Do you remember Cioè?

On October 7, 1980, Cioè was published on newsstands all over Italy. For the first time, every teenager in the peninsula had a magazine created specifically for her, one that she could browse through lying on her bed, dedicated to her interests, myths, dreams and doubts. The name came from the word that in those years "filled like a tic the youth slang", but the format, an original mix of images and interviews with handsome pop idols, short articles on fashion and lifestyle, horoscope, tests and ad hoc columns, was born from an idea of the publisher Fabio Piscopo and the director Guido Cavallina.

40 years later, Cioè, which is currently published by Panini Magazines, celebrates its birthday by introducing, next to the new weekly issue (the 1902th!), a special magazine entirely dedicated to the decade of the Robinson family and paninari, the Mulino Bianco tart and Jem and the Holograms: I Mitici Anni '80. 

To celebrate the birthday - explains Marco Iafrate, current director of Cioè - we decided to recall, tell, revive feelings and memories of the 80s and therefore the moods, the atmospheres, the environments, the background that made Cioè rise exponentially. Looking at covers and reading articles, interviews and reportages published in those years make us feel nostalgic, but it can also satisfy the curiosity of those who didn't experience that period or how many famous artists were born and became... iconic.

As in a proper time machine, page after page, we can travel through the huge archive of the magazine, among the columns and the historical covers. We will discover not only that in the first editions Maurizio Costanzo commented on the photo novels and there was the insert L'Eco dei Sorcini di Renato Zero, but also the key figures in the history of 80s lifestyle and pop: from Eros Ramazzotti and George Michael, from Miguel Bosè to Duran Duran. 

If the '80s was the beginning of Cioè's history, 90s, with circulation reaching 300,000 copies, established it as the magazine symbol of Italian teenagers. After all, its format fits well with any 14-year-old, just switch Kirk Cameron with Luke Perry, the Spandau Ballet with Take That, Ornella Muti with the girls of Non è la Rai, the Moncler jacket with the checkered flannel shirt and that's it. And then who doesn't like free mini nail polishes, the tests telling you if your best friend is stealing your boyfriend or who hasn't wondered at least once if bathing with Coca-Cola works as a contraceptive (ok, maybe this doubt doesn't bother most of us)? 

The records of Cioè are numerous: it was the first magazine to have a gadget included; the first to have an adhesive cover; the first to offer its readers a large poster.  Let's see the 5 elements that turned a simple teen mag into a cult still famous nowadays.

Adhesive covers

The cover was fully adhesive. You could take Dylan's head off and switch it with Brandon's, you could use a little heart and a star (let's call them DIY emoji) to decorate your Nokia 3410 or Gianluca Grignani's beautiful and always pissed off face to fill the pages of Smemoranda. You could even stick a very young Leo Di Caprio on your arm like a tattoo or make your mother angry by embellishing the mirror in your home bathroom. 

Posters

Every teen bedroom had at least 5 of them, but the pro ones featured all the surfaces covered by the most beautiful and coolest actors and singers of the moment. Cioè was the best poster dealer you could ever wish for. All the stars of the TV series and the members of the boy bands were printed on a square of paper. All you needed was a little piece of tape and you could spend the days and nights with Backstreet Boys and Johnny Depp. Your relationship became so close that your boyfriend became jealous.

Gadgets

We have already said it and we repeat it: everyone loves free stuff. Ask the perfume shopgirls if you don't believe us. Much of the success of Cioè comes from realizing before many others that offering small gadgets, better if colorful and sparkling, could encourage readers to buy the magazine. Over the years Cioè proposed all kinds of gadgets: from lip gloss to eye shadows, from pens to calendars, from mugs to radios, from bracelets to necklaces. The only items left are a lock of Robbie Williams' hair and a vial of Damon Albarn's blood. Or maybe there were those too?

Tests

Maybe the Harvard admission test has fewer questions than those that allowed you to find out if your true nature was that of a blonde or a brunette. Cioè's tests were complicated and intricate, but in the end, all your efforts were fully rewarded and you could finally learn such universal truths as which Spice Girls you were or if your soul mate was Brad Pitt or the loser guy from Dawson's Creek.

Love advice Column

The reader's questions were the real highlight of the Mag. It's hard to explain to those who grew up with the Internet and social networks how much a thirteen-year-old Italian girl in the 80s and 90s was ignorant about love and sexuality. Let's say that it was an archaic version of Yahoo Answer. 

Here are 10 of the most insane made by Cioè's readers: 

- Is it true that to enlarge the breast you have to eat a lot of mushrooms? (Anonima '90)

- A friend of mine and I have always wondered: did primitive women have their period? And how did they do it without tampons? (Dubbiose)

- Is it possible to make love when you are a virgin? (Anonima)

- I had a fight with my friend Francesca because she said that I have hair on my legs, while I wanted to keep it a secret between us. Can I forgive her and recover our friendship? (Claudia '80)

- If a guy says he loves you and already has a girlfriend, is he sincere or is he teasing you? (Dubbiosa)

- I kissed a boy when I was menstruating, and now these are delayed. Did I get pregnant? (Fabiola '85)

- I tried to put a tampon inside, but I couldn't get it in: is it because I am a virgin or because I am not normal? (Arietina'85)

- Is it true that if you think about him during a full moon night you dip three roses in water upside down tied with a red thread and then bury them and water them, he will fall in love with you in thirty days? (Alpha)

- Dear Cioè, I am 21 years old and I am a virgin. Many boys in the past have asked me to kiss them [what filthy pigs!!], but I have always said no because I heard that if you do these things you can't get married. Is that true? (Dubbio79)

- Do you have to be naked to have sex? (Anonima)