More hooters
August 15
Have magazines stopped being relevant? Over on Subtraction, Khoi Vinh seems to think so:
Aside from the work of adventurous art directors like Chris Dixon at New York, I find magazines really boring. To be sure, I’m a faithful reader of The New Yorker, but that’s the only rag whose arrival I anticipate with eagerness, and the only one with which I’ll spend any meaningful amount of time. Given just about any other magazine, I can for all intents and purposes consume its contents in about ten minutes, tops. Even the very best of most magazine writing often strikes me as distant and outdated.
As someone who has written for, edited and designed magazines, and continue to be closely involved in their production, I should probably disagree. But I can’t say that I necessarily do.
Much like newspapers, which are currently struggling through far worse travails, too many magazines seem to have given up core strengths in favor of shallow glitz.
The way I see it, there’s an immediacy timeline for media, and each media segment would be wise to realize their place on it and capitalize on that position.
At one end, you’ve got TV. Tough to beat for immediate, visceral impact. Generally speaking, TV can move faster than other media, can get in more homes, and appeal to more senses. But it typically stinks at in-depth, analytical coverage.
Closely following TV would be the web. Not quite as fast or as immersive as television, but not too far behind either. And the web is much better at getting in-depth. Problems are information overload, and that any yahoo with a blogger.com account can add their brain-dead howling to the mix.
Newspapers are always going to lag a day behind, just because of the reality of the publishing run, but they can make it up by aggregating the best stuff in one portable package. And it’s tough to beat a good newspaper for local coverage.
And then there are magazines. They have little to no immediacy, but they can offer stunning visual design and deep coverage in one package better than anyone.
Unfortunately, deep coverage ain’t cheap. It takes good writers, and it takes time. Great visual design doesn’t come easy, either. So I agree with Khoi: too many magazines forgo those core strengths — in particular, content — in favor of cheap glitz.
The solution these days seems to be “bigger starbursts, and throw some hooters at that sucker”.
Thanks. But no thanks. Khoi said it’s like putting lipstick on a pig. To use another pig-related Southern aphorism, I’d say many magazines these days are about as useless as tits on a boar.
And unless they offer me some substance with the style, I’m unlikely to think differently.