One of the absolute forgotten gems of our old Dolly mags was the Shout Out textline texts. You probably skipped over it too, but it was that strip of texts printed down the sides of the magazine’s pages, where people would send messages to their friends (or crushes) which sounds like an absolutely terrible idea if you ask me.
Melissa and I flipped through our Dolly mag stack once again, and found some absolute pearlers texts for your enjoyment. There’s a lot of extremely out-of-context stuff and plenty on in-jokes, so please – if you know of any of the people who had their texts printed, email me with some background information at courtney@pedestriangroup.com.au.
So crack open a Guava Cruiser (the only drink to have while reading Dolly mag texts) and enjoy this trip down terrible texting memory lane with us.
COURTNEY: Ok SO one thing that I never really gave a second thought about was those little text messages Dolly would print out and put on the edges of the pages. But looking back, they’re like these tiny little glimpses into the lives of Dolly readers. And reading them years later it’s like “…what the fuck are you on about?”
MELISSA: Here is a thing – I never noticed them. I was hell-bent on texting in to Channel V and getting my name on screen, but in the pages of Dolly mag? Not so much. That being said, when you pointed them out to me and I actually paid attention… well.
COURT: I have vague memories of wanting to try and get a message in there, but like as a 14 year old I absolutely did not care about Jess from Townsville shouting out her shitty highschool boyfriend.
MEL: Who is absolutely not reading Dolly, unless she thrusts it into his eyeballs.
MEL: Same goes for Sophie from Sunbury and her tellitubbi.
COURT: What kind of a name is DAVIN?
MEL: It’s like a blend of Gavin and David.
COURT: Better than ‘Gavid’ I guess. Maybe.
MEL: It’s very “my son is also called Bort” isn’t it.
COURT: Oh wait, God. I read this without enlarging it and 100% thought it said “lovin me bald” and was very confused.
COURT: How’s this one though. Like, that’s nice, Elizabeth. I hope Tara got your message probably three weeks too late.
MEL: Hahahahahaha, holy shit. Tara’s waiting for 27 days for Elizabeth, only to learn after getting pneumonia that actually, Elizabeth was at the dentist.
COURT: Elizabeth has been at the dentist for three years.
COURT: Meanwhile, Ramie from Toowoomba has had the chicken pox since April 2005.
MEL: Every time someone reads it, Ramie flares back up again. Doomed via Dolly Text.
COURT: I bet this got printed like, months after she returned to school. Really setting yourself up for some classic schoolyard teasing there, honey.
COURT: CLARA WHAT DID YOU DO?
MEL: This is the ultimate friend grovel. I would have done this, had I thought to.
COURT: I love these ones with no context. What did Clara do? Pash Maggie’s boyfriend at the school disco?
MEL: Probably just hung out with Maggie’s enemy Jessie at recess.
COURT: Absolutely grounds for the cold shoulder.
Wanna see a wild one that absolutely needs more information?
COURT: I need to know who or what ‘bark’ and ‘sugar’ are immediately.
What happened to them, Belle? WHAT HAPPENED.
MEL: Are bark and sugar pets? Terms for illicit substances? Two peers they quietly murdered and buried under the playground tree?
COURT: Code names for other girls they uninvited to their birthday party?!
Here’s a pearler that was either 100% written by a Dolly staff member or someone’s weird hippy aunt.
COURT: “Warrior princess daughters.” Fuck me, put that on my tombstone.
MEL: Omg ok so this is actually a Hillsong thing! As an ex-born again Christian, I know what this means.
COURT: Oh my god it IS TOO.
MEL: Basically, Colour Your World was a Christian women’s conference, it might still exist IDK, and the tagline in the 00s was “warrior, princess, daughter” lol.
COURT: It definitely still does, and all my old Pentecostal church FB friends absolutely still go. I can’t believe I didn’t make that connection.
Hillsong infiltrating precious Dolly Mag in 2005! Get outta here! Scram!!
MEL: “uthawize”
COURT: CURSED emoticon. :O). C U R S E D.
MEL: I went through such a long period of using that emoticon, WHY?
COURT: Hahaha WHY! I wish I had answers for you.
MEL: ONIONS.
COURT: What onions are nice ones?!
MEL: What’s a random RA? There are too many in-jokes here.
COURT: In-jokes! Why! Do not!!
I also need to know what the fuck happened here.
COURT: What DID Richard do? I need the tea, Jess and Emma.
MEL: Hundo cheated, but also maybe shat in her schoolbag. We will never know.
COURT: Or did that thing where you tie all the school bags together right before the end of lunch bell goes.
MEL: A Crime.
COURT: I wonder if these people have looked back on these years later and been like “what the fuck was that all about?”
MEL: Absolutely – I found my old diaries recently and had NFI what half the stuff I was going on about was.
COURT: Hahaha! I wish I was better at keeping diaries when I was younger, I know there was one where I just wrote three pages in a blind rage about a guy I liked hooking up with a friend and I just felt so embarrassed reading back on it.
COURT: “STRONGA”
MEL: This one is such a Mel energy – I was always having hyper-intense fights with my friends then having huge d&m’s about how we could grow from them.
COURT: I don’t know if that’s cute or like extremely huge baby psychologist vibes.
MEL: Baby psychologist for sure.
MEL: I just think people were texting in normal, grammatically correct shit and then Dolly writers were fucking them up, honestly. I do not remember using THIS much text-lingo as a teen.
COURT: Oh I just assumed there was a good old keyboard mash at the end there. Like, she dropped her phone or something.
“Happy birthday hope you have a good onesjhgvkjahnvla !! Jess xoxo”
COURT: I love all the ones that are written to guys who 100% will not read them ever.
COURT: Oh my GOD.
MEL: hahaha were you about to share the same one?
COURT: No! But this is incredible.
MEL: Again, imagining “BDO babe” standing for 10 hours in the same spot waiting for Daniel, who definitely never read this.
COURT: Next to the portaloos. For ten hours. In full sun.
COURT: Alfonso never read this on his own accord.
MEL: But imagine if he did – best. rom. com. EVER.
COURT: OR, Anon strategically left it on his desk in class, flipped open to that page. We could write a nostalgic teen rom com based off Dolly Mag content, for sure.
MEL: We absolutely could.
COURT: Wanna know what definitely isn’t rom-com material though?
COURT: This. I’m fucking praying that this wasn’t the way that Kiki said ‘I love you’ to Nick the first time. I would die of embarrassment.
MEL: I need to know if Kiki and Nick are together now.
COURT: I hope they’re married with at least two kids.
MEL: Same, they deserve it.
COURT: NOOOOOOO.
MEL: “Kafwwwwen.” “fwwwend”
COURT: I was like “what kind of name is Kafwen??” But no. It’s Katherine.
MEL: Baby voice is a true crime.
COURT: Get the fuck out of here with that baby voice shit, it’s my #1 pet peeve. Like nails on a chalkboard haha.
Ok let’s finish it off with some sage advice from the Dolly Shout Out textline.
MEL: S C R E A M I N G. This is peak teen Yoda advice.
COURT: Teigan has absolutely grown up to be either a Kmart mum who posts motivational pictures on instagram or is currently on a silent retreat in Nepal.
No in-between.
