Picture this: you’re whizzing by the stationary isle of your local food store, maybe you’re even on the self checkout line because you bought super sized tampons that you don’t want anybody to see. Suddenly, you spot a twinkle out of the corner of your eye. You can’t ignore it, it’s all too powerful.
You turn to find the source of the relentless sparkle. You are now face to face with about a dozen glossy magazine covers, each and every one of them calling your name. You can’t resist headlines like “Brangelina Rekindle Their Romance by Sacrificing Lizards to The Gods.”
You pick them up, knowing full well that these are tabloid magazines but you reprimand yourself for caving into such trickery. It was believable that Brangelina might partake in some freaky voodoo, but actually get back together? Nope, not a chance.
You remind yourself you can read this kind of nonsense on Facebook and don’t bother to spend your money. Your eyes then glaze over editorial style magazines like Vogue but then you tell yourself you can find these high fashion photos on Instagram. You revert back to your duties as a financially unstable 20-something year old at the grocery store and pick up the 15 dollar adult coloring book instead.
You’re going, going, gone.
Print is dying a slow and painful death, I am just hoping that somebody can bring it back to life for the sake of tangibility. There’s nothing better than the smell of freshly printed pieces of literature and quality entertainment.
Publications like Nylon, Interview and the latest, Glamour have gone digital, completely isolating themselves from the outside world.
My prediction is that almost every publication is going to make the intense and quick move to digital besides the likes of Vogue, The New York Times, Harper’s Bazaar and National Geographic. These big moves often blind side print employees and have them at the end of their wits, searching for another position in the media world.
This shift will probably last a good five years but then there will be a resurgence because as with everything (especially in fashion), what comes around goes back around and history repeats itself. People get bored, they want shiny and new even if that means revamping a good or service that already went through its product life cycle and marketing it as if it’s never been done before.
Having to pay a hefty monthly subscription for every single magazine you want to read can add up. Stumbling upon articles on social media or through google only to find that you have a limit of 10 or so articles before you must pay and subscribe to their magazine is equally as frustrating.
As technology enthusiasts, we’re on the internet 24/7 which means we want everything to run smoothly. Magazines should be easily accessible and if they aren’t, we get frustrated and move onto the next thing. If print magazines remained prevalent, then people could pick and choose what they want to read and when without making such a heavy commitment.
Even print subscriptions are cheaper than online ones most of the time but scholarly, highly informative, and lucrative publications are the one’s charging instead of relying on advertisers like most blogs and large-scale publications often do. It’s also significantly cheaper for publications to cease all forms of printing. All they have to do now is get their advertisements in order, pay for their (possibly) discounted websites and domain and they’re good to go.
Entertainment, celebrity gossip and a majority of women’s magazines offer their content free of charge on their websites. Take Her Campus, Cosmo and Vogue for example, readers can not only find articles online, but they can sign up for a newsletter, browse Instagram, Pinterest and Twitter for clickable links AND they can check out videos created by each publication on YouTube, Facebook and Snapchat. Pushing out content has never been easier.
Advice: Feeling the urge to create a new publication? I highly suggest to steer clear of print unless the idea behind the publication is completely out of the park original. Not to mention, having a market for said idea is what would be most profitable. Digital is just the way to go and while I personally prefer something more tangible when it comes to books and magazines, I must admit I tend to read my articles on the internet or check out fashion trends via Instagram.
They’re going, going, gone.