OK, well, not absolutely "all." (Women, for example, it taught me nothing about. Or how to change a tire.) But it was as essential a text as anything penned by Marshall McLuhan in understanding media and the mediated world, and it was much easier for a 10-year-old to work out.
Plenty of it went right over my head, of course, but that's part of what made it attractive and valuable: Things that go over your head can make you raise your head a little higher.
The magazine instilled in me a habit of mind, a way of thinking about a world rife with false fronts, small print, deceptive ads, booby traps, treacherous language, double standards, half truths, subliminal pitches and product placements; it warned me that I was often merely the target of people who claimed to be my friend.
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