F.E.D.S.
Vol. 4 Issue 24Wow, I can't believe they're still making this. And that they still haven't discovered spellcheck. The fact that a magazine whose primary revenue base consists of condom ads and prisoner subscriptions has been going strong for over a decade now really exposes the bullshit at the heart of all those "end of the printed word" scare-pieces they keep running everywhere. (PS: Don't you love how they try to pin that whole thing on the internet? As if people were perfectly happy reading re-typed press releases in magazines that looked like they'd been laid out by a Dadaist collage-maker as a joke and entire newspapers full of paraphrased AP stories and extended "local color" pieces on cancer survivors and fucking rhubarb pie before that darn internet came along and bamboozled all their loyal subscribers. Here's a thought for publishers: Instead of firing the two old guys left on your staff who actually know how to cover the news, maybe try scrapping the eight or nine "culture & lifestyle" sections weighing down the back of every paper? I think Cleveland can make it through its morning without some 40-year-old's account of the Magnetic Fields concert last Friday.)Anyways, the point here is rather than panicking over every little dip in their readership and constantly trying to broaden their audience, publications should just figure out what they're into then sit back write the shit out of it. In the case of F.E.D.S., they're into people who have murdered, funny small-time criminals like Queens' "Jheri-Curl gang," drugs, pictures of nice cars, and girls with asses so large they force you to mentally picture the word they'd use in a comic for the sound it made when they took off their pants ("BWOWUMP"). And it's worked for them. Nice and simple.
CLAYTON MEYERS
Vol. 4 Issue 24Wow, I can't believe they're still making this. And that they still haven't discovered spellcheck. The fact that a magazine whose primary revenue base consists of condom ads and prisoner subscriptions has been going strong for over a decade now really exposes the bullshit at the heart of all those "end of the printed word" scare-pieces they keep running everywhere. (PS: Don't you love how they try to pin that whole thing on the internet? As if people were perfectly happy reading re-typed press releases in magazines that looked like they'd been laid out by a Dadaist collage-maker as a joke and entire newspapers full of paraphrased AP stories and extended "local color" pieces on cancer survivors and fucking rhubarb pie before that darn internet came along and bamboozled all their loyal subscribers. Here's a thought for publishers: Instead of firing the two old guys left on your staff who actually know how to cover the news, maybe try scrapping the eight or nine "culture & lifestyle" sections weighing down the back of every paper? I think Cleveland can make it through its morning without some 40-year-old's account of the Magnetic Fields concert last Friday.)Anyways, the point here is rather than panicking over every little dip in their readership and constantly trying to broaden their audience, publications should just figure out what they're into then sit back write the shit out of it. In the case of F.E.D.S., they're into people who have murdered, funny small-time criminals like Queens' "Jheri-Curl gang," drugs, pictures of nice cars, and girls with asses so large they force you to mentally picture the word they'd use in a comic for the sound it made when they took off their pants ("BWOWUMP"). And it's worked for them. Nice and simple.
CLAYTON MEYERS