Navigating The Web: A Map of Youth Media

When you're young it can feel like everything you read online is trying to pin you down, get your demographics, tell you who you are and what you should buy. Visiting the Web in search of something real to read can leave you wading through a swamp of flashing banner ads and catchy tag lines, full of hidden pitfalls and money traps. It can be frustrating when it seems like, instead of providing useful information, most websites are just trying to sell you something. And with 14.3 million young people (ages 12-24) on the Web every month, there's a lot of potential for marketing executives to attract your eyes and empty your pockets.

Corporations like Gloss.com (Your Online Beauty Store), Ecrush.com, Drugstore.com and Maybelline.com haven't missed a beat in their race to harness a chunk of the collective $275 billion tech-savvy teens have in disposable income. Targeting young women specifically, online "girly" zines have sprung up all over the Web -- offering free e-mail, homepages, message boards and chat rooms as lures into their online shopping malls.

On the flip side are the multitude of personal zines put out by individuals or small groups that are often truthful, raw and uncensored, but not quite as well developed or exciting to look at. If online youth media were a spectrum, most of it would fall somewhere on either tip. There are a few sites which straddle the divide -- that involve youth and media professionals in partnerships, and address issues that delve deeper than the usual "What should I wear to prom?" sort of babble. Most of these sites, like Brat.org, come out of non-profit organizations or schools, while several are created by very devoted volunteers.

A Little News With Your Ads?

The clues to corporate sites are pretty easy to identify: flashing banner ads dancing at the top, shopping corners, lots of commerce links. The content is usually pretty predictable, following in the footsteps of "girly mags" like YM, Seventeen and Mademoiselle -- heavy on glamour and short on substance. For example, Alloy.com -- one of the most heavily trafficked teen sites -- offers the all-too-familiar social quizzes, inviting young readers to determine: "Do You Know How to Flirt?" and "Are You a Hootchie?" Truly thought-provoking questions.

Even the more "alternative" youth webzines smack of corporate meddling. Any zine that uses words like "hurl," "supercool," or "bogus" surely has a few baby-boomers behind the wheel. And as with most things, anything young people do to sidestep the mainstream is quickly co-opted by corporate media. As reporter Andrew Sardone wrote in an article on Young People's Press Online, "young people are totally frustrated because when they create unique identities for themselves, large corporations quickly jump on them, mass produce these original styles and make major dollars."

One striking example of this is React.com -- a zine published by Parade Publications -- which attempts to determine what kind of tattoo would suit their readers with a 10-question quiz. Bolt.com, another teen website, offers style advice for teens trying to change their look; their advice for the "goth" look: "Females should make like Morticia in low-cut, long velvet dresses … lacy fitted shirts, boned corsets and lace-up boots will also make a girl seem goulish." A poll beside the column asks readers: "Which is cooler -- being a punk or a goth?" So much for trying to be unique.

Yet for all the fluff in most youth webzines, there is something to be said for corporate youth websites -- they work. With thousands of dollars backing them, dot-coms like Alloy, Chickclick, React, and Teen have the resources, technology and staff to keep their zines running: updating their content at least once a week, processing submissions from readers, facilitating chat rooms, message boards and polls and offering free e-mail accounts and other services. And every now and then, they'll come up with an article that cuts through the gloss -- such as Missclick's "Putting School On Hold" piece, which lists 16 different programs for people looking for alternatives to college. The Chicklick network -- a project of Snowball.com that has it's own shopping network called "Chickshops" -- also provides links to both commercial and young women's personal webpages, hooking the viewer up with more than 50 sites. And gURL.com, which has a substantial shopping section on their homepage, also offers its own grants as well as HTML tutorials.