The tragic result of old people trying to be "hip"

     -By LaTaviya Goldstien-Martinez

I thought you might find this interesting. This is a scan of the actual cancellation letter send to me by Seventeen Magazine. My subscription finally ran out and this is their "hip, cool, dope" new way to get me to renew. As you can see, it uses that horrible instant message style slang and punctuation that marketing execs and focus groups think so many teens are fond of. Why teenagers are too busy to type complete sentences is beyond me. Things like this make me totally rejoice in the fact that I'm 20 now and those god awful teen years are gone forever! Also, note the smiley faces and double exclamation points, and this is a real actual company issued document. It's not like it's an email they send you or a little flyer that pops out of the magazine while you're trying to read it. This is a real professional document. Someone sat around and thought, "Damn! Teens just aren't renewing the magazine. How could we get them to do it?" Then someone suggested, "what if we use scare tactics, tell them life is scary without the magazine and they won't know how to be cool if they don't read it?" But then another person was like, "we've got to deliver this message in a way they can understand. Hmm, what could we do? I've got it, 'teen lingo' that horrible grammar and punctuation they always use when they're sending IMs!" And the board met and agreed on it and... this was the result. Ah, the dumbing down of America.