Youth culture–the term is a contentious one. For some, it is nothing more than a marketing term meant to pander to the under-20 set. For others, it represents a real movement where rites of passage, such as experiencing heartbreak for the first time or losing one’s virginity, can be discussed openly and with empathy.
Despite this disagreement, it cannot be denied that the youth are a force to be reckoned with. Just last May, Leloy Claudio, an assistant professor from the Political Science Department, wrote an opinion piece for GMA News Online; in it, he talks about how the Philippine Daily Inquirer must be open to new blood if it wishes to keep up with the times. Truly, the divide between the young and old is never more visible than in a culture where a premium is placed on seniority.
The youth culture publication, as a result, exists as a mirror for the underground and undiscovered. As long as there are things transpiring beneath the surface, there will always be an interest in the up-and-coming.
Different strokes
The newly legal Young Star, which celebrated its 18th anniversary last May, began when Lifestyle Editor Millet Mananquil discovered her children weren’t reading the newspaper because they found nothing in there for them. Since then, the Philippine Star’s youth culture section has passed through the hands of notable writers like Jessica Zafra and Celine Lopez.
Raymond Ang (AB IS ‘10), its current editor, was brought in for a reboot in the section’s 15th year. In the beginning, readers were confused as to why it was featuring talented yet relatively unknown achievers. “[Critics] would say, ‘But they’re not good-looking, they’re not from this family, they’re not the child of this artista,’” he recalls.
Cai Subijano, Editor-in-chief of the youth publication Scout (Photo from Cai Subijano)
However, these comments didn’t deter Ang from featuring people like Hannah Reyes, then a 20-year-old student and photographer from the University of the Philippines who had already shot for publications like The New York Times, The Guardian and Time. “I was thinking those are the kids you want to look up to,” he says. “Because when I was a kid, I remember feeling as if [I wasn’t] part of the culture when I would look at these magazine and see all of these good-looking models. What was I to get from that, that you have to be born good-looking?”
Youth culture publications exist for a reason; at its core, the medium seeks to lend a voice to those who deserve it. For Young Star, this meant focusing on actual merit over high society privilege. For Maine Manalansan, the founding editor-in-chief of the online Stache Magazine, it meant responding to a frustration with the way things were.
“I remember seeing works by Rob Cham or Kitkat Pecson [that would get] only 150 likes [on Tumblr],” she explains, contrasting them with the selfies of the “Tumblr-famous” that would receive likes by the thousands. After discovering that many of her friends shared the common goal of working for a magazine, she and her band of creatives set out to build Stache from scratch.
As for Cai Subijano, editor-in-chief of the recently launched Scout, a publication under the Philippine Daily Inquirer, she was drawn to Tavi Gevinson’s American online magazine, Rookie. “Tavi and her band of writers just have a way of taking a personal life experiences and extracting wisdom and truth in a way that is both comforting and illuminating,” Subijano continues. “I thought, ‘What about my generation?’ We didn’t have anything close to that.”
True grit
The secret to success in this industry is best summarized by a maxim that Subijano lives by: “Hard work trumps talent.” A certain fearlessness may also be a prerequisite: “A lot of young people want to get into creative industries like publishing, but a lot of the time, they hesitate to submit their work because they’re too intimidated by institutions,” notes Subijano.
To come up with something noteworthy, one has to be ready for everything that this entails. Makeshift shoots, missed deadlines and odd hours—these are just some of the challenges publications deal with on a regular basis.
There are also eccentric interviews, for instance, like the ones for mysterious Filipino author Bob Ong, who masks his true identity with a pseudonym. When Stache profiled him for its literary issue, Manalansan had to conduct the interview solely through Facebook; while it was only supposed to last for two hours, it ended up extending well beyond this timeframe due to his faulty Internet connection.
On a more serious note, Manalansan recalls the time when Stache almost didn’t have a cover story because the assigned writer failed to send the article in on time. “I remember following up on her article an hour before the release but she wasn’t replying, so we had to come up with something on the spot,” she adds. “It was terrible.”
Although working on an independent publication like Stache comes with a great deal of artistic freedom, communication senior MV Isip believes that this model has a downside too. “There really isn’t much money from ads,” she explains, adding that having a limited budget can, to an extent, dictate the output of a publication.
Another thing that publications—both print and digital—have to contend with is the ever-changing tastes of the youth. “When I became the editor, I was 22 or 23 [years old], and when you’re that age, you know exactly what youth culture is. You know what’s cool, you know who’s cool. It was so easy,” Ang shares. Now that he’s older and no longer consumes the same culture as most Young Star readers do, he approaches different people from various fields to stay on trend.
Maine Manalansan, Founding editor-in-chief of the online Stache magazine (Photo from Maine Manalansan)
Born to be wild
As they say, all good things must come to an end. Unfortunately for Stache, this came sooner than expected. It signed off with its 20th and final issue last April, a move that surprised many of its loyal followers.
“When we first put up Stache, it was like a dream come true for most of us. We were running our own publication without the actual rules of the publishing industry,” Manalansan explains. “But as time passed, some of us started to feel like… the creative and editorial direction was mismatched from our original one, so we figured that [it would be] better to end it now and start fresh than to see it crumble to pieces.”
While this was a loss for both readers and writers, it certainly does not signal the decline of youth culture publications. “[Youth culture publications are] all the more important as an avenue of expression because such publications open the floor for collaboration,” says Isip.
If anything, the void Stache has left behind is an open call for fearless young people who want to be the voice of their generation. According to Manalansan, youth culture publications tend to be braver than the older ones: “They’re not bound by the rules because they create their own.”
Subijano echoes this sentiment, adding that she sees the current local youth culture as “raw, uninhibited and defiant.” Now more than ever, young people are raring to showcase their talents to the world. “I started Scout knowing that one day, I would age out of it, and knowing that young people are so eager and brimming with talent makes me feel optimistic about the magazine’s future.”
Only time will tell what the future holds for these publications, but for now, one thing is certain: The young and the restless are smart, talented and in it for the long haul.
[seperator style=”style1″]For the youth, by the youth[/seperator]
Research By Ishbelle L. Bongato
These issues prove that when it comes to defining the lifestyle of our generation, youth culture publications from around the world have done a stellar job thus far.
[columns][four-columns]Status, Manila (June 2012)
Status draws inspiration from the urban culture of cosmopolitan cities like Seoul, Paris and New York. In its Green Issue, Status highlights Australian supermodel Miranda Kerr’s eco-friendly lifestyle. It also introduces innovative environmental groups, such as the Manila-based A Liter of Light, which brings plastic bottle lights to communities living without electricity.
[/four-columns][four-columns]Dazed & Confused, London (February 2014)
Dazed & Confused is a British magazine known for its eclectic mix of music, film, politics and fashion. 12 Years A Slave (2013) star Lupita Nyong’o graces the cover of its Girls Rule the World Issue, which tackles the subject of modern feminism head on. Its pages are filled with discussions on topics ranging from pornography to sexual dominance.
[/four-columns][four-columns]Paper, New York (September 2012)
If New York were a magazine, it would be Paper: A whirlwind of fashion, art and nightlife. Not many magazines dare to defy conventional fashion norms, but Paper isn’t afraid to experiment in this Fall Fashion Mind Benders special. The centerpiece of this issue is a photo spread of Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012) actor Ezra Miller dressed in drag, complete with red lipstick and high heels.
[/four-columns][four-columns]Acne Paper, Stockholm (Spring 2013)
Acne Paper is a biannual magazine published by luxury Swedish fashion house Acne Studios; every issue explores a chosen theme through poetry, prose, photos and illustrations. Its 13th issue, The Body, traces the evolution of our perception of beauty over time and contains in-depth interviews with great visual artists like Lillian Bassman and Gillian Wearing.
[/four-columns][/columns]
What the.. Losing one’s virginity at a young age (less than 21 years old is much too young, especially for a “Christian” nation) is not a rite of passage.
Oh, dear. I hope my fellow Ateneans have an objectively correct understanding of purity, chastity and virginity. Pay attention to our Theology 131 course, and remember that for Christians (note: our university is a Filipino, Jesuit, and Catholic educational institution), virginity is something you lose in marriage—not to some kid you think you truly love.
Wise up, and grow up first.