YA Highway: Road Trip Wednesday #15

"Road  Trip  Wednesday is a ‘Blog Carnival,’ where YA Highway's contributors  post a  weekly writing- or reading-related question that begs to be  answered.  In the comments, you can hop from destination to destination  and get  everybody's unique take on the topic." 

Today's question on the  YA  Highway Road Trip is:

 "It's almost prom season, and since we love to read and write about teenagers, we want to hear your prom stories!"

I have this theory that whether or not your high school cohort utilized the article in referring to this dance says a lot about the importance placed on it. If the dance we're talking about was referred to as "prom," it was a big deal. If you called it "the prom," it was not as major an event, as compared to the article-less. Anyone carry to weigh in?

As for my personal prom stories: I don't know that I have any that are fit for public consumption. My prom experiences were a mixture of illicit behavior and boredom, so they're probably best kept to myself. 

(Source)

 My high school did not have an over the top culture surrounding prom, but there was the standard dress/transportation/date/after party drama. Picking out the dress was the most complicated part of attending junior and senior prom for me.

 It was the first time I got to pick out a fairly expensive garment on my own, and it felt like a test. What I chose would mean something about who I was. I had to confront my feelings about my appearance and how weirded out I was by the stereotypical Pretty Prom Princess role that even Sassy (at right) assumed I wanted to play.

Now, I've never been accused of under-thinking things, so my reaction to picking out a dress was probably a little over the top. But if you can't be dramatic when you're a teenager, when can you be?

My senior prom picture (already shared here) is at left. If I could tell the girl in that picture one thing, it would be to go ahead and do all the things she was afraid of or thought she shouldn't. In the fifteen or so years since my first prom, the vast majority of things that I regret are the ones I didn't do.

Moving, Magazines, and the Male Gaze

(Oh-so-personally-metaphorical image courtesy of Lance Anderson)

I moved a few months ago to the awesomeness that is the Pioneer Valley, but I am still putting things in their permanent places. Yes, I am the kind of shamefully messy person who takes eons to finally unpack everything, because once I unpack the essentials, other things in my life take priority.

In further unpacking the other day, I came across this stack of magazines from the ‘90s that I bought about a year ago. I thought the project I was working on—that morphed into “The Rule of Three”—would be set in the ‘90s. It wasn’t, and isn’t. But I still have all these cool magazines around, like a copy of Sassy. I loved Sassy as a teenager, and wanted to buy a bunch, but they can be slightly expensive, so I settled on just one.

Looking through this old Sassy made me think of the Tavi Gevinson/Jane Pratt online magazine project, Rookie, which is being deemed the new Sassy. The New York Times has an interesting piece about the site.

Since I had a copy of Sassy on hand, I decided to read through it, and check out Rookie’s content of the day, to see how the two compared.

 Reading through my October ’94 copy of Sassy was a spooky trip down memory lane, simply because it reminded me there are so many things I’ve forgotten even existed, like the Columbia House music club. Did anybody ever join that? I wanted to, but my parents wouldn’t let me. I’m pretty sure it was a scam, because how many teenagers diligently remember to send back the cassette tapes (cassette tapes!) that they don’t want?

The models were bigger. I don’t to say “normal” sized, because I think it contributes to the whole idea that there’s one acceptable body type. But I will say that the models look like someone I can imagine walking down the street. The models in today’s magazines don’t. It’s shocking to see how much the acceptable body of a model has changed in 17 years. It’s shocking that I have internalized so thoroughly what a model looks like today.

There was the “Sassy Music Hotline,” where you could listen to music mentioned in the magazine. I called the hotline, but Verizon told me, unsurprisingly, that my call could not be completed as dialed. I had a moment of crazy hope that somehow, the hotline that would let me listen to tracks from Whip-Smart would still exist out there in the ether.

There were ads for stuff like the “Youth Problem Line,” that for only $2.49 a minute (?!) you could get advice about your boyfriend. As expected, your call to the “Youth Problem Line” can no longer be connected.

Next: The Contender