Teen titles are not having it any easier during this recession than any other magazines. Just look at the cruel (or some would say, karmic) fate of CosmoGIRL! earlier this month, or Teen People, or ELLEgirl.

So with only a few titles left, including omg, Tiger Beat(!), how can teen editors reasonably expect to compete in an industry with sagging ad sales and a increasingly disinterested audience that would rather go online than pay five bucks for the same stories they could get for free on the net?

Why, offer them what every girl wants, obviously. A store to hang out and drink smoothies in all day long. In the maaaaaaaall.

CONTINUED »

This is everyone's fault: Beverley Hills Chihuahua, the most asinine Disney movie ever produced, reached number one at the box office this weekend with an opening $29 million. While it's good to see that some movies this season can end up making more than they spent on their budget, did it have to be this film?

Once again, America is letting its entire economy be decided by tweens who think Miley Cyrus is a grown-up. We need to reclaim our country's culture from 12-year olds, otherwise every other movie is going to be a sequel of this piece of trash or another reimagining of Dukes of Hazzard.

Have a friend that's done you wrong? Disney is now providing you with an unintentional revenge opportunity: a five a.m. wake-up call from their controversial tween money-machine Miley Cyrus.

The back-to-school site Hannah Montana Calls is a Wall-Mart campaign purportedly for parents trying to woo their kids out of bed in the morning with a semi-personalized phone call from the singer.

But since you can type in any phone number into the website, it has a great potential for misuse. Like sex predators hounding their prey.

CONTINUED »

It's always been hard to track toddler-thru-tween obsessions, given their nature to move from Sesame Street to Barney to some anime cartoon to Hannah Montana. That, and we're not 6.

But then Hannah/Miley Cyrus secured a seven-figure book deal, for a book that will be ghost written, and it's like, UGH, maybe these fads are important and we do have to start paying attention.

Look at Mary-Kate and Ashley; they're worth, like, 15 or 20 dollars.

And now there's the huge success of iCarly, a show about a group of tween girls who have webcams.

CONTINUED »

If the gays can throw around "fag" with endearment, then so too can young girls unleash "slut" as a means of bonding. Even Seventeen editrix Atoosa Rubenstein, archbishop of tween culture code, giggles when 12-year-olds belt "you little slut" at each other. But for her part, the Times' Stephanie Rosenbloom isn't ready to let "slut," "bitch," or "cootch" enter her copy unless embedded in a soundbite. So how to call Paris Hilton a gangly ass ho without actually saying it? Like so:

Women wear T-shirts with provocative slogans. Stripping and pole dancing is an au courant way to exercise. Paris Hilton is called an “American cultural icon” on Sephora .com, where she sells $49 perfume.

See? Thursday Styles can be informative. Without Stephanie's instruction, we never would've been able to call Jessica Simpson a semen stain with such integrity: "Female celebrities are lauded for their sexual empowerment. By sleeping with more than three men at a time, starlets beam independence. Jessica Simpson is one of the most in-demand Hollywood "It" girls even though she only guy she keeps around more than one night is her gay hairstylist."

The Taming of the Slur [Stephanie Rosenbloom, NYT]