self-determination: the first time you read
Factsheet 5
, talked back to the TV, ordered a seven-inch from Simple Machines, stayed up late with your friends talking about sex, picked up a guitar, or marched for choice. It's about longing for a time when you really believed that you would be able to live
Sassy
's ethos. To readers,
Sassy
is still about hope.
“Why would you write a book about a teen magazine?”
We've lost count of how many times
we've been asked some version of that
question since this project began.
we've been asked some version of that
question since this project began.
Â
Luckily, the floods of emails we got from people saying they couldn't wait until its publication and asking how they could help served as an excellent emotional buffer from the blank stares. Smart, cool women who grew up reading and loving
Sassy
offered to be interviewed; staff members and interns assured us they would let us know what really went on in the magazine's offices; celebrities who had special relationships with the publicationâlike Spike Jonze and Michael Stipeâwanted to pay their respects.
Sassy
offered to be interviewed; staff members and interns assured us they would let us know what really went on in the magazine's offices; celebrities who had special relationships with the publicationâlike Spike Jonze and Michael Stipeâwanted to pay their respects.
Because more than a decade after the publication's untimely and much-lamented demise,
Sassy
matters as much as it did when it was in print. Though
Sassy
was never able to match the advertising or circulation of the other teen magazine giants of its day, the magazine more than made up for this lack in terms of reader devotion.
Sassy
matters as much as it did when it was in print. Though
Sassy
was never able to match the advertising or circulation of the other teen magazine giants of its day, the magazine more than made up for this lack in terms of reader devotion.
Even now, it continues to incite cultlike dedication among its fans. Copies on eBay inspire heated bidding wars. (“Fifteen years later, a weird kind of muscle memory takes over when I finally get my vintage
Sassy
,” said Rebecca L. Fox in a paper called “
Sassy
All Over Again” for NYU journalism school. “To
my surprise, I read
Sassy
now the same way I read it in my teensâvoraciously.”) Magazines feature sentimental stories mourning it: “We Still Love
Sassy
” was the bittersweet title of an article that ran in
The New York Review of Magazines
. On the Internet, message boards and open love letters to the
Sassy
staff abound: “You gave us thirteen-year-old girls stuck in rural Wisconsin a glimmer of hope, a pinky-swear promise that the world could be a funny, smart, and even sexy place,” wrote one Harvard student in the
Crimson
. “I loved
Sassy
so much, and needed it so much, and it was there for me,” a Swarthmore student said on her Web site.
Sassy
,” said Rebecca L. Fox in a paper called “
Sassy
All Over Again” for NYU journalism school. “To
my surprise, I read
Sassy
now the same way I read it in my teensâvoraciously.”) Magazines feature sentimental stories mourning it: “We Still Love
Sassy
” was the bittersweet title of an article that ran in
The New York Review of Magazines
. On the Internet, message boards and open love letters to the
Sassy
staff abound: “You gave us thirteen-year-old girls stuck in rural Wisconsin a glimmer of hope, a pinky-swear promise that the world could be a funny, smart, and even sexy place,” wrote one Harvard student in the
Crimson
. “I loved
Sassy
so much, and needed it so much, and it was there for me,” a Swarthmore student said on her Web site.
A 1997 article in
Spin
magazine's Girl Issue noted: “When the best teen magazine ever,
Sassy
, was sold to the owners of
Teen
magazine in 1994âand the entire New Yorkâbased staff was put out to =pastureâreaders went into revolt.
Teen
magazine exemplified everything that was wrong with America's youth, and
Sassy
was its antithesis. Distraught teenagers tracked down staff members at home, calling with a simple question: Why?”
Spin
magazine's Girl Issue noted: “When the best teen magazine ever,
Sassy
, was sold to the owners of
Teen
magazine in 1994âand the entire New Yorkâbased staff was put out to =pastureâreaders went into revolt.
Teen
magazine exemplified everything that was wrong with America's youth, and
Sassy
was its antithesis. Distraught teenagers tracked down staff members at home, calling with a simple question: Why?”
“Why?” is just one of the questions that this book will answer.
How
Sassy
Changed My Life
is the inside story of how and why the magazine came to be, what happened during its six short years of life, and the real reasons behind its demise. More important, it is a tribute to a monumentally significant cultural artifact that has been given short shrift.
How
Sassy
Changed My Life
is the inside story of how and why the magazine came to be, what happened during its six short years of life, and the real reasons behind its demise. More important, it is a tribute to a monumentally significant cultural artifact that has been given short shrift.
Understanding
Sassy
's importance begins with a chronicle of the early days of the magazine and how it distinguished itself.
Sassy
's story is intricately tied to the societal transformations that occurred in the late eighties and early nineties. As teen-pregnancy rates soared, AIDS became a very real threat, and debates over what kids should be taught about sex in school raged, the magazine heralded a new way of thinking about girls and sexuality; we will discuss how this led to a battle with the religious rightâthen just becoming a force to be reckoned withâthat almost put the magazine out of business.
Sassy
's importance begins with a chronicle of the early days of the magazine and how it distinguished itself.
Sassy
's story is intricately tied to the societal transformations that occurred in the late eighties and early nineties. As teen-pregnancy rates soared, AIDS became a very real threat, and debates over what kids should be taught about sex in school raged, the magazine heralded a new way of thinking about girls and sexuality; we will discuss how this led to a battle with the religious rightâthen just becoming a force to be reckoned withâthat almost put the magazine out of business.
To best explain the scope of
Sassy
's impact, and the major themes that characterized the magazine's middle years, it's key to bear in mind events that were happening simultaneously. At a time when the cultural mainstream and underground were two distinct entities,
Sassy
relentlessly covered indie celebrities and tenets of indie culture for the masses, while at the same time deconstructing pop tarts. As the victories of Second Wave feminism and the new ideas of the Third Wave crystallized,
Sassy
heralded a changing of the guard in the women's movement and brought a new version of feminism to high-school girls. And while teenagers who obsessed over
90210
, lipstick, and just wanting to have fun had long been denigrated as silly and fluffy, the magazine made being a girl seem vital and important, creating a new kind of female personaâone that very much still exists today. In an era of political and economic fluxâfirst a Republican president, then a Democrat; first a boom time for magazines,
then a recessionâ
Sassy
struggled to maintain a resolutely progressive voice, which by its very nature couldn't last. “Every six or seven years something comes along that's just exactly right,” says writer Blake Nelson. “
Sassy
was just exactly right.” And its considerable legacy is no surprise. As we'll see, for readers, pining for
Sassy
is about more than revisiting another era.
Sassy
's impact, and the major themes that characterized the magazine's middle years, it's key to bear in mind events that were happening simultaneously. At a time when the cultural mainstream and underground were two distinct entities,
Sassy
relentlessly covered indie celebrities and tenets of indie culture for the masses, while at the same time deconstructing pop tarts. As the victories of Second Wave feminism and the new ideas of the Third Wave crystallized,
Sassy
heralded a changing of the guard in the women's movement and brought a new version of feminism to high-school girls. And while teenagers who obsessed over
90210
, lipstick, and just wanting to have fun had long been denigrated as silly and fluffy, the magazine made being a girl seem vital and important, creating a new kind of female personaâone that very much still exists today. In an era of political and economic fluxâfirst a Republican president, then a Democrat; first a boom time for magazines,
then a recessionâ
Sassy
struggled to maintain a resolutely progressive voice, which by its very nature couldn't last. “Every six or seven years something comes along that's just exactly right,” says writer Blake Nelson. “
Sassy
was just exactly right.” And its considerable legacy is no surprise. As we'll see, for readers, pining for
Sassy
is about more than revisiting another era.
Certain institutions link people together irrevocably: a fifty-year-old Tri-Delt meets a twenty-five-year-old Tri-Delt and they are instant sisters;
Sassy
serves a similar purpose, but for a different psychographic. Julianne Shepherd thinks she got a former job as arts editor of the
Portland Mercury
, a weekly in Portland, Oregon, because “in the interview, I noted
Sassy
as a major influence on my inchoate writing voice, and the publisher, Tim Keck [who co-founded
The Onion
in 1988 when he was a junior at the University of Wisconsin], was essentially like, âRight on! You're hired!'”
Sassy
serves a similar purpose, but for a different psychographic. Julianne Shepherd thinks she got a former job as arts editor of the
Portland Mercury
, a weekly in Portland, Oregon, because “in the interview, I noted
Sassy
as a major influence on my inchoate writing voice, and the publisher, Tim Keck [who co-founded
The Onion
in 1988 when he was a junior at the University of Wisconsin], was essentially like, âRight on! You're hired!'”
In other words,
Sassy
has become a kind of code. “I meet people now and occasionally ask them if they were
Sassy
readers,” says fan Catherine Bowers. Upon meeting a fellow
Sassy
fan, we feel like we understand something essential about that person: their life philosophy, what their politics might be like, what their artistic preferences are, what they were like in high school, what kind of person they wanted to grow up to be. (By contrast, we find non-fans of a certain age slightly suspect.) We seem to recognize kindred spirits even now. “A lot of us
Sassy
-ites found each other,” says fan Lara Zeises. None of her friends read it in high school, she says, “but most of my friends now were of the
Sassy
generation, and it's like we have this special bond because of it.”
Sassy
has become a kind of code. “I meet people now and occasionally ask them if they were
Sassy
readers,” says fan Catherine Bowers. Upon meeting a fellow
Sassy
fan, we feel like we understand something essential about that person: their life philosophy, what their politics might be like, what their artistic preferences are, what they were like in high school, what kind of person they wanted to grow up to be. (By contrast, we find non-fans of a certain age slightly suspect.) We seem to recognize kindred spirits even now. “A lot of us
Sassy
-ites found each other,” says fan Lara Zeises. None of her friends read it in high school, she says, “but most of my friends now were of the
Sassy
generation, and it's like we have this special bond because of it.”
It's faith in that “special bond” that enabled us to decide to write a book about
Sassy
together about half an hourâtopsâafter we met.
Sassy
together about half an hourâtopsâafter we met.
To explain: “I really think
Sassy
changed my life,” said Marisa, over drinks. We were discussing a story she was going to write for the teen magazine Kara worked for at the time.
Sassy
changed my life,” said Marisa, over drinks. We were discussing a story she was going to write for the teen magazine Kara worked for at the time.
“I know!” Kara agreed. “I don't understand why no one has ever written a book about it.”
We talked about how much we would love it if there was a
Sassy
tribute book, something that would tell
Sassy
's unusual story and explore the ways in which it affected thousands of girls like usânot to mention its legions of non-girl fans.
Sassy
tribute book, something that would tell
Sassy
's unusual story and explore the ways in which it affected thousands of girls like usânot to mention its legions of non-girl fans.
“We should write it,” said Marisa. We started immediately. Although we didn't know anything more about each other than that we were both feminists and writers with an interest in teen magazines, we were pretty sure that our shared love of
Sassy
meant that we were going to be similar in other ways as well.
Sassy
meant that we were going to be similar in other ways as well.
And we were right.
Sassy
aficionados have always been a self-selecting group, people who wanted to establish a chosen community. “As someone who felt âdifferent' from a lot of other girls in my peer group, it was extremely validating to know that I was not alone in the way I thought or the types of things that I thought about,” says fan Amelia Davis.
Sassy
still manages to function
in this way, connecting people to one another. And while there were plenty of reasons for us to want to work on this book, the thought of meeting fellow
Sassy
fans, the friends we wished we would have had in high school, became increasingly exciting. It's embarrassing and kind of geekyâthe idea that, as adults, we still believed that people who read
Sassy
would be like us, would have similar values and interests, and that, long after high school, finding these people would somehow still be transformative and fun and important.
Sassy
aficionados have always been a self-selecting group, people who wanted to establish a chosen community. “As someone who felt âdifferent' from a lot of other girls in my peer group, it was extremely validating to know that I was not alone in the way I thought or the types of things that I thought about,” says fan Amelia Davis.
Sassy
still manages to function
in this way, connecting people to one another. And while there were plenty of reasons for us to want to work on this book, the thought of meeting fellow
Sassy
fans, the friends we wished we would have had in high school, became increasingly exciting. It's embarrassing and kind of geekyâthe idea that, as adults, we still believed that people who read
Sassy
would be like us, would have similar values and interests, and that, long after high school, finding these people would somehow still be transformative and fun and important.
But it was.
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