I couldn’t believe when I first saw this book. a few years ago.   I had completely forgotten about Sassy magazine, and suddenly I had a rush of memories.  They didn’t publish it on Amazon’s Kindle platform, so it took until now for me to break down and buy a hard copy.

How Sassy Changed My Life

I’m reading this now and am now intrigued that it may be a hidden cultural watershed for many Gen-X women.  I remember first hearing about Sassy just before the first edition was published back in 1988.  I would  have been a freshman or sophomore in high school at the  time.  I’ve always thought myself mainstream of the mainstream back in those days, but I in reality I was pretty much in the freak and geeks club.  If you watch Glee — that was me.  I was indeed in Show Choir, although unlike those kids we tended to win regionals.  I was in drama club, leading to that degree and 9(ish) year career in theatre.  And I was one of those kids others got in trouble for cheating off of, at least in English and History.   If you cheated off of me in math class you clearly weren’t paying attention to my utter lack of natural skill in that area.

Whenever I would read about what it was Gen-X was supposed to be or be doing in those days, I just couldn’t relate.  I was hardly a slacker or into grunge.  Actually, I didn’t develop an appreciation for Kurt Cobain and Nirvana until my 30s.  Musically I would define my high school years by Bell Biv Devoe, Bon Jovi, and whatever else was on the Top 40 charts, with a brief brush with Rush.

But then I read my senior year scrap book, which I found recently and see my girlfriends all praising something called “sloth woman.” After racking my brain to dredge up a memory of what on earth that meant, I remember that was our own special flavor of grunge.  It just involved showering and wearing clean clothes.  Wearing pajamas to school — but clean ones.   I remember watching Reality Bites with my friends, then all in college,  and them telling me that things coming out of one character’s mouth would be things that I would say.

My recent Heathers inspired embroidery design for the "Phat Quarter" group swap. Yes, there is a typo.

So, back to Sassy Magazine.  As I read this book and am brought back to my teenage years, I see where Sassy fit in.  It wasn’t necessarily for extreme grunge or Riot Grrrls.  It was for girls like me from small suburban/rural towns who just didn’t quite fit in with the Seventeen Magazine crowd.  I never wanted to be a Heather, I always associated myself with Veronica.  It’s hard to imagine how different Sassy was than everything else on the market.  Teen magazines then, and now, try to promote a “Heathers” lifestyle – be pretty, popular, and smart (but not too smart).  If you are a Boomer, insert “Stepford” for “Heathers.”  Sassy Magazine was Veronica.  Smart, pretty, and kind of pissed off — but in a parentally approved, pre-homicidal kind of way.  Just daring enough to piss off Jerry Falwell, but not get you grounded or incarcerated.

Generational theory has become a passion of mine in the last couple of years.  I mostly found it interesting, at first, to understand generations other than my own.  It helped me to better see through their eyes and apply that to my work.  What I never expected was how illuminating I would find it not only about my own generation, but also myself.    If you want to understand the formative world of a Gen-X woman — read How Sassy Changed My Life: A Love Letter to the Greatest Teen Magazine of All Time.

I also highly recommend X Saves the World: How Generation X Got the Shaft but Can Still Keep Everything from Sucking, which started off my fascination with generational theory.   A final recommendation is The Fourth Turning, which anyone who knows me knows I’m mildly obsessed with and even used as the basis of my Pecha Kucha presentation at ePatient 2009.