Commentary by Susan Brinkmann, OCDS

With a sigh of (partial) relief, I am happy to report that the controversial teen magazine, Teen Vogue, has shut down its print edition and will revert to an on-line version only.

Women’s Wear Daily is reporting that the magazine has been shuttered in a cost-cutting effort by owner Conde Nast that resulted in the slashing of 80 jobs. While its other publications, such as GQ, Glamour, Allure, Bon Appetit, will experience a reduction in the number of issues, Teen Vogue, which was cut from 12 issues to just 5 last year, was shut down entirely with the hopes of capitalizing on what it describes as “tremendous audience growth” on-line.

“As audiences continue to evolve around content consumption, we will modernize and calibrate how, where and when we produce and distribute our content to be in sync with the cultural moments and platforms most important to our audiences,” the publisher said in a statement to The Hollywood Reporter. “Though the quarterly print editions will cease publishing on a regular schedule, we will explore re-imagined special issues timed to specific moments (vs. months) as we do in social.”

The fate of its new editor, Elaine Welteroth, who sparked one controversy after another since she took over the magazine last year, is still unknown. There is speculation that she will become the editor-in-chief of Glamour or Allure.

Welteroth is the editor who began to introduce far-left politics into the magazine as well as sexual content so vile that it sparked magazine burnings and a backlash of parental outrage.

For example, the magazine came under fire in February of this year for an article suggesting the “perfect gifts” for post-abortive teens. The choices included “angry uterus heating pads” and a Ruth Bader Ginsburg coloring book.

In July of this year, the magazine published an article entitled “Anal Sex: What You Need to Know” which provided teen girls with graphic instructions on how to engage in sodomy.  When confronted for this dangerously irresponsible article, the magazine’s digital editor, Phillip Picardi resorted to the usual tactics used by the intolerant left by branding all complainers as “homophobic.”

This resulted in a literal firestorm online when Elizabeth Johnson, known as The Activist Mommy, posted a video of herself burning the magazine. It went viral and sparked a campaign to #pullteenvogue.

Whether this controversial year had anything to do with the decision to cut the magazine is anyone’s guess; the publisher insists that it did so for financial reasons.

However, Teen Vogue isn’t entirely out of our hair yet. They’re sponsoring the first Teen Vogue Summit in Los Angeles next month which will feature Hillary Rodham Clinton and several other “activist” speakers. The two-day event will offer a variety of workshops and @Werk immersion sessions. With a hefty price tag ranging from $299 to $549, it’s debatable how many teens will actually be attending this event.

The other problem is that Phillip Picardi, who defended the magazine against its “homophobic” critics, will be the digital editor of the on-line version of the magazine.

Even though it’s good that this raunchy magazine will no longer be staring us in the face as we stand in line at the supermarket, parents need to remain vigilant about what their teens are reading on-line. This is especially true with girls who are being bombarded with negative messaging packaged as “fashion” and “trendy looks.”

As our Young Women of Grace study teaches, women are not the sum total of their body parts. We are meant to infuse this dark world with the bright light of our feminine genius, to allow our unique sensitivity and generosity to melt the coldness of hearts that divide us, to bring our life-giving maternity into a culture that embraces death, to allow our receptivity to open the doors to respectful dialogue.

Women have too important a role to play in this world to allow ourselves to be sidelined by the “body beautiful” crowd who is only too content to keep us on the cover of magazines where we will remain just another pretty face.

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