Holy shit, Vogue, really?
December 22, 2010 10:38 AM   Subscribe

 
Darn, I was hoping this would be like one-page summations of the magazines.

Wired: YOU'RE STILL COOL, RIGHT?

The Economist: EVERYTHING IS FINE AND WHAT YOU THINK IS CORRECT.

Time: SOME STUFF HAPPENED.

Vogue: YOU ARE SO FUCKING UGLY.
posted by The Whelk at 10:41 AM on December 22, 2010 [73 favorites]


I don't get this at all. What is the point? Can someone explain this to me?
posted by Perplexity at 10:45 AM on December 22, 2010 [3 favorites]


very Kalle Lasn.
posted by mrgrimm at 10:46 AM on December 22, 2010


Darn, I was hoping this would be like one-page summations of the magazines.

Slate (non-print I know): WHY SOMETHING IS NOT WHAT YOU THOUGHT IT WAS
posted by ghharr at 10:47 AM on December 22, 2010 [4 favorites]


What is the point?

like, advertising is bad and stuff, you know
posted by mightygodking at 10:48 AM on December 22, 2010 [8 favorites]


Oh, it's supposed to be art.
posted by jabberjaw at 10:48 AM on December 22, 2010 [2 favorites]


I don't get this at all. What is the point? Can someone explain this to me?

To show how many advertising logos (or words ... or celebrities) are in the magazines, and where they are placed on the pages.
posted by mrgrimm at 10:49 AM on December 22, 2010 [2 favorites]


Why is Time magazine headlines and the others sponsor logos?
posted by ardgedee at 10:49 AM on December 22, 2010


Darn, I was hoping this would be like one-page summations of the magazines.

Well, that's pretty much what it is, except with the parts that matter rather than the filler content.
posted by briank at 10:50 AM on December 22, 2010


I like the National Geographic's centeredness
posted by The Biggest Dreamer at 10:51 AM on December 22, 2010


I was surprised at how little advertising the Economist had. Then I realized that, once again, the people telling us $X IS AWESOME AND WE HAVE NOTHING TO FEAR AND WHY DO YOU HATE DEMOCAPITALISM don't actually have to deal with it themselves.
posted by DU at 10:53 AM on December 22, 2010


What, no Consumer Reports?
posted by jedicus at 10:54 AM on December 22, 2010


Consumer Reports: RIGHT, KEEP ON BUYING--BUT MAKE IT THESE THINGS
posted by DU at 10:56 AM on December 22, 2010


I don't get this at all. What is the point? Can someone explain this to me?

I dunno if it's a particularly deep idea. I just liked the idea of showing how each magazine layers their ads. Particularly that Vogue one, since its ads were way more prominent than I'd have thought. (Then again I'm a little vague on what exactly Vogue is.)

You could probably get into something about how some magazines seem just to exist to make money off ads, and then you could counterpoint with all the examples of magazines that genuinely output good writing but still need to support themselves with ads, but I didn't post it because I thought it was necessarily worth a huge discussion. I just thought it was kind of cool and maybe worth sharing.

(I'm also wondering why Time Magazine shows the placement of article titles rather than the ads. Why pick Time for that? If anybody has an idea why that is I'd like to hear it.)
posted by Rory Marinich at 10:57 AM on December 22, 2010


Is anyone surprised by French Vogue's? It's basically just a giant catalogue that you have to pay for and that sometimes has black face/nipples.
posted by Tha Race Card at 10:59 AM on December 22, 2010 [2 favorites]




Too bad it didn't take into account full-size ads, perhaps by adding 1% gray for each ad.

Vogue: none more black.
posted by leotrotsky at 11:01 AM on December 22, 2010


"The Gentlewoman is a new biannual style magazine for a new decade. Featuring inspirational, international women, it pairs ambitious journalism with a sartorial and intelligent perspective on fashion that is focused on personal style – the way women actually look, think and dress."

That actually sounds like the greatest magazine ever. Fantastic cover image, too!
posted by Tha Race Card at 11:03 AM on December 22, 2010 [1 favorite]


This is my total lack of surprise at the amount of advertising in a fashion magazine.
posted by immlass at 11:09 AM on December 22, 2010


Presumably it's a statement about reducing these magazines to their essences, which in the artist's view is advertising for French Vogue, The Economist, and Wired, celebrity names for Hello!, and snappy headlines for Time.

This is about as sophisticated as cutting a 30-second Superbowl that is composed just of...wait for it...last frames from ads! Because you definitely didn't know before then that the ads were a big part of the whole production! Consider your mind blown.
posted by peachfuzz at 11:12 AM on December 22, 2010 [3 favorites]


It explains why I've gone back to the print version of the Economist from the Kindle version; the e-magazine is more expensive due to a lack of advertising to offset the cost of content creation.
posted by Standeck at 11:13 AM on December 22, 2010


Is anyone surprised by French Vogue's? It's basically just a giant catalogue

No shit sherlock
posted by fire&wings at 11:14 AM on December 22, 2010


Why is Time magazine headlines and the others sponsor logos?

My first thought was that it's because in Time, you can't easily tell the difference.

Possibly this is a cheap shot, but it is kind of amazing how often one thinks "gee, this article in Time reads a lot like ad copy". If one, you know, reads Time for some reason.
posted by brennen at 11:28 AM on December 22, 2010 [1 favorite]


The one for The Economist (xmas edition should be out soon! horray!) would have been a lot more cluttered if they'd included the classifieds.

That said, I'm still surprised at how little advertising there was, not just for The Economist, but National Geographic as well.
posted by chebucto at 11:28 AM on December 22, 2010


There are certain types of adverts that really do capture the essence of a magazine I think - just not the ones that the artist has chosen. For The Economist we are talking about promotions for second tier MBA courses or tax avoidance specialists - and the bizarre job adverts for things like "running the treasury in Chad". For Wired it is advertorial for eye-wateringly expensive top-end gadgetry of dubious utility. For Vogue it is the plastic surgery adverts.
posted by rongorongo at 11:32 AM on December 22, 2010 [1 favorite]



There are certain types of adverts that really do capture the essence of a magazine

For instance, the ads for spanking porn in the back of Harper's.
posted by scratch at 11:37 AM on December 22, 2010 [2 favorites]


Ooh, they should do Adbusters next.
posted by cortex at 11:40 AM on December 22, 2010 [1 favorite]


The vogue picture has an interesting feature. There are two bands of space where there is almost zero ad text. Remarkable uniformity in layout choices by the ad designers and Vogue editors. I am reminded of the electron cloud atomic model. There are bands where the likelihood of an electron (piece of ad text) appearing is near 0 and other areas where the likelihood is near 1.
posted by Babblesort at 11:41 AM on December 22, 2010 [3 favorites]


This is nowhere near as clever or interesting as I had hoped it would be based on the title.
posted by modernnomad at 11:58 AM on December 22, 2010 [2 favorites]


and the bizarre job adverts for things like "running the treasury in Chad"

My favorite thing about the Economist might be the job ads. The qualifications are always so ludicrously high and specific - "must have doctorates in both international development and petroleum engineering, at least 15 years experience managing an NGO and be fluent in English, Bantu and Khmer" - that I always just assume that whoever is actually going to be hired has already been determined and some regulatory hoop requiring advertising the position is duly being jumped through.
posted by strangely stunted trees at 12:07 PM on December 22, 2010 [4 favorites]


I found this to be an interesting and kind of cool idea, and not what I expected from the title but still compelling enough to warrant a look and some consideration. Thought-provoking, even.

What's kind of inexplicable is that he's charging fifty euros plus postage for a signed one of these. What?
posted by FAMOUS MONSTER at 12:14 PM on December 22, 2010


The Vogue one would be more interesting if they used the September issue. And when I say more interesting I mean still not very interesting at all.
posted by Combustible Edison Lighthouse at 12:17 PM on December 22, 2010 [1 favorite]


If they did Adbusters, both concepts would self-annihilate in a cloud of QuarkXPresses.

On second thought, please do Adbusters.
posted by benzenedream at 12:17 PM on December 22, 2010


What's kind of inexplicable is that he's charging fifty euros plus postage for a signed one of these. What?

He's selling something that none of us would pay for, and advertisers pay lots of money for.

I feel like I'm the only one getting screwed over in this equation.
posted by meowzilla at 12:19 PM on December 22, 2010


My favorite thing about the Economist might be the job ads. The qualifications are always so ludicrously high and specific

Me too (aside from the crunchy-data last page). I figure they're a British take on an announcements page but with cryptic-crossword clues instead of straight up give aways for who it is. Puzzles for investment bankers to do in their club rooms after slashing Portugal's bond rating.

"Hm, a PhD in development economics from a leading university with 5 years of IAEA experience...an equal opportunity employer (5 letters)... I say, Singh must have found that new position. Good show."
posted by bonehead at 12:35 PM on December 22, 2010 [11 favorites]


Every comment I've ever made, compressed into one character: █
posted by blue_beetle at 12:39 PM on December 22, 2010 [8 favorites]


Rolling Stone: WE'RE STILL COOL, RIGHT?
posted by box at 1:03 PM on December 22, 2010 [1 favorite]


I was surprised at how little advertising the Economist had. Then I realized that, once again, the people telling us $X IS AWESOME AND WE HAVE NOTHING TO FEAR AND WHY DO YOU HATE DEMOCAPITALISM don't actually have to deal with it themselves.

You know, I started reading the Economist 11 years ago because my eye was drawn to a cover story about the injustice of US policy on illegal immigration - IIRC, the headline was 'let the huddled masses in.' I was rather surprised to see this on the cover of (what I thought was) a business magazine, and even more surprised to find detailed coverage and provocative arguments in favor of liberalization. It was too long to read in the store, so I bought it, and haven't missed an issue since. Other positions advanced by the Economist include a carbon tax to alleviate the risks of climate change, penal reform, an end to drug prohibition, gender equity, press freedom, public investment in education, and a smaller economic role for the financial sector. I was reading about the declining credibility of Enron for months before any of the mainstream press picked it up, and the newspaper was similar skeptical about the mortgage securitization boom.

Naturally, the editors are not right or agreeable all the time, though I find them rather unusual for their readiness to acknowledge and even mock their previous misjudgments. And they certainly do approach the world from the perspective that democratic capitalism tends to work out for the best over the long term, and that prosperity is built more often than legislated. But characterizations such as the one above are, frankly, complete bullshit.

The Economist has less advertising because its audience is more international, smaller (~1.4m copies globally, ~3m readers), and better educated than that of most other publications, and a high percentage of them occupy senior roles in business or government. If that makes them smug defenders of capitalism, I wonder why organizations like the UN, Human Rights Watch, the IAEA, and the International Court of Justice recruit there. I looked up my copy of the issue used in this artwork, and the World Wildlife Fund logo which appears in the center was a recruiting advertisement. Because the WWF is famously staffed by smarmy capitalists who don't give a hoot about the environment, but light their cigars with the flames of burning oil wells.

I always just assume that whoever is actually going to be hired has already been determined and some regulatory hoop requiring advertising the position is duly being jumped through.

Really? I'm often surprised at how open they are. For example, this week there's one for press officer at the IAEA - university degree or equivalent in journalism, international relations, or something related to nuclear proliferation, 7 years of media experience, and excellent command of English. Hardly an insurmountable challenge. A lot of them do ask for PhD-type qualifications, but then a lot of them involve supervising multibillion dollar budgets for major international institutions. They're not entry-level jobs, and looking for something like an advanced degree and ten years of experience in a particular sector seems entirely reasonable to me, if only to exclude people like Sarah Palin or (insert your favorite incompetent political appointee here).
posted by anigbrowl at 1:24 PM on December 22, 2010 [11 favorites]


Why does it look like they built the single pages from black and why copies? (Is that what they did? I probably don't understand Art.)

My husband reads The Economist, so I occasionally flip through it. Recent articles I've read include things like "Greening cities: how having increased green space reduces storm drain overflow" and "Women in Korea are highly-educated and under-hired: why your multinational should get all of its high-level executives there." and "Global warming is a thing, gents. How realistic are the walled-in scifi cities of 70s cinema?"

Also, I enjoy their humorous photo captions.

But perhaps we get some kind of special West Coast Liberal edition that has all the evil parts stripped out.
posted by thehmsbeagle at 1:41 PM on December 22, 2010 [2 favorites]


> If one, you know, reads Time for some reason.

Oh, and like you have never got caught in a waiting room without your iPadkindlenook?
posted by mmrtnt at 1:43 PM on December 22, 2010


> must have doctorates in both international development and petroleum engineering, at least 15 years experience managing an NGO and be fluent in English, Bantu and Khmer

Hm.

Kinna happy with my job in Speedee Mart right now, but check me in a few months.
posted by mmrtnt at 1:49 PM on December 22, 2010 [1 favorite]


> Why does it look like they built the single pages from black and why copies?

Copies? I assume because they couldn't get the originals.
posted by mmrtnt at 1:53 PM on December 22, 2010


METAFILTER
it vibrates?
D'HAMBURGER
Metafilter: hold the anchovies and pass the ammuntion
grilled cheese

posted by zippy at 1:56 PM on December 22, 2010 [2 favorites]


Standeck: the iPad / iPhone versions of The Economist (just nice apps to use in conjunction with a subscription to the "digital edition") are cheaper and have ads. Plus they are in color which is nice.
posted by R343L at 1:59 PM on December 22, 2010


1980s TV version
posted by Meatbomb at 2:12 PM on December 22, 2010


"The Gentlewoman is a new biannual style magazine for a new decade..."

OK, I was liking what I saw there until I got to a mention of "singer-songwriter Cathy Dennis" and now I just have to know if Miss Move-to-This has seriously maintained a career for two decades through some sort of reinvention alchemy and damn, I feel old now.

Also, anigbrowl totally said everything I would've said in defense of The Economist if I were well-spoken and knowledgeable enough. It's a good read, dammit.
posted by kittyprecious at 2:16 PM on December 22, 2010


I may have confused The Economist with something else.
posted by The Whelk at 2:23 PM on December 22, 2010


Also, anigbrowl totally said everything I would've said in defense of The Economist if I were well-spoken and knowledgeable enough. It's a good read, dammit.

Ooh look at fancypants kittyprecious reading The Economist.
posted by Meatbomb at 2:52 PM on December 22, 2010


The Economist iPad app also has audio of every article read, in full, by experienced newscasters. It blows my mind that they went to that trouble.
posted by painquale at 3:25 PM on December 22, 2010 [1 favorite]


One Trick Art Project?
posted by chavenet at 3:42 PM on December 22, 2010


fancypants kittyprecious

I totally didn't realize kittyprecious was a username when I read that comment, and thought it was just a total ad hominem attack that would read better as "fancypants preciouskitty."
posted by jabberjaw at 3:59 PM on December 22, 2010


No Playboy? Or is that just too fucking easy?
posted by jonmc at 5:19 PM on December 22, 2010 [1 favorite]


I think Wired is actually written by running the contents of a teen beat magazine through a program that substitutes one set of nouns and adjectives for another. Y'know, "Justin Bieber" becomes "Cloud Computing" and so forth.
posted by George_Spiggott at 5:27 PM on December 22, 2010 [2 favorites]


GQ: YOU ARE NEITHER THIS RICH NOR THIS GOOD-LOOKING, BUT KEEP TRYING NONETHELESS
posted by gottabefunky at 5:39 PM on December 22, 2010


An Adbusters version, please.
posted by quadog at 7:06 PM on December 22, 2010


Capitalist, plutocratic; I don't care what you say, the Economist won my heart with their cover of two camels fucking.
posted by Homeboy Trouble at 9:50 PM on December 22, 2010 [6 favorites]


Ooh look at fancypants kittyprecious reading The Economist.

Did you know Indonesia is at a crossroads?
posted by kittyprecious at 10:45 AM on December 23, 2010 [1 favorite]


The two camels cover is great, but this is my favorite Economist cover of all time.
posted by benzenedream at 11:42 AM on December 23, 2010


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