Find us on... Twitter: @TearawayMag Instagram: @TearawayMag Tumblr: http://tearawaymag.tumblr.com/ Mum and Dad were the original hipsters. It all began in Wanganui, in the 80s, with typewriters. My parents, as you’ll remember from the header, were the original hipsters. They wore cardigans knitted by Mum and ate alternative sources of protein way before anyone was allegedly misusing the word “ironic”. Dad even had a go at smoking a pipe for awhile, and, as you’re probably imagining, he rocked a beard that would make The Phoenix Foundation want to high five him. But they hadn’t been invented yet. So one day, after tending the veggie garden, Mum and Dad – Vicki and John Francis – decided to start a magazine. There was probably a bit more to it than that, but let’s get to the good bit. This magazine would be dedicated to the youth of Aotearoa, the pre-internet youth, that is. It would dispense life advice, but it wouldn’t be preachy. It would provide fashion and music news, but it wouldn’t be shallow. It would be a place for Kiwi teens, in their neon hightops and unapologetic mullets, to come together and discuss, in their own language, the things that mattered most to them. It would be distributed to all the high schools in the country, at no cost to the young peeps. The magazine would be named TEARAWAY: The Voice of New Zealand Youth. And it would become known and loved by every teenager from North to South. That was 1986.