What happened to "Sassy" magazine?

radhika · 10-01-2000, 07:26 PM

Sassy magazine was the magazine of my early teendom. I looked for it recently and I can't find it...is it still around? If I remember correctly, it was a little controversial in the beginning. Was anybody else here a "sassy" reader? Do you know what happened to it?

Dor · 10-01-2000, 07:28 PM

I LOVED Sassy! I read it faithfully. I was crushed when it went away. Um. I think it was like bought out by a BAD teen magazine and it became all mainstream. But now the editor of the magazine has her own mag, Jane. It's not QUITE as cool but pretty good.

Dor

radhika · 10-01-2000, 07:32 PM

Dammit! Sassy was the best of teen magazines...the rest are all shit. Grrr...why can't Teen magazine disappear instead?!

If Sassy was still around I would still have a subscription. I really liked that magazine.

**dead man's girly** · 10-01-2000, 07:34 PM

<font face="arial">I loved Sassy! I had a subscription. I remember when Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love were on the cover...those were the days, man.

And yesh...it was bought by the people who own 17 magazine, I believe. When that happened all the regular staff and writers quit.

GimpyPoop · 10-01-2000, 07:48 PM

Yo,
Didn't Jane Pratt head "Sassy" and now she heads "Jane"? No?
All I know is dat skit in SNL whar dese dudes call all da hottt celebrities. SASSSSSSSSSSSSSY!
It's hiliarious.
Me, the Flea

Kudra · 10-01-2000, 07:55 PM

Gimpy: you are correct...

JANE is okay... but it doesn't compare to SASSY, IMHO... maybe because it was one magazine i was passionate about... it was awesome...

when seventeen bought it out i wrote them a really NASTY letter... i wish i still had a copy... it was a fucking master piece!

beth

BookFaerie · 10-01-2000, 08:01 PM

I loved Sassy! I used to read it cover to cover every month. JANE has some of the same stuff but like Kudra said it isn't as cool.

YosemiteBear · 10-01-2000, 08:55 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Kudra

when seventeen bought it out i wrote them a really NASTY letter... i wish i still had a copy... it was a fucking master piece!

beth

Oh my god! So did I. (Though I wouldn't call mine a masterpiece... it was just angry). And I had completely forgotten about that until now. I knew that Sassy disappeared, but I had forgotten how it got bought out first and completely changed, THEN dropped off the face of the earth. I used to look for old copies of Sassy at this local used book store where I used to live... they had a great magazine section... but they seemed to carry the same issues over and over again.

I get Jane now... it's pretty good, though I wish they'd cut out the fashion shoots, which somehow manage to be even more ridiculous there than in most magazines, and put more articles and writing in.

Speaking of magazines, I picked up a copy of Oprah's new magazine yesterday because my mom had been raving about it. It's pretty good too.... obviously geared toward women older than the Dent demographic, and people who have money (ads for Ralph Lauren baby clothes), but it was completely free of the usual looks-obsessed crap in most women's magazines. Glamour tried to be like that at one time, before it turned into Cosmo

... what is up with magazines anyway, that they keep changing direction like that? And why do I feel compelled to buy so many?

CocaineLipgloss · 10-01-2000, 10:12 PM

yeah sassy used to be the only magazine i read...i was so mad when they got bought out...i rememeber 17 used to have a whole "sassy" section in it, they phased that out pretty quickly though

syvvie · 10-01-2000, 11:11 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Medea
<font face="arial">I remember when Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love were on the cover...those were the days, man.

i actually still have that issue! it's put away in a box in my mom's basement, along with a bunch of other things from that time.

remember how that had that "word definition of the month" thing, were they would define some slang word? well, one of my friends at the time sent them a word, and they used it

we opened it up one month and there was her name, right in the middle of the page! we thought it was the coolest thing ever.

the best thing about "Sassy" was that contest they had every year, where they let readers take over the magazine for a month. remember that? that always seemed like it would be so fun, to run "Sassy"

Rubix · 10-01-2000, 11:26 PM

Hell, if someone's gonna get rid of a magazine, they should start with those wretched awful things like Teen and Ym and Seventeen. My little sister reads them and sometimes I just HAVE to look at them, just to see what's going on, you know, so I know how to be cool and get a boyfriend and then find out if my boyfriend's a jerk. All that great information they try to teach young girls, as if they're too inept to figure anything out for themselves. Those things just make me sooo mad. I do remember Sassy though, that seems like a long time ago. (Sigh).

radhika · 10-02-2000, 08:07 AM

Sassy was so much different than those other teenage magazines. They also had a feature called zine of the month. I used to always order the zine of the month

Also I think it is the only teen magazine or the first to have a story about homosexuality in it. I don't remember the issue but it had an interview with a lesbian couple. *sigh* I miss Sassy...

I wrote a letter to one of the writers...her name was Mary Kay something...and she wrote me back

I don't remember what it was about! lol.

youwerewild · 10-02-2000, 10:51 AM

Sassy was the coolest! I had a subscription when I was 13 & 14...I was really bummed when they got bought out- I wonder how exactly that happened? (Actually, I think they were bought out by Teen, not 17- as if it matters! They're both equally shitty!)...I liked sassy- except for the writing style all the writers used- it was like a teenage girl writing a note to her friend in the middle of class (which, I suppose, led to it's success, but I found it annoying after a while)...plus they published fiction and articles that were about more than skin care or some shit.

joshawk · 10-02-2000, 11:50 AM

Jane Pratt had a good idea with Sassy, but I think she got a little bored with it once it actually took off. Jane Magazine is geared towards an older audience than Sassy, and it's a "fashion" magazine as opposed to a women's service magazine. When I was in college we visited the Jane offices (this was right after they started publishing), and I'd never met such vapid, shallow people as the ones who work on that magazine. They used the words "hip" and "edgy" in almost every sentence--trying to prove how cool their magazine was. It was terrible! And the magazine sucks too. At the bookstore where I worked a few years ago, we were always getting instructions to promote it (they'd send us 50 copies of it a month, and only 10 each of other magazines), and NO ONE ever bought it. I don't remember selling a single issue of it in the year I worked there. I don't like Jane (and how conceited is it to name a monthly magazine after yourself?)...seems like so many people liked Sassy that she would have something worthy to say in another magazine...not so!

IrisMagpie · 10-02-2000, 12:04 PM

I *loved* Sassy! I would read that thing cover to cover. I loved how the staff did the music and product reviews. The thing about teen magazines is, I read sassy when I was 13. Same with 17 and all those others. By the time I *was* 17, I wouldn't go near a *woman's* magazine. They were too ditzy. They know 12 and 13 year olds read their magazines!