Shelved: Jane Magazine | Varyer
Jane Magazine
By Paige Hanserd

By Paige Hanserd

I grew up in a cult and magazines were my only escape to real life
always more inclined to magazines that skewed more alt or bad girl lol. I was a little too young to catch Sassy, but I’ll never forget the first time I picked up a Jane. It was at Borders in 2010. I’d never considered reading the Editor’s note section of any magazine because who gives a shit, but Jane’s POV in the Editor’s note was half the fun of reading the magazine. She would spill all the celebrity tea and sometimes talk a lot of shit. She made besties with Pamela Anderson during her cover issue because Pamela wrote her a polite but stern email about hating the cover image they went with. She respected that and gave Pam her own column that ran for a few years in Jane.

Idk if magazines do this anymore, but there was this section where readers could write in with comments on the last issue. Something I think should come back if it’s gone…there was one issue where Christina Ricci was the cover girl and in her feature, she talked about her battles with ED and how Hollywood was the cause. So many people wrote in to say she was “too skinny” and Jane was just like “fuck all y’all” lol, “don’t read Jane anymore if you're going to be body shame-y” and this was in 2002! Preteen me loved that.

Before I knew what feminism was, I had it in Jane magazine. Now it’s dated and pretty white and I cringe at some of the articles now, but it paved the way for a lot of women to be who they wanted to be and as cliche as that seems now, I am still very inspired by that reminder.

Forever thankful to Jane <3

Case in point: when we approached Mickey Rourke, he took one look at our sample photos and snarled, "Sorry, I've got enough of those already."

Writer/god Hunter S. Thompson thinks that if you don't have any sex or adventure in your life, then you're a stupid, insufferable nerd.