It was late February eight or nine years ago when I came down with a pretty bad sickness. That, or I was just getting sick of going to school. I can’t remember for sure.

Anyway, my mom took off work and went to the store to stock up on all the goodies for sick kids: chicken-noodle soup, 7-Up, soda crackers and of course, some form of entertainment.

Usually it was a movie or a new record, but on this particular day, the entertainment chosen by my dear mother was something totally new. Something that would someday help me decide what I would do with my life: a teeny-bopper mag.

I had never heard of such a thing, which wasn’t much of a surprise, considering I found reading about as enjoyable as plucking out leg hair. But there was something about the shiny pink cover, painted with pictures of all the cool kids on TV, that immediately sparked my curiosity.

Upon opening the cover, I found myself in a world I had dreamed of. With each article I read, I felt more and more like a part of the young-celebrity lifestyle. It was as if Fred Savage and River Phoenix (or was it Corey Haim and Corey Feldman) were my new best friends and Alyssa Millano was my new crush.

I couldn’t get enough teeny-bopper intake. I finished my first issue of Bop in just a few hours. My mom was so happy to see me reading, she went back to the store and came back with something I never would have guessed existed — other teeny-bopper mags.

I couldn’t believe it. There was more than just one teeny-bopper mag, in fact, there were tons of them. And I wasn’t going to be happy until I read every one, cover to cover.

Now, an important thing to remember about this great form of entertainment is that these magazines are not only reading material, but are also a great source for wall and locker hangings. Of course, I quickly found out that the ratio of guy pictures to girl pictures was somewhere near 10-to-1.

It didn’t take long to figure out that most of these magazines were replicas of the others, only the cover picture of Debbie Gibson would be different on each (hat or no hat, conservative or liberal).

I also realized the target audience for Bop and the others was a 10-year-old female, and I was a 12-year-old male. But lucky for me, there were occasional features and centerfolds of Millano, Tiffany and a few others.

My addiction to teeny-bopper mags didn’t last long, a few months (20 magazine tops). I look back and wonder what intrigued me about them and I just can’t describe it. There’s just something about good entertainment writing that sucks you in.

After reminiscing about those good ol’ days, I started wondering if teeny-bopper mags still exist. It seemed like forever since I had seen one and I had no idea who would be on the cover.

So I did what any good journalist would do: some investigative reporting. I went to the racks and checked out it for myself. That is when I discovered the new monopoly of teeny-bopper stars, the next Fred Savage: J.T.T.

Who? Well, the initials stand for Jonathan Taylor Thomas and if the name doesn’t ring a bell, he’s the middle child on “Home Improvement”. The catch is he’s not little anymore, which seems really strange to me. I mean, I remember this kid when he didn’t even know what puberty is, now he is on the front page of every teeny-bopper mag.

The funny thing is that, although these magazines are obviously about teens, half of the features are on people who are not teenagers. I actually saw Sandra Bullock, the “Friends” cast and Brad Pitt in one of the mags.

Most of the people I didn’t even recognize, such as Kyle Gibson, Devon Sawa and Christina Ricci. It was funny to see Bush as one of the only music acts to make it into teeny-bopper land. The other was Backstreet Boys, which is even funnier seeing as how I don’t even think they have ever had a hit song.

But the highlight of the new teeny-bopper era was discovering Millano’s replacement: Claire Danes. Soooo hot, want to touch the heiny.

---

Corey Moss is a sophomore in journalism and mass communication from Urbandale.