Sunday 13 July 2008

Expensif Twaddle du Jour

If you thought Girlfriend mag peddled some of the most inane piffle in the history of tweenagehood, you would be correct. Here is your A+; the medal's in the post.

Many are the questions one might table for the contemporary adolescent's attention: chess club or recorder consort? which flies faster, a peregrin falcon or a Boeing 747? if your school were to stage a play about the Periodic Table, which element's part would you audition for?

Does Girlfriend put any of these questions? Does it? DOES IT? No. It does not. It is too busy expatiating upon the hawtness of Keira Knightley's boyfiend, the apparent necessity of bringing to one's formal an ipod, a small mirror, a kiwi-and-mango exfoliating scrub and the Hello Kitty collectors' edition of Das Kapital - it is too busy, I say, - asking "Are you a BINGE thinker?" (l'horreur!) to ask the questions that matter. Like: if "seven dog years equal one human year", when should beagles get the vote? I mean, really, these people are the legislators of tomorrow; we need them to start thinking about the issues now.

As for binge thinking, what, I ask you, is the point of parodying a magazine that dismantles its own credibility with such dizzying skill? Gels, do not, I implore you, do not think. It callouses the elbows so. And does terrible things to the bikini line.

18 comments:

Lefty E said...

Oh come on, you can't resist J- Ho's "new" ass forever.

Alexis, Baron von Harlot said...

I think I can give it a pretty good shot, actually, for all I've been wanting to use the word "callipygean" all week.

TimT said...

I prefer carriapygeans to callipygeans.

Alexis, Baron von Harlot said...

Each to their own, I say.

Lefty E said...

You could use it in a sentence, but I suspect J Lo would respond: "naah, de're Levis."

Gemnastics said...

Much as I loathe these publications and their infantile twaddle, there is something to be said for not overthinking. I am guilty of the sin of overthinking, indeed, yes siree that I am. I could do with a break from it. Perhaps I should get a copy of Girlfriend.

Martin Kingsley said...

My head hurts. It hurts so, so, so much, Herculean exemplar though I may be.

Alexis, Baron von Harlot said...

This is a good point you make, Gempires, and to be fair to Girlfriend (reluctantly) I'll admit that it turned out to be an article about anxiety management. Still, it's kinda counterproductive, suggesting someone be less anxious in two-inch high hot pink letters that scream "PATHOLOGY AHEAD! MORALLY DEPRAVED BINGE THINKER!" Also, Girlfriend happens to be one of the most anxiogenic rags ever waved before my bovine brain. This is its message: if you do not spend eighteen kabizillion dollars on ointments for deformities you didn't even know you had (limp nostril hairs, etc), you will NEVER, EVER, EVER have a boyfriend and consequently YOU WILL BE WORTHLESS. And watch out for the herpes simplex virus while you're at it.

Martin Kingsley said...

Ve haff vays unt means hoff deeeeeelink viff zeese...people. Yarssssss. Vays. Unt. Means.

Anonymous said...

Perhaps for next year you should try to win a subscription to "Total Girl", which, as you probably know, observes a strict "no boys allowed" policy, thereby giving one high hopes that readers are not expected to go to any trouble or expense in an effort to please the absent boys.

In any case, given the standard narrative of most magazines for grown women- you MUST learn these tricks to BLOW HIS MIND* in bed or else he'll LEAVE you and so will ALL THE OTHERS and then you'll be a WORTHLESS, INVISIBLE CRONE- Girlfriend sounds like the sort of mild harangue for which one could almost be nostalgic.

*Gentlemen are obviously encouraged to "binge think" to excess.

Alexis, Baron von Harlot said...

Hm. Methinks the "No boys allowed" policy might just be the beginning of a gender apartheid, designed to enable a training in femininity as something exclusive and peculiar to gels.

Vhat vays unt meanz, Martinhoffer? I'm a great believer in the 40 km hike through the alps as a mechanism for reminding people that peach flavoured lip gloss isn't the beginning and end of existence.

Anonymous said...

Shutting the boys out of the tree house is more likely to be the beginning of the flirtation rather than any gender apartheid, I think.

Lip gloss probably is the beginning and end of existence for me. I'm quite thrown when I don't have lip gloss and a pen.

Martin Kingsley said...

Ve zink alike, joo unt hai, Lexikankopfdassnichtkeightuntsturmhoffer. Hai may OR! may naught haff eh, hau du joo say, kontrollink! share in ze waterboarding.com. Ja. Ist gutt.

TimT said...

Heil! Heil, du wundervolle Kingsley! Langes leben der Kingsley!

Maria said...

Think in moderation, otherwise you'll hurt your head.

Stadard size light thinking for the men, a nice sweet bubbly thought for the girls.

Only one little thought an hour at nights, and remember to water those thoughts down a lot. And leave lots of blank space between thoughts.

Everyone has their thought intolerance level and make sure you stop thinking before you reach yours. You don't know what might happen to you if you go over the limit.

The thoughts could be disastrous.

Most likely you will age quickly, grow a beard, and have your portrait put on a Penguin Classic.

TimT said...

Techniques for cutting back on binge thinking:

1) Try cutting back on thinking each day. Even if it's one less thought in the morning, it's worth it! Avoiding thinking is pretty tricky, but why not make a game of it? Buy yourself rare copies of works by the great philosophers, and instead of reading them, decorate their covers in pretty colours that match your shoes! (This will also prevent other less strong-minded binge thinkers from buying the philosophical tracts and being 'inspired' by them to continue their addiction).

Give yourself a little prize for every twenty thoughts cut back, like a trip to the masseuse or a new perfume!

2) Substitute thinking: instead of thinking your thoughts by yourself, have them thought by other people (or things) instead. Like the TV. Yes, watching TV CAN be good for you!

3) Performing healthy non-thinking activities. Why don't you take yourself off to the hairdresser instead of thinking? Pretty soon you can get yourself out of the habit, and binge thinking will be a thing of the past! If thoughts persist, turn up your iPod another notch.

4) Take up a part-time job as a zombie. (Involves your brain being eaten. Not suitable for all binge thinkers).

5) Medically assisted thought extraction processes, such as frontal lobotomies. This method is expensive, but has been found to work very well for a number of previous binge thinkers.

Girls, you can do it! Cut back on your binge thinking today for a better body tomorrow!

JahTeh said...

Lovely, now I have a name for those none-too-often times when I string two thoughts together.

M L Jassy said...

For three hours on "staff development day" I was intrigued by His Couchness, Dr Michael Carr-Gregg, famous adolescent psychologist (who even advises script-writers for Neighbours when he's not conducting 'psychological autopsies' on tragic teen suicides)- none other than the official Agony Uncle for Girlfriend Magazine. I wonder what sort of overly thoughtful and indulgently cognitive communiques he might receive now?