When I peered over my sister’s shoulder the other day, I noticed she had one of those new trendy preteen pop magazines. Then I realized, it wasn’t new at all, it was the same thing that Nickelodeon magazine and Highlights had been for me and my parents. It made me begin to wonder, what gives these magazines the edge they need to endure in an
So, after she fell asleep for the night, I went into the kitchen to find her magazine. Before I could open it, I was hit in the face with POP. I was overwhelmed wit the number of headlines they were able to shove on the cover. After counting about eight cover stories, I examined the pictures linked with each. Twins, on opposite corners of the page, were branded with different accusations of love, one boldly claiming in an interview, “Yeah, I’d totally date a fan…” In between, the cover is riddled with cool date ideas, and hip and young new actors.
Once I had been saturated in teen culture simply from viewing the colorful cover page, I began flipping through the pages. The stories looked like advertisements and the advertisements looked like stories. Embarrassing stories mailed in by supposed readers are marked by the “Embarr-O-Meter”. Each story begins with a mildly embarrassing situation which is inevitably followed by the phrase, “…IN FRONT OF MY CRUSH.” Yes, it is clear, every awkward situation will be magnified in front of anyone’s lover, yet the intentional placement of the crush in every story leaves me wondering, is it real? Perhaps it’s just another instance of pop, something to grab the attention of the reader. But how long will it last? As I picked up another issue of the same magazine, I noticed the embarrassment section was still included. Can it really be just as shocking every time? At what point does the reader begin to realize the outlandish claim of “the crush”?
Pop has determined my idea of cool before, but I wonder myself how many ‘crush’ claims I fell to. Pop is like a cheap whore, its intriguing while it lasts, but its unique nature looses value quickly.
2 comments:
Are you claiming that YOU are the king of pop??
Oh, and pop is a whore, is it? I just laughed at the parallel you made: "intriguing while it lasts, but its unique nature looses value quickly." Is this really the description you would give to a whore?
Ok, Two things (I can't help but get in on this conversation, even though it's not why I started to write a comment....)
1.) it seems to me that whores are only cheap because of how their customers treat them & all their pop is really designed to reel in those customers but also to keep those customers from recognizing them for who they really are. I don't disagree with your analysis, King Pop, I just think that it gets a second level of meaning when we look closely again at what whoring is all about...
2.) "advertisements look like stories and stories look like advertisements" -- aha! Genre Confusion! (only intentional!)
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