Karly

The internet loves to tell girls what they need. The right skincare routine, the best lip combo, the perfect playlist for your morning matcha, and now, a new wave of teen magazines is promising to package it all in one place.

Makeup advice, endless nail inspo, cute outfits, influencer interviews. Everything a girl needs. Right?

At first glance, it’s fun. It’s nostalgic. It takes me back to reading my first Teen Vogue at 12 years old; it feels like the 2000s came back with better fonts. But then the question creeps in. Is this really everything? Is this what girlhood is supposed to look like?

Because as much as I love beauty and fashion, something about these £12 printed Pinterest boards makes me pause. The glossy covers are cute, but the contents often feel like curated consumerism dressed up as empowerment. Pages and pages of things to buy, wear, apply, and post. But very little to feel, think, or question.

The Myth of “Everything a Girl Needs”

There is nothing wrong with pretty things. I love a good lipstick as much as the next person. I have spent an embarrassing amount of time figuring out whether I am a winter or a deep autumn. I would be lying if I said I didn’t start drinking matcha not for the health benefits, but because, thanks to Instagram, I discovered Jenki in Selfridges and then transitioned to Blank Street (in full transparency, given the choice, I still prefer the lemon iced tea). But girls are not just shopping lists and skincare cycles. We are curious, chaotic, and clever. We are scared and ambitious and sometimes both at once. We want poetry, and politics, and perspective. Not just products.

These magazines claim to provide everything you need, but they often overlook anything that might cause a mess. There is no room for complexity, no space for contradiction. No heartbreak, no hunger for meaning, no quiet moments of doubt. Just glossy optimism and curated confidence.

And then there are the influencer interviews.

I don’t mind influencer culture. Honestly, I find it incredibly comforting. I consider Saff Michaelis my parasocial bestie, even though I’m older than her and she has a full baby. A very cute one, by the way. Love you, Spicy Marge. I have spent afternoons scrolling through playlists, skincare routines, and “what’s in my bag” videos. But when teen magazines reduce girlhood to a few influencer features and aesthetic product spreads, it flattens something so much richer.

It’s not that influencers themselves are shallow. It’s the way they are used. The interviews rarely go deeper than beauty tips or outfit formulas. The assumption is that this is what girls care about most. That this is what defines us.

Shoes. Makeup. Hair. Skincare. Outfits.

And that’s fine, to an extent. But when that becomes the entire picture, something essential gets lost. The feelings. The questions. The inner life. The parts of girlhood that are raw, brilliant, difficult, and real.

Print Isn’t Dead, But Depth Shouldn’t Be Either

I love print. I love turning real pages. I love the idea of magazines that feel like something you want to keep on your shelf, not just scroll past. But I also want something worth reading. Not just scanning for links to cute shoes.

If I’m paying £12, I want more than just inspiration boards and shopping tips. I want something that treats girlhood as complicated and rich. Something that trusts girls to care about more than beauty. I want stories, essays, questions. I want pages that surprise me.

I want a magazine that leaves space for literature and language, for grief and joy, for being smart and sensitive at the same time. A space where you can write about lip gloss and The Bell Jar without being told to pick a lane.

The Girls Deserve Better

This isn’t about tearing anyone down. It’s about asking for more. Because the girls I know are brilliant and bored and burning out. They are thoughtful, funny, emotional, political. They want to be seen as people, not just as consumers. And they deserve media that reflects that.

Beauty can be part of the story, but it cannot be the whole plot. We are allowed to want more. We are allowed to expect depth. We are allowed to say that not every shiny new thing is revolutionary.

Especially when it forgets that girls are already full of everything they need.

And maybe this is the tipping point. Maybe this is the nudge I needed to turn Nonsense & Lit into a magazine. At least a digital one for now. Something with essays and interviews, poetry and pop lyrics, without losing the “aesthetic” touch of a glossy magazine.

Stay tuned.