Nicole Finkbiner

Last month, 18 year-old Jamie Keiles caught the attention of several women’s Web sites when she announced her plans to embark on an unprecedented experiment into the female adolescent experience: The Seventeen Magazine Project. 

For her final month of high school, Jamie would live her life strictly adhering to the tips and advice in the June/July issue of Seventeen then blog about her daily endeavors and  experiences. 

It’s now Day 28 of the experiment and if you haven’t been following along with her, I encourage you to spend the day catching up. 

By the time I got to Day 3, I was completely enamored with Jamie. In fact, I want to adopt her as my little sister. 

 

Her posts are as insightful as they are humorous. So far she’s probed and tackled several poignant topics such as the magazine’s complete disregard for LGBT girls and the cultural insensitivity of their “tribal” fashion trend as well as the general ridiculousness of their editorial content. 

Here’s an excerpt from her May 29th post:

“To go with my 'Bright Prints' look, I also got my nails done to follow the 'Bright Colors' trend that Danielle, age 15, from Minneapolis speaks so highly of. She writes, ‘Whenever I'm feeling down, I can just look at my nails and feel peppy!’ This is bleak. I wish Seventeen would suggest a hobby for Danielle so she didn't have to look to idle nail-gazing as her only source of joy.”

I also throughly enjoyed reading her comments about the “Free Hot Guy Mag” that came with the issue.   

“The hotties are repetitively asked about their go-to moves, their relationship habits, and their theories on romance,” Jamie writes. “When Taylor Lautner is asked to describe his ideal girlfriend, three out of the four traits end up being things that glorify him, and the odd fourth is one that makes the girl in question look bad.” 

She even included this cute little pie chart to show the celeb/vampire ratio of the Seventeen-approved hunks...

                         

So what exactly inspired Jamie to put herself through 30+ days of torture? 

Here’s what she said in an interview with IHeartDaily.com:

“Seventeen is marketed as a lifestyle magazine, but the lifestyle they appear to be selling is one that mostly includes clothes and makeup. By offering young girls this limited set of interests, I think that we are setting the bar very low for who we believe they are. Let’s give girls a little more credit, and something a little better to strive for.”

Today was Jamie's last day of high school and her graduation on June 21 will mark the end of her project. 

In the fall she'll be heading to the University of Chicago where she plans on studying economics, gender studies, and sociology.

 

 

Think Jamie is as awesome as I do? Befriend her on Facebook, follow her on Twitter and check out her personal Web site. 

[Images: TheSeventeenMagazineProject.com]

 


 


 


Tagged in: young feminists , women's magazines , The Seventeen Magazine Project , Seventeen Magazine , Jamie Keiles , Feminist   

The opinions expressed on the BUST blog are those of the authors themselves and do not necessarily reflect the position of BUST Magazine or its staff.



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written by kaelah bee, June 16, 2010
this is amazing. i love her already.

i'm totally behind the whole thing because i've witnessed Seventeen's blatant disregard for anything outside of their "norm" when I was chosen as one of the 17 Best Dressed Girls in America (Aug, 200smilies/cool.gif... I already had a half-sleeve tattoo and while they wanted to feature me, they made darn sure to cover up my tattoo in the photo with an info tab. It's a shame that I (and other females) are only worthy of being in their magazine if we can conform to their specifications. as a heavily tattooed former fan of Seventeen, I immediately stopped reading and decided to pursue fashion publication elsewhere.

way to go jamie!
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written by marla1005, June 16, 2010
I used to subscribe to Seventeen and loved it, until they got a new editor a few years ago. She was a judge on America's Next Top Model and immediately the issues turned to modeling and guy articles, instead of the self-confidence vibe it used to have. I was very disappointed and fed up with the trashy change and stopped subscribing. It's nice to know that it wasn't just me, that someone else has noticed the trend and is speaking up about it. I think her project is brilliant. I hope it gets all the attention it deserves.
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written by dana thomas, June 16, 2010
curious -- why did you change her course of study at U Chi to "women's studies" when she herself stated on her website that she will be looking into "gender studies" at college? please tell me that it was an oversight and not the wishful thinking of a second-wave BUST staffer to erase the small-but-to-be-celebrated progress of 21st-century academia.
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written by Kristy H, June 16, 2010
This girl is AMAZING! She writes so well it's almost unbelievable that she's a senior in high school! Whatever her future pursuits may be, she will do a fabulous job! And, I must admit, I'm a little jealous of her intellect, talent, wit, and ability to apply her passions to her life in the present.
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written by darling, June 16, 2010
I know this isn't the point of her blog, but...

I think it's problematic that she disregards empirical evidence that these magazines do in fact affect the way girls who regularly read them interact with their environments. Her friends, the cited sample, are presumably somewhat similar to her in age, class and level of social awareness- the average 14-16 year-old has not taken gender studies classes and doesn't know what "heteronormative" means; thus the primary audience is differently affected than this author who claims that no teens really listen to this.

I wrote a thesis on gender roles in heterosexual teenage dating in print media, including 40 pages about the past three years of dating tips in Seventeen. I know my teen magazine influence stuff. This also means that eight different people sent me the link to this blog, in spite of my extreme disgust with anything to do with the magazine, so I may be biased toward finding fault.
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written by Jenny C, June 16, 2010
Too bad she hasn't done anything actually related to Seventeen Magazine at all since about the 4th day. She started out actually following the stated goals of her project and transformed the blog into a place to rip apart the magazine. The writing may be good but I don't understand this major obsession. Everyone says they love the idea of the "project", but in reality the project doesn't exist. It's just a blog complaining about teen culture; this is a major oversight on the part of half the women of the internet.
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written by Laura C., June 16, 2010
Jamie is awesome! for awhile in middle school I was into girl mags like Seventeen and Twist, but I never felt good about myself. These mags make you feel like your looks, your body and your lifestyle is not good enough. And I couldn't understand this obsession with boys....like girls had to put them up on a soap box. I was never the cute, smiley, preppy, cheery, girly teen. I was round, brown and had a mouth like a sailor.
I say way to go Jamie!
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written by HannahC, June 17, 2010
I've always hated 17 and any magazine with the word "cosmo" in it. Although...I can't help but think how fun it might be to live strictly by BUST for a few weeks.
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written by Cazare in Romania, January 30, 2012
I never heard about her, but now i am curious about it!smilies/grin.gif

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