Teen People - Episode 10 - Zena Burns

Welcome to episode 10 of Teen People; the podcast that catches up with folks from Teen People magazine. This episode is a first for me, as I’m talking with a Teen People staff member! Zena Burns was Entertainment Director at Teen People magazine and Managing Editor at Teen People dot com.

Teen People’s earliest digital outreach relied on an AOL-exclusive website, and a celebrity chats feature that Zena described as something like a tin can and a string. “Digital today has made such a quantum leap,” she told me; changing media, marketing and publishing in so many ways.

Think about the media environment back then: the first iPod came out in October 2001. Napster was in its infancy. MySpace was founded in 2003. Many of us still had dial-up internet, which ran over a landline telephone.

And think about the celebrity environment: tabloid mainstays like the Olson twins, Lindsay Lohan, and Britney Spears. Before celebrities shared their lives on Instagram and TikTok, we had reality shows like The Simple Life, with Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie; The Osbournes, with the Osbourne family; and Newlyweds: Nick and Jessica, with Nick Lachey and Jessica Simpson. (“Is this chicken or is this fish?”)

Zena spoke with me about hustling her way into a job at Teen People, and how the magazine changed her life. Stay tuned for exclusive stories about Beyonce, Kanye West, and Lady Gaga!

Podcast Notes:

"I'll never forget the pit in my stomach that I got the first time that People magazine ran a Lindsay Lohan cover...the whole face of celebrity was changing," said Zena. Click here for a thread of Teen People / People covers, featuring Britney Spears, Reese Witherspoon, Ashton Kutcher, and more: https://twitter.com/TeenPeoplePod/status/1334680857173319680.

Read about a Teen People Style Jam casting call: https://nypost.com/2002/11/22/real-world-rules-newly-fashionable/

Find Zena Burns here: https://futurimedia.com/leadership-team/zena-burns/

Find me on Twitter and Instagram (TeenPeoplePod) and www.annasoper.ca.

Music © Anna Soper