This Week in Tabloids: Harry Potter and the Very Hard to Read Nick Jonas Cover Story
CelebritiesWelcome to Midweek Madness, Jezebel’s weekly tabloid roundup where I read the mags and tell you about the mags. This week, I read the teen mags. Now let me tell you about the mags!
Girls’ Life
You know that episode of Daria where Val, a thinly veiled Jane Pratt-type magazine editor, follows Daria around Lawndale High as part of some Never Been Kissed-style reporting assignment to find out what The Kids Of Today are up to? And Val keeps being overly familiar with Daria (I wanna say she keeps calling her “girlfriend,” but it’s been a solid nine or 10 years since I watched those musically intact, three-part YouTube uploads that used to exist) and trying really, really hard to seem cool and young and hip?
Some of the advice in Girls’ Life is…very that. Why doesn’t my boyfriend want to hang out with me? “He likes the GF bennies, but doesn’t want to put in the time.” Why do guys flirt? “Guys give feels just to get them right back.” Is “bennies” short for benefits? That makes me funcomfortable! Which is a word Girls’ Life told me I should start using, along with flawsome and JOMO, an acronym for “joy of missing out” that Jezebel contributor Esther Wang swears “is NOT a new word.” [Ed. Note: The only people who actually say the term “bennies” as slang are midlevel corporate managers talking to you about about your health insurance, I’m assuming this does not include the core readership of Girls’ Life! —Julianne]
Elsewhere, we’ve got Chilling Adventures of Sabrina star Jaz Sinclair talking about why she doesn’t like scary movies (they’re scary), KJ Apa talking about the importance of talking about racism, and a quartet of Disney Channel stars (Sky Katz, Navia Ziraili, Peyton Elizabeth Lee, and Ruby Rose Turner—not to be confused with Ruby Rose) telling readers that they can all be “girlbosses in their own special way.” C’mon! Socialism will never take off if we touch the teens to think of themselves as temporarily embarrassed girlbosses! Speaking of which, citrine! is! a! girl! boss! stone! And Johnny Orlando is boyfriend material. Who is Johnny Orlando? Why, boyfriend material, of course.
Pop Star!
What toads are this magazine’s layout editors licking and where slash how slash give to me? The design is like M.C. Escher meets Rupi Kaur—truly unhinged! (See “stray thoughts” below for examples.)
I had to stop reading it about two-thirds of the way through because I literally could not read it, but before I got to that point I learned that Troye Sivan loves the Chateau Marmont, Laurie Hernandez has a memoir coming out, Miranda Kerr has a gluten-free apple and banana oat muffin recipe or at least wants us to think she does, Selena Gomez thinks bullying is bad, and Bebe Rexha uses a new toothbrush every day. Is Amanda Bynes planning her comeback? That’s what Pop Star! (and Amanda Bynes’ lawyer) says.
There’s also a short feature on “supermodel style,” which looks more like “going to or coming from the gym” style, which is giving me unwanted flashbacks to my compulsive exercising era where I always had my big-ass gym bag with me, stuffed with sneakers and gym clothes and toiletries et al. One time, my friend asked me what was in the bag and I said “a dead dog,” so from then on we’d always joke about me carrying my dead dog on my shoulder everywhere I went. A funcomfortable joke to sidestep some funcomfortable behavior on my part! Not my best era.
QuizFest
There’s a chance my crush is into me, perhaps because I am funny! And a tough cookie. I am ready for love, even though I am a night owl, and I’m going to catch his eye… with my style! My crush is hooked on me because I’m genuinely sweet (and it shows!), my locker room style is ARTSY and UNIQUE, and my celeb BFF would be Baby Ariel.
Sorry for getting so personal. I just thought you should know the real me.