Ridiculous media pressure

Thriftylady

I treated myself to a copy of REAL magazine yesterday, which I always find to be quite an intelligent womens magazine with a decent balance of fashion and makeup (which lets face it, most of us ladies like) and articles on all sorts of real life issues. In fact, not that long ago they ran an article about people who had committed suicide due to the pressure of debt. So, there I was flicking through some frivolous article called something like '40 things you must do before you're 40' and one of them was 'Spend £1000 on one day on clothes' !!!! It actually said to make sure you extend your credit card limit before you hit the shops. What kind of moron writes these things?

Now, having said that, if you actually believe this sort of article and go through it ticking the things off as you do them, then you have pretty big problems to begin with, but what bothers me is that this makes it look like running up £1000 bill on your credit card on clothes is not only the norm, its desirable.:mad:

dinkylou

Yep, agree with you.

The person who wrote this is either very stupid or earns a ridiculous salary with no committments and no concept of how the rest of the UK live.

To be honest, I've stopped reading these sorts of magazines. They just encourage you to spend or make you feel too fat or otherwise inadequate. I never finish reading one and feel good about myself.

lynzpower

Dont get me started on magazines, I think Ive been here before ( ranting I mean)

Id love to know what its like working in mag-land where the atmostphere seems to be dominated by spending. Buy this buy that. Thats all it is.
the cooking in the glossies is all king prawns and swordfish, and the bits that wind me right up- heres the designer version ( dress @ 1500- cheapie version 600?) I mean I just dont get it :mad: I dont know which one it is but theres a mag ( might be marie clare) that has cash/cheque/credit card slot with say 3 pink handbags the cash one is more than Id ever spend a month on clothes, then the next most expensive = cheque and then a superdesigner one at 3 times the cash one =credit card! Oh yeah, instead of buying the cheapie one we can afford with cash, we recommend banging one you cant afford on a credit card . riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight

Why are credit cards so aspirational ?The mastercard adverts is another? Why does flashing the plastic be something associated with "success" as It does seem to be? Marketing? Or another reason?

EDIT- thrifylady, why not write into the letters page about this, come on, you might win a prize you can sell :T

lady_fuschia

It makes you wonder how much women's mag journalists earn...
A friend and I once picked up a book in a bookshop called "1001 things you MUST do before you get married." - admittedly I don't think you were supposed to take it too literally, but we did work out that if you planned to get married at 30 you'd have to be earning around £40 grand a year from the age of 21 in order to be able to afford to do them all in time!
Lynz: I'm glad someone else gasps in disbelief at those spree/ steal pages. "Get a cheapo version of Kate Moss's latest look for only £200." - It'd be nice if one day they did a Designer, versus New Look, versus Primark, versus Oxfam, versus swapping stuff with friends, to see how cheap they could really get the look.

Thriftylady

I used to love the monthly glossy magazines, although I always accepted that since I don't live in London, or any other big city, about 90% of what they said was irrelevant to me anyway! I don't think I would have been shocked if this had been in Marie Claire or Red magazine, they are so very obviously aimed at this type of aspirational lifestyle and spending, but it was the fact that it was in a magazine which makes a big deal of being aimed at the ordinary woman and even has the audacity to call itself REAL. Its not real in my world.....

James240

Totally agree with this, you cant help but open magazines these days and hold it by the magazine cover and all the credit card applications come falling out, as well as the "so called" scratch cards that u end up having to phone an expensive premium number to check what pile of carp u have won....As for this article its seems to becoming the norm especially in these types of womens magazines, also i bought a copy of "Max Power" (yeah i know :rolleyes: :rotfl: ) and the amount of credit card leaflets that fell out was amazing because they know that car modifications cost the earth. There was also an article saying u can spread the cost of anything u can buy with maxpower at the cost of 29.9%!!! unbelievable!!

livinginhope

Hi thriftylady,totally agree with you on this.Woman and Woman's own do this splurge/budget articles on clothes,makes me :mad:
Have to say that this is the REAL world these days,before DFW if we couldn't afford it,it would have gone on plastic.Now we have all learned the error of our ways we want to shout out to the world that this behaviour is so wrong,problem is noone seems to listen,until they come on here that is

scottishspendaholic

Absolutely agree with everyone.

I definitely think you should write that letter to complain - might get yourself a nice prize. They've obviously got more money than they know what to do with anyway!

scottishspendaholic x

lazy&indebt

I totally agree! These magazines sre aimed at us and trying to make us into an army of preened, manicured, plastic-flashing women. To be one, you must work in an office and you must own a pair of prada shoes to wear to work (my work shoes were from new look and given to me by my sister!) we have to wash our hair in £10 a bottle shampoo and conditioner, we must have our nails done every two weeks and our highlighs maintained every month (i am a natural brunette - and proud!) we must belong to a £50 per month gym and we must own a DKNY bag at £500.

I tell thee - my philosophy on this is - I don't NEED to spend £100s to look good. Women in these magazines obviously do!

Thriftylady

:rotfl:

have looked at the letters page and the prize for the star letter is.......some sort of mobile and sim card specifically for using abroad. Presumably that trip abroad will have to go on the credit card along with the £1000 of clothes !!!

lynzpower

hahha well couldnt you write the letter anyway- im sure you could even do it by email. Im sure youd find someone to buy it off you- or you could always pass it on to another DFW, there was a lassie on here who is an air stweardess not to long since, you never know who could benefit.

Its about time that women stood up for ourselves and said, stop spending money on "looking good". In the war days women looked very well groomed using a blackpencil to do stocking lines and setting lotions which you can get now for 2 for a quid in my local poundshop. Its these sort of attidues regressing feminism to the nth degree and Dear Godess! It makes me so effing MAD