Aiming at the Hip

Ask any adult who Mark Lindsay is and he will guess, maybe the son of New York's mayor? He is not. He is the positively super-fab lead singer of Paul Revere and the Raiders. Anyone who does not know that is obviously lame, a noid--or perhaps just over 25 and into the twilight of life. To stop being such a square or a jerk paranoid type, all that is necessary is to start digging a new breed of magazine that is aimed at the hip teenager.

There are some 30 million teens in the U.S., and they spend $12 billion each year. That enchanting fact has prompted publishers to go after a share of the teen green. The first adolescent stirrings were detected more than ten years ago when two events of major import to teendom coincided: the birth of Elvis Presley as an idol and the death of James Dean. Suddenly publications bearing either one's name were selling half a million copies. Soon magazines were riding, first, the Beatles, then the Rolling Stones, and now the Monkees. Currently, half a dozen monthlies are healthily selling half a million copies and more.

Tooth & Nose. Their audience is al most entirely girls. Brothers and boy friends mostly stick to Mad, car magazines and Playboy. So teen publishers tune their message to girls between ten and 18. The leader of the pack is still Seventeen (circ. 1,300,000), but Seventeen is now 23 years old and tends to look ahead to marriage and other grown-up matters. The newer formula includes fashion, fiction, personal and beauty advice and fan articles on teen heroes--mostly recording stars. The blend varies, but all the mags strive to respond to their readers' letters.

There are a phenomenal number of these letters. Among them, such magazines as Ingenue, 16 and 'Teen handle more than 50,000 a month. Says Robert MacLeod of 'Teen: "It demonsrates these girls' great hunger to be involved. A magazine is a personal thing to them." Some of the letters are sad.

Wrote one North Dakota teen: "After your article about plastic surgery, I've been doing even more wishful thinking about a nose job." She was 14. A Las Vegas 13-year-old scrawled: "I wonder where I could get in on the action." Some are just refreshingly silly: "My problem is my big teeth. They stick out like a sore nose." "Enclosed is a picture of me. My friends think I'm ugly --and I'm not sure." "It's Halloween, and I feel like a witch. Can you help?"

A Copy to Love. Reading the letters is "our chief method of staying in touch," says Charles Laufer, a minor mogul in the business, since he now publishes two magazines--Tiger Beat and Official Monkee Spectacular--and next month plans to add a new one, Fave (teenage slang for favorite). In addition to the letters, though, the staffs keep in touch simply by being young themselves; they average 23 or 24. Says Teen Screen Executive Editor Janey Milstead, who is a creaky 27: "It would help if you never grew up."

Stephen Kahn, 26, boss of Flip, agrees, plans to semiretire and practice law when he reaches 30. Kahn is an old hand, has been writing for teen magazines since he was 16. Like most of the successful publishers, he is very high on teens. "The kids are straight," he contends. "They want honesty. You cannot fake them out. These books are sexless, innocent, good books. When the girls get older and begin to think about sex, they can go on to other magazines. We're through with them."

He might have added that when he says "through with them," he really means it. The girls are enticed into buying such mail-order products as $3.98 sweatshirts and $3.50 magazine binders. Lists of the subscribers are frequently leased out to record companies and non-teen magazines. Advertisers are paying increased attention, and to keep them up to date, 'Teen distributes a poop sheet on what's hot, including the newest terms (at the moment, an attractive guy or boy friend is a "major animal"). But perhaps the biggest sign of the teen magazines' specialized success is the sale of back issues. They are so sought after by readers anxious for an unripped copy to keep and love that the normal newsstand price of 35-c- moves up to 50-c- a month later.

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