Awesome Teen Mag

Think back. Way back. Back to a time when there was no email. No text messaging. No, dare we say it, Awesome Teen Magazine. It was a simpler time, when your friends called your landline and politely asked your mom if you were home when they needed to chat. A time when the mailman at the door meant more than the arrival of your latest credit card bill. Getting a letter in the mail was the ultimate afterschool rush (next to getting home in time for Kids Incorporated or Ducktales, natch!). In fact, hearing your mom say “you’ve got mail” might even have been better than when the AOL guy started saying it!

But there was one letter that we didn’t want to get. The dreaded chain letter. It was horrible…hanging over our head like a school assignment that required building a diorama. We knew if we didn’t send it to at least 10 of our friends, we’d have bad luck for the rest of our lives. If we lived that long! (wait..is this why we’re still single? Someone send us a chain letter so we can change our luck!) And who the heck was this Anita Friend listed as the sender? We didn’t know anyone named Anita!

Luckily, as we got older, the nightmares about broken chain letters faded. We turned to daily postal offerings through email and found nothing but happiness and good times as we answered electronic communications from our BFF and that adorable guy from algebra. Sigh. But then it happened. The chain letter went digital. Suddenly, our inbox was a house of postal horrors as that stupid “send this or else” reared its ugly head once more. But now it was in Times New Roman.

While the chain letter still scares the bejeezus out of us (yes, that’s how you spell it), we are actually more interested in its kinder, gentler cousin: the survey. These resourceful gems started making the rounds in the late 90s and by Y2K they were all the rage. Questions about your best asset (never say “eyes,” girls, it’s like saying you have a great personality) and how many people you’ve kissed…it didn’t get more fun. It was a great way to talk about yourself without sounding vain and even better: a great way to learn all about your crush without asking. How many other opportunities do you have to ask him how many kids he wants to have and what his most embarrassing moment was?? For serious.

And now with the dawn of Facebook, the surveys are back! No more wondering if our BFF considers us her best pal back. No questions about whether or not that hot guy from the mailroom has a secret crush on Heather Locklear (ew, she’s way old!) It’s all out in the open for us to read and live by. Afterall, if that super cute across the hall neighbor loves pepperoni and anchovies on his pizza, we might just have to ask the delivery guy to “accidentally” mix up our orders so we can trade them back. And do so while wearing the jersey of his favorite team, listening to his favorite band on our iPod and smelling like his favorite scent. As long as that scent isn’t gasoline.

That said, the survey does have it’s drawbacks. Remember about six months after the initial excitement of the email survey? When all the hubub (again, spelled correctly, thanks) died down and every other email in your inbox had the subject “All About Me!”? It got to be a bit much. Friends who’d already sent their own answers were now answering the same questions again. Other times, the questions morphed from “what’s your favorite color?” to “what’s your favorite shade of blue?” Even worse, some of your friends posted bulletins with “OMG! I’m pregnant!” just to trick you into opening the survey that tells you no more than what time it is and what they’re wearing. What the hell kind of passive aggressive chain letter crap is that? Not cool! Thus, despite their helpful aspects, we at ATM are asking that our readers put a stop to the FB survey trend. Just think about how annoying it will be in six months when that no longer hot guy from the mailroom sends out his fifth “25 things about me” and this time answers on behalf of his golden retriever. Whose best feature, incidentally, is her eyes.

Editors Note: Having said all that, when we were tagged in our friends “25 Things About Me” post today the scared 6th grader in us came out.  There was no way we couldn’t not fill it out! We can’t chance not having friends or being single the rest of our lives.  So…click here  for our answers!