1 The authors of How Sassy Changed My Life, from left: Marisa Meltzer and Kara Jesella
The coolest magazine ever?
Issue #31
In their book, two Sassy fans document the rise and fall of one of the world’s most influential teen publications
By Amy Schroeder
Published: March 1st, 2007 | 12:00am
If you weren’t a Sassy reader, you’re probably wondering what all the fuss is about. But for the hundreds of thousands who deemed themselves devout readers, it was more than just a teen magazine. As the book How Sassy Changed My Life explains, it was a whole way of living. Unlike the competing trifecta of American teen mags during the ’80s and early ‘90s — Teen,YM, and Seventeen — Sassy took a more personable, realistic approach in helping teens deal with the confusing, frustrating, hormone-crazed mess of adolescence.
Launched in 1988, Sassy’s editorial content didn’t talk down to readers or sugarcoat the sometimes barren facts of life. When Seventeen covered, say, weddings and the “top 10 concealers,” Sassy tackled challenging topics like suicide and STDs. And of course, its coverage of lighter fare also defied what its mainstream competitors ever dared to touch. Articles on shaving your head or baking confections with Thurston Moore weren’t found anywhere else.
In short, there were two camps of teen readers: mainstream America vs. Sassy fans. How Sassy Saved My Life, released in April 2007, explains what happened to some non-Sassy readers: “Half of all Seventeen readers would graduate to the decidedly retro Good Housekeeping and the mildly liberated Glamour in their adult years, and they were a marketer’s wet dream: soon-to-be happy homemakers and pink-collar office workers.” Not that there’s anything wrong with pink-collar workers. It’s just that Sassy aimed to give its readers the confidence to strive for non-traditional careers, whether it was guitarist, auto mechanic, or professor.
Because it successfully combined activist-oriented missions with ultra-hip pop-culture coverage, Sassy was the thinking-girl’s magazine. Sassy made feminism cool — a sentiment that seems almost extinct today — and spawned a drove of women’s studies majors, including me and the book’s coauthor, Kara Jesella. And with that feminist sentiment came legions of fans — not only among its readers but among celebrities, including Michael Stipe, makeup artist Kevyn Aucoin, and Mayim Bialik, some of whom were willing to go to bat for the magazine when it was being criticized by advertisers and the conservative right. In addition to star readers, Jane Pratt — who at age 24 was the magazine industry’s youngest editor-in-chief — turned staffers into mini-celebrities, giving them the power of actresses and musicians. Pratt accomplished this by encouraging Sassy staffers to unabashedly inject their personalities into stories.
Marisa Meltzer, the book’s other coauthor, said she couldn’t believe it was her job to interview some of her biggest heroes. The book features a tremendous amount of research and quotes from not only Sassy staffers but also people like rock critic Anne Powers and director Spike Jonze (who was the editor of Dirt, Sassy’s short-lived brother publication, before becoming an established film director). “We kept joking that our inner 15-year-olds would not believe what our lives were like,” Meltzer said of doing research for the book. “The Sassy writers’ voices totally informed my writing today. But I wasn’t just there to be a fan and tell them how much I love them, even though I wanted to. It was totally interesting to hear the backstage gossip, true stories, the funny rumors, and everything.”
For a magazine with a hefty national circulation of 800,000, Sassy boasted a significant sense of community — among and between staffers and readers. The sense of community was so strong that even now, it feels almost cult-like. OK, “cult-like” is a little overkill, but one of the most interesting things to come out of the Sassy fan-club era was one hell of an “alumni association” among its readers.
Though they obviously were excited to meet former Sassy staffers while writing their book, Jesella and Meltzer said it was perhaps even more fun to meet other women who believe the magazine has changed their lives for the better.
“I’m really proud of the ways in which I didn’t buy into things in high school,” said Meltzer, 29. “I didn’t go to the prom because I didn’t really want to, and I thought it was bullshit. I went to all-ages shows and read zines. It’s probably partially because of Sassy, knowing that there was this whole other way to live.”
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