I mourned Sassy, too!

March 24, 2002 7:07 AM

I mourned Sassy, too! "Darren E. Burrows is to Keanu, as Samantha Mathis is to Winona Ryder, as Joan Collins is to Elizabeth Taylor, as Jason Priestley is to johnny Depp, as Luke Perry is to James Dean, as Caludia Schiffer is to Brigette Bardot, as Bill Clinton is to JFK, as YM is to Sassy." --Christina Kelly,in her "What Now" column, Sassy, May 1992. And wouldn't you know it, she's now the editor-in-chief of YM. (Yes, I know this post won't make sense to anyone who wasn't a teenage girl in the early '90s.)
posted by lillitot (23 comments total)

Through some odd quirk of marketing mayhem, I, at 29 years of age, receive YM. Two free years of YM. YM is no Sassy, though I do appreciate that they have said that they will no longer print anything to do with dieting. Yay them.

God did I love Sassy. Sassy was the best thing to happen to me during my hateful teen years. I still get all misty-eyed when I see copies of it for sale on eBay.
posted by kittyb at 7:58 AM on March 24, 2002

I have a nearly complete run of Sassy. Do they go for good money on eBay?
posted by thirteen at 8:06 AM on March 24, 2002

I've seen them go for between $5-$10 each, but it depends on the issue. There's a premiere issue up to $15 now.
posted by kittyb at 8:13 AM on March 24, 2002

As far as I know, I wasn't a teenage girl during the early 90's, but I sure do know what you're talking about. Sassy kicked ass. Thank you for the decidedly girlzone post.
posted by iconomy at 8:16 AM on March 24, 2002

I always liked Samantha Mathis better.
posted by dong_resin at 9:00 AM on March 24, 2002

The magazine Jane has a decidedly sassy feel to it. Smart, sassy, sexy-- girlzone indeed!
posted by bonheur at 10:09 AM on March 24, 2002

That's because Jane is edited by Jane Pratt, who edited Sassy.
posted by acornface at 10:54 AM on March 24, 2002

I never read Sassy, but after reading various tributes to it online, I wish I had.
posted by melissa at 12:09 PM on March 24, 2002

Count me in as a Sassy fan who does NOT like Jane. It strikes me as a magazine that wants to seem edgy but doesn't know how to do it. Half the time it's busy running articles solely to scream "see! we're not Cosmo!" and the other half the time it's trying to compete for the big ad dollars. I about threw up when I saw a recent headline that was something like "her boyfriend sold her to his friends to be gang raped." How Weekly World News is that?

Here's another bit for those tracking Sassy alumni: Kim France (former Sassy staffer) edits the shopping mag Lucky.
posted by GaelFC at 12:18 PM on March 24, 2002

I got all weepy and nostaligic just reading this thread. I have only one worn issue left in my posession, but I've hung on to a few choice Jane's just in case it disintegrates too.

Do any of you remember the post-Sassy, bizarro Sassy that had the same name as our beloved rag, but was just a 'Teen in sheep's clothing?
posted by brittney at 12:21 PM on March 24, 2002

More Sassy alumni: Former senior writer Marjorie Ingall has a Web site, Snarly Central.

And from that site,you'll find a link to this Remembering Sassy site.
posted by GaelFC at 12:22 PM on March 24, 2002

Ugh, ugh, Jane sucks. I've tried reading it, really I have, but there's something about the tone of the magazine that's really off-putting. I get the feeling they're writing down -- writing dumb -- for their readers, and Sassy didn't do that.
posted by metrocake at 12:33 PM on March 24, 2002

My little sister used to read Sassy and Seventeen as well. Sometimes if I had nothing better to do(or if I was looking for clues on how to get girls), I'd thumb through them. Seventeen just seemed dumb, and it's "insights" about the female gender are probably the primary reason that I never had a single date in high school. Sassy was a different kettle of fish, first of all the model's were cuter and I remember they had articles about halfway decent bands in it-I remember once they actually had an interview with Paul Westerberg, I kept that issue for so long my sister had to come up to my room and steal it back.
posted by jonmc at 12:49 PM on March 24, 2002

My mother threw out all my collected Sassys a long time ago, which tends to throw me off whenever I try to look up an old article in a magazine I don't have.

The group of celebrities profiled in Sassy were quite a bit different than those profiled in other teen mags, yes. I still recall an interview with They Might Be Giants (I was already a fan of theirs at the time, at age 12 or so.)

After the death of Sassy, I moved on...not to other teen magazines (there really wasn't any other one out there that a 16-year-old could read without laughing) but to Ms....ah, my days of awakening feminism.
posted by Electric Elf at 1:32 PM on March 24, 2002

I actually still have a Sassy from `93 that I liberated from a Stop N' Shop in Rhode Island for it's interview with MTV VJ Kennedy, on whom I had a big raging crush on at the time.
They trashed her, so that was pretty much the end of that, but I did learn that I'd probably nail Evan Dando if given half a chance.
With hair like that, I don't that qualifies as a gay tendency.
posted by dong_resin at 1:41 PM on March 24, 2002

^
think
posted by dong_resin at 1:42 PM on March 24, 2002

I had a couple of girlfriends who read Sassy, and I never wanted to admit that I was reading it when they weren't around. I remember constantly re-reading "Mike D and I baked a cake" or something like that.
posted by djacobs at 2:45 PM on March 24, 2002

> "I adore the teen market," said Kelly in her statement.
> "Clearly, YM is the most exciting magazine in the category.
> My experience at both Jane and Sassy immersed me in
> what teen girls care about in beauty, fashion and
> entertainment. I'm thrilled to have the opportunity to build
> upon YM's reputation as the sourcebook for teen girls -
> offering them the best editorial addressing what matters
> most ... beauty, boys, stars and style."

and they wonder why we only want them for their bodies...
posted by jfuller at 6:07 PM on March 24, 2002

Jane sucks for several reasons:

1. Jane Pratt sold out long, long ago - right around the time Sassy switched from its squarish shape to the traditional magazine shape (she even discussed the switch in her letter-from page -- they caved to marketing pressures).

2. Jane has been, from the very beginning, a disingenious attempt to recapture the market that Sassy abandoned. The Sassy/Jane crew knows they sold out, and from the very first issue Jane's editorial has reeked of self consiousness. I haven't read an issue lately other than to skim the cover and note the mag's continuing progression toward cosmo/glamour, but I remember cringing as I read a few early issues. Sassy rocked, but its vernacular was very teen. Early Jane used that same insider-slang teen-speak; it was hip, and it was one of things that set Sassy apart, but it just didn't translate to a twentysomething magazine. I think Jane even used one of the old Sassy department names verbatim, "Stuff You Wrote," or one of them.

I'm sure I could come up with more, but I feel too violated to keep thinking about it.
posted by damn yankee at 6:52 PM on March 24, 2002

I still have multiple copies of Sassy put away. I had every issue of it, prior to the sale and downfall of it.

I do have a subscription to Jane, it was a free subscription that I will not be renewing.
posted by SuzySmith at 8:13 PM on March 24, 2002

i lovedlovedloved sassy. and then it didn't come for like, four months, and my best friend and i (subscriptions, both) got the hateful not-sassy in the mail.

so, so, so pissed.

i'm still a little angry, actually, and i can't stand jane. hey, pratt, go host your talk show on lifetime!
posted by sugarfish at 10:52 AM on March 25, 2002

I remember my first Sassy (the barefoot girl of the year, the "zits and stuff" advice column) and my last Sassy ("what the hell happened to Sassy? Why are they in California?"). There's a magazine called Bust with women in their 20s and 30s as its target demographic that reminds me a lot of Sassy. It's had it's own financial troubles, but it seems to be coming out on top, at least for the moment. Highly recommended if you can find it.
posted by croutonsupafreak at 12:05 PM on March 25, 2002

Check out this Salon article for Christina Kelly's stand against skinniness at ym.
posted by eatitlive at 2:42 PM on March 25, 2002