
The Unnerving Existence of Teen Boss - Doches
https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/the-very-unnerving-existence-of-teen-boss-a-magazine-for-girls
======
michaelbuckbee
HN folks without kids of a certain age may not realize just how deeply
children today are into Youtube personalities/channels, Twitch streamers, etc.

That being said, I think it's generally a positive thing. Teen Boss isn't
replacing kids reading the WSJ, it's replacing tweens swooning over boy band
photos in Tiger Beat.

YT/Streaming isn't without its weirdness, but it's significantly more
participatory and encouraging of people creating and making things as an
alternative to purely consuming media.

I'd rather my daughter want to make YouTube videos and open an Etsy shop with
her designs than mindlessly watch Hannah Montana (which I feel like is the
equivalent from a decade ago).

As a peek into this world, check out Rosanna Pansino (Nerdy Nummies YT
channel) and how successful she is:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6i2cebTn0nc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6i2cebTn0nc)

There are worse role models for kids.

~~~
spaceflunky
what stands out to me, is what appears to be the "get rich quick nature" of
all the articles. call me old fashion, but at that age I'd rather be teaching
kids the value of hard work, delayed gratification, research, skepticism, etc,
etc.

In fact I'd rather kids would read the WSJ than this garbage, at least then
they'd understand how hard it is to start and maintain a business. Otherwise
you're setting this kids up to follow every MLM trap they got offered later on
in life. HODL HODL HODL am i right?

~~~
kristianc
As opposed to 'I generated $32k in 30 days selling a crypto USB stick' that is
currently #3 on this forum? Or is that completely different?

~~~
enticeing
You're saying that like spaceflunky's comment included an endorsement for that
post, or that his posting a comment here means that he approves of every
single post on the site.

~~~
kristianc
I'm saying that there seems to be a disparity in the value judgements the HN
hive-mind applies to itself, and the entrepreneurial activities of young
women.

Go on the thread for yourself, there are lots of people picking apart the
idea, but no one saying the creator is foolhardy for favoring an
entrepreneurial career / calling him a scammer.

~~~
whafalloon
there is no hive mind, there is no “it”. there are individuals, and all of us
have our own minds.

your collectivism is a misapplied abstraction leaking reality at every seam

~~~
jcora
Lmao

'Individuals' on HN (or 20-something CS guy from the U.S.) and their 'unique
opinions' are so fucking similar and revolve around a couple of basic
platitudes and ideologems

Pretty much anything that isn't a specific technical subject is totally boring
and predictable on HN

Also your last sentence is painfully cringey to read

~~~
leetcrew
idk how you could not notice that any voting-based link aggregator or comment
section has a hive mind effect.

------
overthemoon
"One of the most troubling features of life under twenty-first-century
American capitalism, I find, is the way that it can limit your sense of human
potential; in the process of choosing from among overpriced health-insurance
packages, I sometimes forget that it is possible for a government to refuse to
allow its citizens to go bankrupt while they’re attempting to stay alive. One
issue of Teen Boss features a quiz called “Which CELEB-PRENEUR Are You Most
Like?” The options are life-style blogger, creator of a name-brand fashion
line, owner of a YouTube channel, and founder of a personal-makeup brand.
Another quiz helps girls figure out their “life motto,” letting them choose
from “Be Your Own Biggest Cheerleader,” “Nothing Is Impossible,” and “Always
Do What You’re Afraid to Do.”"

I really like Jia Tolentino's writing.

The magazine sucks because it valorizes materialism. There's not much more to
it than that. Greed is repackaged as positivity and girl power, but it's still
a void. The passage I quoted is right--our idea of success is slowly narrowing
to this kind of 21st century internet-mediated entrepreneurship. We should
dream bigger than kids screaming about video games on youtube.

It reminds me of the often repeated phrase used to respond to people
criticizing a popular kids' book: "Well, at least they're reading." The
version that would defend this kind of content says "at least they're making
something!" The act of creation by itself isn't noble, neither is the act of
reading alone. "Would you rather they just watch TV??" No. It's a false
choice. Aim higher.

~~~
macspoofing
>our idea of success is slowly narrowing to this kind of 21st century
internet-mediated entrepreneurship.

Material success, power, fame - have been drivers of ambition throughout all
of human civilization. The unprecedented success of capitalism over the last 2
centuries has been marked by countless individuals pushing forward towards
those goals.

>Greed is repackaged as positivity and girl power

You have cynical spin on this, but I suppose traditional moral gender roles
would be more fulfilling? Or maybe women should be encouraged to go into low
profit social work? What is it you want?

~~~
apotheothesomai
This has absolutely nothing to do with your tendentious gender-virtuous
criticism. That's way out of line. It would be just as bad, if there were an
analogous boy's magazine.

The point is that replacing the idea of one's worth and potential - girl
power/boy power, whatever - with shallow get quick money and get famous
schemes is a negative.

Would you prefer children who dream of utilizing their potential to become
great at something, like a career path, scientist, scholar, artists, farmer
etc., or whose dreams are about becoming Youtube stars or selling crap to a
bunch of people?

As for the general remarks on history, power is the only factor in ambition
beyond survival. Material success is just one form of power. Fame is power +
self gratification for the emotionally weak. Ephemeral fame and get money
quick schemes are superficial and weak means to power.

On the other hand, appeals to a universal subject, which doesn't exist,
references to human nature, which we can't even define as a term, much less
define what the elements of it are, don't really work in a proper argument.

~~~
macspoofing
>It would be just as bad, if there were an analogous boy's magazine.

There's a constant hum about the lack of women entrepreneurs and how women
should be encouraged to pursue entrepreneurship, the earlier the better. What
do you think that looks like?

If you do nothing, that's wrong, if you do something, it will never be right
and will be critized.

This is an entrepreneurship magazine designed to appeal to teen girls.
Entrepreneurship is a boring topic for most teens, so this is their attempt at
making it relatable and fun. Give them a break.

>Would you prefer children who dream of utilizing their potential to become
great at something, like a career path, scientist, scholar, artists, farmer
etc.,

I noticed entrepreneur is not one of the options you listed, which is what
this magazine advocates. But I support all those career paths as well.
Advocacy for one, doesn't mean denial of others.

------
jknoepfler
I honestly don't see what's wrong or surprising about this. I personally find
the content nauseous, but if a hypothetical thirteen year old daughter were
curious about it I'd be happy to read through an issue and talk about it. It
sounds like a good conversation starter for the different axes of human
ambition and human value. Teaching from the extremes isn't my favorite idea,
but so be it.

I force myself to listen to crazy angry conservative and christian radio on
and off for the same reason. If we can't embrace aspects of human personality
that we find loathesome, I don't think we can love others, or ourselves.

Interestingly I feel like this article comes from a similar place as anger
radio (which is, ironically, overwhelmingly money-motivated and exploitative).

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I don't see the value in otherizing
media like this. It exists, it's part of our culture, and in one way or
another, it's a part of us. Embrace it, engage with it, teach from it, but
don't revile it.

~~~
9889095r3jh
I had a different reaction. It felt very wrong. I don't like how our culture
worships money. It's bad enough that more college students see 'being very
well off financially' as a more important goal than helping others (compared
to other generations) [1]. If children are getting these messages at an even
younger age, that's disturbing. After all, children are more impressionable. I
want the next generation of children to know there are more important things
than money. I believe children will be happier their whole lives if they're
raised with those values.

[1][https://www.thestreet.com/story/12791561/1/millennials-
just-...](https://www.thestreet.com/story/12791561/1/millennials-just-want-be-
rich-study-finds.html)

Saying "It exists, it's a part of our culture" is such a defeatist response.
Culture is formed by all of us. You don't have to just let it happen. You can
push back, and work to change culture for the better. That's why I like your
last bit - we can engage with it and teach from it. I'd expand that to
include: we can disapprove of it.

~~~
smogcutter
> It's bad enough that more college students see 'being very well off
> financially' as a more important goal than helping others (compared to other
> generations)

That's not surprising, considering that current college students did a lot of
their growing up in the aftermath of the housing crash. It's kind of unfair to
chide them for being preoccupied with financial stability (or for _claiming to
be when asked_ , not the same thing). Meanwhile, what's the messaging like
about college today? That you should drop out to start a company, and that if
you're studying anything not STEM related you're kind of a dope.

But really, in the link "helping others" is a close second at 65%, only a
point behind the boomers and two points _ahead_ of gen x. So, there goes
declinism. Millenials are only about 4 points higher than gen-x in "well off
financially" (70.8 to 74.4), hardly a generational sea change. The real
difference is with the boomers, who come in at 73% "develop a meaningful
philosophy of life" and 44% "well off financially". Perhaps rather than
rejecting helping others, _every_ generation since the boomers has rejected
the solipsism it takes for a college student to list "develop my philosophy"
as their primary goal.

~~~
9889095r3jh
>It's kind of unfair to chide them for being preoccupied with financial
stability

The question is not about financial stability, but with "being very well off
financially."

> Perhaps rather than rejecting helping others, every generation since the
> boomers has rejected the solipsism it takes for a college student to list
> "develop my philosophy" as their primary goal.

I'll give you that point. Younger generations may not be as materialistic as
we think. But that doesn't invalidate my argument: It would still be shitty if
they became more materialistic. That could happen if we tell 12 year olds they
need to worry about their personal brand.

------
kristianc
What really is unnerving about this? Ambition, craving financial success, and
gasp-horror 'entrepreneurship' may be beneath the kind of people who end up
writing staff columns for the New Yorker, but there's nothing inherently wrong
with it.

Dare I say it, “I have to remind myself that I can’t overdo it, so I’ll do my
posts, and then turn off my phone for the night and just be isolated.” might
be good advice for the author, who from her Twitter seems to be a fully paid-
up member of 'lol trying to adult' Twitter.

~~~
smacktoward
It's unnerving because:

1) It reinforces the idea that for young women, the only way to achieve
business success is to be performatively "girly" \-- being unceasingly
cheerful and social, presenting a breathless aw-shucks ("so amazing!")
demeanor, working on things like fashion lines and skin care products or on
image-first careers like "Instagram influencer." Society accepts that
ambitious young men will present to the world in lots of different ways, but
when it comes to ambitious young women we try to hammer them all into the same
shape.

2) It puts pressure on its readers, who are in an age bracket we generally
associate with childhood, to trade the traditional privileges of childhood --
shielding from the pitiless demands of the market, space to experiment with
different facets of their personality, time to dedicate to education and self-
development -- for the precarious, rat-race lifestyle that adults live every
day. Kids who are saying "there is no such thing as a regular 9 to 5. We work
24/7!" are kids who have internalized the idea that work is all there is, that
their lives don't have room for anything else. That would be a sad thing for a
fully grown adult to believe, much less a thirteen-year-old.

~~~
kristianc
1) An alternative reading of the magazine is that it is celebrating young
creators, who have achieved success through alternative routes (make up lines,
t-shirts, YouTube channels) than the standard middle class millennial career
path of "being born into the right family, liberal arts education, job at
BuzzFeed/Vanity Fair/Teen Vogue/New Yorker while building out performative
angst Twitter persona." Following that line, for most people without the right
background/connections/ability to take an unpaid internship in New York for
three months, results in them becoming on several levels completely
unemployable.

2) The readers are self-consciously choosing this media themselves anyway -
through the YouTube channels they subscribe to and watch, the Instagram
influencers they follow, the products they buy. Instead of mindlessly
scrolling through social media feeds, these readers are now being encouraged
to think how they can follow in their footsteps.

This article imo, reveals much more about the prejudices of the author than
the readers or the publishers.

~~~
smacktoward
_> An alternative reading of the magazine is that it is celebrating young
creators_

Who are creative within a narrow, conventionally "girly" band of creative
endeavors. _Teen Boss_ would not be interested in a 15-year-old girl who
invented a revolutionary new type of automotive engine, because it is not a
magazine about girls with grease on their hands.

Girls who _want_ to should be free to engage in those kinds of "girly"
pursuits, of course. To each their own! But by focusing _only_ on those
pursuits, _Teen Boss_ sends the message to girls who are interested in other
things (like STEM!) that they're weirdos who are walking away from success
instead of towards it in their own way.

~~~
kristianc
> Who are creative within a narrow, conventionally "girly" band of creative
> endeavors. Teen Boss would not be interested in a 15-year-old girl who
> invented a revolutionary new type of automotive engine, because it is not a
> magazine about girls with grease on their hands.

Perhaps not, but then you're being reductive by equating engineering with
'grease on their hands'.

There's plenty of STEM careers that don't involve any grease - such as
materials science, fashion design, sound engineering, to stuff that this
magazine would wholeheartedly endorse, like developing your own make up line.
'I made thousands building a FaceTune competitor' certainly would.

For that matter, how many people on Hacker News deal with grease in their day
to day work? And is the kind of thing being discussed here that different from
'I made $32k a month recurring revenue' IndieHackers story, the likes of which
regularly gets voted to the top of HN?

~~~
spacehome
If fashion design is STEM, then there's nothing that isn't STEM.

~~~
kristianc
Materials science isn't STEM?

~~~
spacehome
I said fashion design.

------
ravenstine
Assuming it's not a hoax, is this really any worse than existing girl
magazines? When I was a teen, I got peeks at my sister's magazines and they
were primarily about makeup and boys(to graduate you to magazines with
misguided sex "secrets"). At least Girl Boss teaches you to make money,
supposedly.

Would we feel differently if it was called "Boy Bo$$"?

~~~
ryandrake
> Would we feel differently if it was called "Boy Bo$$"?

Good point! If this were geared towards boys and had articles like “How to
turn your Minecraft playing into $$$ by streaming” and “Getting started in
sales: baseball cards edition” would there even be a discussion? Would the New
Yorker be so indignant?

------
JDiculous
Well if this isn't late stage capitalism, then I don't know what is. In a
couple hundred years, I could see this magazine cover being hung up on display
in a "museum of capitalism".

As other commenters have pointed out, it's certainly better than celebrity
gossip, and probably not any worse than the other crap they would be exposed
to. Entrepreneurship is a fantastic thing to promote, and being a social media
star is certainly more fun and lucrative than being a 9-5 office drone with
health insurance.

But there's something insidious about priming teenagers into this
materialistic mindset, that the way to "make it" is to gain a large social
media following competing in a shallow clickbait-ridden space, where only the
top 1% or so can ever make it anyways (not everybody can be a social media
star, just like not everybody can make a living as a musician. Our attention
span is limited).

I don't have a problem with this magazine. This magazine is simply a sad
reflection of our hypercapitalist reality.

~~~
rayiner
Strongly disagree. It’s a reflection of our hypercompetitive society. It’s not
shallow; it’s realistic. Look around: everyone is embracing consumerist
capitalism (China, India, etc.) The societies that appear to have some
reservations about it (Western Europe) are irrelevant—they won’t exist in
their modern form a century from now.

~~~
whatshisface
Consumerism doesn't make you any more effective as a nation, in fact it makes
you quite a bit less efficient. Driving in circles with cars you can't afford
wastes money and resources (and all of the manpower that went in to you being
able to do that) just as fast as it wastes your soul. A culture designed to
maximize productivity and minimize inefficiencies would probably look a lot
like Soviet-era state sponsored art: valorizing labor and industry.

~~~
rayiner
Except Russia is collapsing faster than anywhere else.

~~~
losteric
Right, because they switched to the American version of crony capitalism.

------
DanHulton
I remember being around that age and being obsessed with entrepreneurship. It
was in the short stories I read, it was discussed in class, I even joined a
Young Entrepreneurs after-school club, where students -- aided by local
businesspeople -- would create a company, decide on products, then produce and
sell them.

And while I'm a guy, I remember that club being balanced roughly 50-50, boys
and girls, and in point of fact, most of the leadership positions (we elected
Presidents and VPs, in mock-corporate fashion) were girls.

I think all that's changed is the focus of how and where money is earned, and
maybe not all that much? The article mentions that some of the ideas
recommended are "snow shoveling" and "setting up a laser tag course", which
aren't the wild, forced-estrogen-display, YouTube-infested hellscape that some
other commenters seem to be upset about.

~~~
cabaalis
I remember telling my elementary school class when we were discussing what we
wanted to be when we grew up that I wanted to be like Roberta Williams. Which
was strange from their vantage point because I was a boy, and because nobody
had a clue who she was. But my statement was driven entirely by my desire to
make and sell video games.

------
SkyMarshal
_" Reading the magazine feels like watching a wall of YouTube videos inside a
Claire’s jewelry store while a tween-age life-style coach screams at you to
double your net worth."_

Lol.

 _" Money is to Teen Boss what sex is to Cosmopolitan—the essential,
irreplaceable, attention-getting hook. (On the cover of each edition, the
dollar signs in “Teen Bo$$!” occupy the same prime real estate, in the upper-
left corner, that the word “sex” does on most Cosmo covers.)"_

Well encouraging young women to make money and work for financial independence
is better than encouraging them to become sex objects, as many other mags
targeting them do.

------
wyclif
My 7 year-old boy already wants to start his own business, and routinely runs
his ideas by me. He's also a Minecraft fan, and his favourite YouTube channel
is PopularMMOs. When he started watching it a lot and referring to "Pat &
Jen", I decided to find out what that is all about. I was surprised to
discover after a little googling that they're a married couple who pull down
$11m/yr from YT.

And yes, as a parent I am unnerved by this article. While I don't want to
discourage his budding entrepreneurship and do want to encourage his
initiative, I want him to apply it in a way that is realistic for a kid his
age, and I also want to protect him from the inanity (and worse) of stuff like
TeenBoss and various get-rich-quick schemes and snake oil sales. I want him to
learn the value of hard work, practise, being punctual, and skills that will
help him excel in whatever it is he decides to do as an adult. At this point,
that means studying, doing well academically, and possibly starting a cottage
business his parents can help him with (fortunately, he's a First Honors
student).

------
TangoTrotFox
I think this magazine is quite bizarre, but on the other hand I think
entrepreneurship starts young. My first 'business' was selling coke at my
school. The coke machine cost $0.50 and I saw at Sam's Club you could get some
massive box dozens of offbrand cola for ~$10. Keep them in a cooler, sell them
at breaks for $0.25 - that was a ton of money for a middle school kid. Always
wondered why more people don't take advantage of little market openings like
this. Maybe a silly magazine can inspire people to think outside the box a bit
more.

------
matte_black
The way some people see this magazine is the way I see some of the "adult"
Entrepreneur/Startup Lifestyle stuff that's out there.

------
kraig911
I think many in this forum are at it to make money. So I sincerely doubt
they'd have a problem with it. To me it's an emblem or icon if you will of
what's going on in today's world. Value purely is existentially equated to
money. To me that's bad. However is it as bad as everything else? No. Is it
better than most everything else. Yes very much yes. Sucks to say because it
makes me see the ugly realization of the actual capitalistic world we live in.

------
EtDybNuvCu
I've apparently read my last complimentary article for the month. Slate also
has an article about this, so if it's a hoax, it's a very convincing hoax:
[https://slate.com/technology/2018/02/a-close-reading-of-
teen...](https://slate.com/technology/2018/02/a-close-reading-of-teen-boss-a-
magazine-for-gen-z-entrepreneurs-and-a-horrifying-artifact-of-our-times.html)

~~~
pietroglyph
It's easy for multiple media sources to get duped, but this seems almost too
unbelievable to be a hoax.

~~~
dictum
The world of niche publications is quite wild.

I once saw a magazine dedicated to a single hairstyle. (It was already at its
3rd edition and I later learned of new editions)

------
rllin
It's increasingly looking like the biggest shift in our lifetimes is not
sudden mass automation of the labor industry but the shift from a service
industry to a content creation industry.

If you're not a content creator/owner, you're a content consumer. Content is
the new rent seeking.

------
MechEStudent
Teens have been a monetized commodity since the birth of MTV. This isn't a
surprise. After 40 years, this qualifies as a 'murican cultural value.

~~~
wavefunction
Earlier than that, if you count efforts like American Bandstand and other
examples:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Bandstand](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Bandstand)

------
excitom
Entertaining article. My favorite line: Describing the cover model's smile as
a "rictus of high-octane enthusiasm".

------
speedplane
Families used to teach children the value of a dollar by getting them to setup
a lemonade stand or mowing a neighbor's lawn. Now they can command far higher
pay by managing that neighbor's social media account. Go get em.

------
s_m
We live in a brutal economic climate. Who can blame these kids for setting
their sights on fame and fortune?

------
busterarm
Gro$$

------
yelloweyes
how much of a sociopath do you have to be to be a part of this magazine

~~~
OrganicMSG
1.7 Patrick Batemans, with the interview to be decided on whoever found the
most creative way of displaying their extra 0.7 of a Bateman.

