Seventeen Magazine Stupidity

I have been busy working on a pair of monster posts going up at Pillar this week, so I haven't been writing as much. A nasty case of writer's block last week didn't help either. Despite my busyness, I felt the need to share one amazing part of my day, though.

I was standing in the line at Walmart, waiting to check out with groceries. The headline of Seventeen magazine (which is pure rot, as a side note) caught my eye: Finally!—the secret to getting ANY guy you want! Now, obviously, they're trying to sell a magazine, and headlines are the place for hyperbole in the art of sale. To some extent, no doubt, they're succeeding: they did, after all, catch my attention despite my best attempts to avoid looking anywhere near the garbage that is the checkout-line magazine-rack.

But really? The final secret, so that a girl can have any guy she wants? Just one short magazine article with some tips, and BAM!—she's a man magnet for whoever she sets her eyes on? Brad Pitt, Johnny Depp, and Robert Downey, Jr., look out: a horde of high school girls are headed your way with head-turning, heart-stopping, ardor-inducing secrets. You may be mobbed by dozens at once, finally being so overwhelmed by falling madly in love with all of them at the same time that you soon pass out from the sheer emotional intensity of it all. High school football captains, attractive nerdy guys, and guitar-players should also be warned: any current relationships you are in are almost certainly doomed if another girl has set her eye on you. If your current girlfriend has read the magazine, too, you are certain to face an onslaught of conflicting, confusing, and calamitous thoughts and emotions as you are subjected to the whims of every woman who finds you passingly attractive.

The sheer inanity of it all astounds even me.