Teen People

My favourite book about the internet is by the Canadian author Douglas Coupland. In his 2014 book, Kitten Clone: Inside Alcatel-Lucent, Coupland asks, “Where did the sense of invention go—the sense of futurity—the sense that by working in tech, you were somehow building a better tomorrow, a smarter tomorrow, a more democratic tomorrow?" Colette Shade begins her book, Y2K: How the 2000s Became Ever...

Party like it's 1999... in 2025! How did TEEN PEOPLE magazine usher in the new millennium? Join me as I leaf through the December 1999/January 2000 issue of TEEN PEOPLE. ................ Find me on Twitter and Instagram at TeenPeoplePod And online at www.annasoper.ca Music: Scottish Folk Song -Auld Lang Syne by Trygve Larsen on Pixabay ................ Teen People is recorded in Kingston/Katarokwi...

Teen People is inspired by my collection of TEEN PEOPLE magazines. Published between 1998 and 2006, TEEN PEOPLE featured real teens in every issue. Two decades on, I track down TEEN PEOPLE's real teens, and speak with authors delving into the late '90s and early 2000s. Join us! In 2023, I interviewed Sarah Ditum, whose book, 'Toxic: Women, Fame and the Tabloid 2000s' explores noughties pop culture...

Alonso Duralde joins me to talk about his new book, 'Hollywood Pride: A Celebration of LGBTQ+ Representation and Perseverance in Film'. Published in May 2024, 'Hollywood Pride' presents a history of film from the dawn of cinema to the "pansy craze" of the 1930s and the New Queer Cinema of the 1990s, all the way up to today. Illustrated with more than 175 colour and black-and-white images, 'Hollywo...

The Columbine massacre of April 20, 1999, was the deadliest mass shooting at a K-12 school in US history, until it was surpassed by the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in December 2012, and, later, the Uvalde school shooting in May 2022. It was the deadliest mass shooting at a high school in US history, until the Parkland high school shooting in February 2018. Ten of the twelve students kill...

TCM host Dave Karger joins me to speak about his new book, 50 OSCAR NIGHTS! Featuring Dave's original interviews with Hollywood legends like Jane Fonda, Rita Moreno, Julia Roberts, Meryl Streep, and Martin Scorsese, 50 OSCAR NIGHTS is the perfect gift for cinephiles. Dave started his career as an entertainment journalist, writing for ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY, and freelancing for TEEN PEOPLE. He spoke...

In part two of a two-part interview, I speak with Sarah Ditum about her new book, TOXIC. It’s a scathing reexamination of the lives of nine female celebrities: Britney Spears, Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan, Aaliyah, Janet Jackson, Amy Winehouse, Kim Kardashian, Chyna, and Jennifer Aniston. Each experienced some form of global fame, as well as the consequences that come with too much attention. In th...

In part one of a two-part interview, I speak with Sarah Ditum about her new book, TOXIC. It’s a scathing reexamination of the lives of nine female celebrities: Britney Spears, Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan, Aaliyah, Janet Jackson, Amy Winehouse, Kim Kardashian, Chyna, and Jennifer Aniston. Each experienced some form of global fame, as well as the consequences that come with too much attention. In TO...

Resi Ibañez is a poet, public historian, and community organizer in Lowell, Massachusetts. We connected on Instagram, when they sent me a DM asking if I could track down a TEEN PEOPLE article they remembered reading in the mid-2000s. With a few keywords and a rough idea of the timing, I searched a periodicals database I use to find guests for this podcast. I found three possible articles for Resi,...

As a teen, James Frankie Thomas modelled a prom dress and smooch-proof makeup in a 2004 issue of TEEN PEOPLE magazine. Now, he's the author of a compelling novel, IDLEWILD, published by The Overlook Press. James spoke with me about crafting this novel at the Iowa Writers' Workshop, and how he navigated the highs and lows of getting a book into the world. Plus: find out why James jokes that he and...

When Teen People magazine sent Nadia Ahmad on a shopping spree in 1998, she didn't feel cool enough to model makeup! Plus, she had just started wearing a hijab, and the 18-year-old wasn't sure how to reconcile her femininity within the norms of a teen magazine. Today, Nadia is an Associate Professor of Law at Barry University in Florida. She completed her law degree at the University of Florida; w...

Alisha Fernandez Miranda is a Cuban-American writer based in Scotland. Her memoir, 'My What If Year' was published in February 2023, and the book describes her year-long experiment doing internships in the dream jobs of her childhood. She is also the host of the award-winning podcast, 'Quit Your Day Job', which explores some of these dream careers, with people who are actually doing those jobs. Al...

If you spent hours on AOL Instant Messenger, this episode is for you! Amar Shah is a multiple Emmy award-winning writer and producer who got his start on TEEN PEOPLE magazine's News Team! He speaks with me about online friendships, making an impact, and his viral Washington Post essay; on growing up in a real-life Kwik-E-Mart. Digressions: Kobe Shaq The Great Gatsby You've Got Mail The Simpsons Je...

I don’t think of my podcast as being about TEEN PEOPLE magazine: it’s about my guests, and why they were in TEEN PEOPLE, and what they’re up to now in their 30s and 40s. But January 2023 is the 25th anniversary of TEEN PEOPLE, so I thought I’d celebrate with an episode featuring a few of the guests I’ve interviewed since I started this podcast in the spring of 2020! TEEN PEOPLE was founded in 1998...

Jenny Mushkin Goldman was 17 years old when a group of anti-abortion protestors ambushed her high school, in the summer of 1999. TEEN PEOPLE magazine was there to capture the scene, and quoted Jenny in their story, which was published in the December 1999/January 2000 issue. More than two decades later, Jenny shares her thoughts on America's post-Roe future; in a timely examination of protest, rad...

In the year 2000, TEEN PEOPLE's publisher, Anne Zehren said, presciently, "We make celebrities real, and real teens celebrities." TEEN PEOPLE featured their readers throughout each issue, printing their full names, ages, and locations; making many of them pretty easy to find online today. Where are they now? Join me, Anna Soper, as I find out! Teen People is recorded in Kingston/Katarokwi, the tra...

"We made it, we're in the Ottawa Citizen!" Dr. Ben Barry is Dean of Fashion at Parsons School of Design in New York. When he was fourteen, Ben founded a modelling agency in his hometown of Ottawa, Canada. Realizing there was an untapped market for models of all sizes, Ben made a name for himself as an agent for models of all sizes. Ben’s agency initially supplied models for the local newspaper, wh...

When Sudanë Del Valle was in her first year of college, she went back to her old high school to attend a graduation ceremony. There, she was scouted for a Teen People fashion shoot by the magazine's Editor-in-Chief, Amy Barnett; whose sister was graduating that year. Sudanë subsequently appeared in the Winter 2005 issue of Teen People—a Special Beauty Issue. Sudanë was photographed for a makeup tu...

“Other Music is like a fun, messy library for music. You almost never find what you were looking for, but you always find something you never knew you wanted.” Jaya Saxena was 17 when she was asked to describe her favourite record store in Teen People magazine's Summer Music Special of 2004. Now in her 30s, Jaya is a published author of non-fiction, and a Senior Writer at Eater.com. Like my earlie...

Like a Millennial Pygmalion, 16-year-old Frankie Thomas was plucked from the streets of New York, into the glossy studios of Teen People magazine. Their photo appeared in the March 2004 issue of Teen People (the prom issue!), under the headline "Smooch-proof Lips". Among other things, Teen People’s makeup artists suggested using lip liner as lipstick—it’ll last longer—or layering gloss over a lip...

In 2005, Rabbi Andrew Oberstein was a budding theatre kid in Los Angeles, when Teen People magazine invited him to interview Sandra Bullock. "I loved Miss Congeniality," he told me, "so I thought, 'why not take this opportunity to check out what's going on with Miss Congeniality 2?'". Before Rabbi Andrew became a rabbi, he was destined for a career on the stage, and studied musical theatre at Emer...

Gennie Gorback is an early childhood educator and President of the California Kindergarten Association. As a teenager, she joined Teen People magazine's Trendspotter club, and was featured not once, but twice, in Teen People! The first time, Gennie and her college friend Dan pranked Teen People—they weren’t actually a couple when they wrote a fake love note for publication in the magazine. As Genn...

Kerisha Harris is a corporate communications professional from Paterson, New Jersey. In the early 2000s, Kerisha was a member of Teen People magazine’s News Team, a corps of young journalists from across the US. She has since worked as a journalist, and is currently working on a Master’s degree in public relations and corporate communications from Georgetown University School of Continuing Studies...

This is Teen People, the podcast where I track down people from Teen People magazine. Where are they now? This week’s guest, Tabitha Sukhai, gives us an update. Tabitha is an award-winning digital media professional and social media strategist. She got her start as a Teen People Trendspotter, part of a network of thousands of Teen People readers who contributed original content to the magazine, pa...

Who had Bush v. Gore in a Teen People debate on their Y2K bingo card? Padraic Maroney is a writer and marketing professional from upstate New York. After moving to Philadelphia as a teenager, he created content for The Bucks County Courier Times’ 'Reality' section, written by local teens. This led to an opportunity as a Teen People Trendspotter, as well as an internship in New York. Twenty years l...