Throwback Thursday: 15 years ago in Teen People
Founded by Time Inc. in 1998 and shut down in 2006, Teen People magazine now mostly exists only on Tumblr and eBay. But we got our hands on every single issue from the year 2000.
Each month this year, we’ll take a look back at the groundbreaking glossy.
First up: The December 1999/January 2000 issue.
The cover: Singer Christina Aguilera, thumb hooked into the waistband of what appear to be flocked velvet pants. The cover lines speak to the wide variety of topics inside: a horoscope special, Hollywood style, living with AIDS, “inside a camp for anti-abortion teens.” Oh, and “up close and very personal” with LFO, aka the dudes who liked girls who wear Abercrombie and Fitch.
Paging through: One of the first ads in the issue is for the Playstation game Spyro 2: Ripto’s Rage. This game involved breathing flames upon enemies and making sure your dragonfly sidekick eats enough butterflies: Very hardcore.
Millenium glitz! From Claire’s. Wearing little sparkly crystals on your face — in the corner of the eye, especially — was sooo cool in the year 2000.
Page 58: This photo of Britney Spears flanked by Method Man and Redman should be your new wallpaper. In your bedroom. Above your bed. It’s amazing.
Page 60: A young, tearful Aaron Carter embraces his big brother, Backstreet Boy Nick. They are both wearing white, a symbol of purity. Gaze upon this image while humming “I Want It That Way” and know an ethereal calm.
Page 93: The Christina Feature story focuses on the then-eighteen-year-old’s beginnings — the Mickey Mouse Club, Star Search and so on. She is still so new to this fame thing; she describes the MTV Awards thusly: “Getting out of the limo and getting interviewed by MTV VJs with fans all around cheering — it’s the first time I actually felt like a real celebrity!” says Christina, still excited. She goes on to exclaim, “I finally made it!” And this was before she starred in a movie with Cher. A pal slash backup dancer tells the magazine: “”I’ve worked with the Artist and Ricky Martin.. Christina’s the hardest-working person I’ve ever met. She gets this look on her face, almost like a glare, and I know not to go near her because she’s focused.” Yikes?
Page 100: “Radical Behavior” is about Survivor Summer ’99, a camp for young anti-abortion activists. The survivors are “all Christians and many of them home-schooled.” They crash the campus of a high school in Irvine, CA. There’s a kerfuffle, the cops are called, one protester is grabbed and pushed “hard against the wall” by an assistant principal: