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after school weekend edition
Welcome back to After School Weekend Edition. Think of the Monday-Thursday letters as the CliffsNotes; this is the extended version for paid subscribers. Thanks for reading — your support makes this possible! 💫
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Print’s inevitable comeback (I’m calling it!)
Last week, pretty much every remaining media employer conducted mass layoffs, or at least that’s what it felt like. Then, to make matters worse, G/O Media shut down Jezebel, the 15-year-old feminist media blog, after failing to find a buyer. Jezebel joins a whole bunch of women’s interest brands (I refuse to use the cursed phrase “l*dybl*g”) that couldn’t make it work for one reason or another: Rookie, The Hairpin, xoJane, The Frisky, and surely others that I’m forgetting.
In her newsletter earlier this week, Lauren Sherman wrote, “…titles across the category of women’s interest are diminishing at a rapid pace because they no longer provide a clear service. At their peak, magazines like Glamour, Self, Marie Claire were authorities: They told young women how to live their lives, and sold millions of dollars worth of goods to them each year through advertising.”
She continued: “Now, that advice is administered in microdoses via TikTok and Instagram Reels. I’m sorry to tell you, but teenagers don’t read magazines!”
She’s not wrong. Teenagers don’t read magazines — but there are no magazines for them to read! Not one single publisher still prints a teen magazine on a monthly cadence. Teen Vogue went digital-only in 2017, and Seventeen followed suit the next year. Even if teens wanted to read magazines, they couldn’t.
You know I have strong feelings about print, like most millennials who grew up as journalism nerds. A few months ago — and sorry in advance for being the kind of person who quotes herself — I wrote:
I’ve said this before, but I wholeheartedly believe there’s a white space for cool print publications — but they need to be fun and experiential and interesting. Most of you know that I still have all of my teen magazines from my youth, and there’s something so truly delightful about them. There are charts and quizzes; there are stickers (a genius Cosmogirl/Atoosa creation) and really innovative layouts — one of my very favorite ElleGirl issues has a fashion spread designed like paper dolls and you can actually pop out the clothes and create your own looks. That kind of thing would absolutely go viral on TikTok right now.
Guys, there’s going to be a print resurgence. It’s inevitable! Everything else from the Y2K era has made a comeback; print is going to, too. It’ll be different than it was in the 2000s, but it’s going to happen. Will i-D, which was acquired by Karlie Kloss this week, help kick off that revival? I think it could. W, which she and a group of investors bought in 2020, publishes a glossy magazine six times a year, so she already has a contract with a printer…
Today we’re talking about:
Black Friday: Does Gen Z care? (Do you?)
The prep comeback is just getting started
Serious question: Is Taylor Swift an investor in Gant?
The big business of mini beauty (and the sets that are selling out for holiday)
The Old Navy fleece that’s going viral on TikTok
Glossier’s London pop-up…and pepper mill
Anti-aging eye creams for teens
Condé Nast has a mental health platform called Mixed Feelings released some kinky merch (also: Condé Nast has a mental health platform called Mixed Feelings?)
Grimace Crocs
Indestructible thermoses
Osama bin Laden (did not anticipate Osama bin Laden ever coming up in this newsletter, but TikTok is unpredictable!)
And everything else that happened this week in youth culture. Before we jump in, my favorite TikTok of the week (these two keep ending up on my FYP and I love them so much):
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