As a youngster I subscribed to a few nature magazines, in my teens none. As a young married adult 1970’s and 80’s we usually had at least 1,2 dozen magazines coming to the house. From the 1990’s to about 2010 I think I had two. Since then I buy an occasional magazine maybe average 1 per year if that.
I know I’ve missed quite a few – I by science fiction magazines (and subscribed to F&SF and Analog). As a Boy Scout I had a subscription to Boy’s Life. As a kid I bought (and preserved) several comics.
I’m over 50. In the past I had subscriptions to Pop Science, Sports Illustrated, Playboy (2 years in my 18-22 year old range), Scientific America for about 10 years total, Nat Geo for Kids for our kids.
With memberships I also had Greenpeace, Sierra Club & Chess Federation.
I’m not sure if Baseball Weekly counts as a Mag or a Newspaper. This was pre-internet days; early/mid 90s.
I’m missing a few more I think and have on rare occasions bought issues of the rack. I haven’t bought a magazine since 2010 I believe.
There was another Science Mag in the 80s I got for a year or 2, it is defunct and I can’t recall its name.
I forgot, I got the White Dwarf for a year in High School & PC Mag for many years.
Thanks to Kenobi 65, a few more: Rolling Stone, Omni (the Science one I couldn’t recall).
Off the shelf but regularly: The Dragon & Mad, I use to find Mad for a steep discount at a flea market, the issues were typically 2-3 months old.
Also Famous Monsters of Filmland, The Monster Times. I “inherited” a huge stack of old Science Digests from my uncle, and devoured them.
I still get
**Technology Review
Physics Today
Photonics Spectra
Biophotonics
Optics and Photonics News**.
I used to get Optics Letters, but let it lapse.
I used to get The Spectrograph, but it died.
We’ve gotten some freebie subs in recent years. Wired was just craptastic. New York Magazine was interesting at times, #SAD at times, and worthless at times (too NYC oriented). Has a little too simple crossword. Got Mrs. FtG some subs for food/health mags which she likes, but not enough to pay for.
We had a free sub for Money Magazine and it was ridiculously unhelpful. They should have an issue where Money Saving Tip #1 is don’t subscribe to Money Magazine and close down.
There are several ways to get free trial subs. Airline points and all that. One I’ve used is RewardSurvey. Do a survey, earn points, get a sub. But they have far fewer than they used to and some require a token payment. (Beware auto renewal.) It’s good for stuff like People and Variety. Not exactly my cup of tea. Mercury magazines is always running promos.
I don’t even know what’s going on with the New Republic these days. I had a class in college where we had to read an article in the New Republic (left) and National Review (right) and write a short essay. I don’t think I’ve seen the New Republic anywhere since the Bill Clinton era.
Subscriptions over the years:
The Atlantic
Car Model
Consumer Reports
The Economist
Entertainment Weekly
Hockey Illustrated
Model Car Science
Money
National Geographic
National Lampoon
The New Yorker
Newsweek
Playboy
Popular Science
Premiere
Psychology Today
Reader’s Digest
Rolling Stone
Sports Illustrated
Stereo Review
Time
TV Guide
I subscribe to Entertainment Weekly. That’s my only magazine. We don’t even subscribe to the local paper any more, it’s just too expensive.
I found an old email (1998) where I list the magazines I subscribed to at the time:
Utne Reader
Time
US News
Mother Jones
National Review
The Economist
Bon Appetit
And from my employer:
Fortune
CFO
I haven’t subscribed to a magazine in at least ten years, unless you count High Five and Highlights! which I got for the kid.
I got married in 1999 and my wife killed most of the subscriptions and also introduced cable TV into my life. The last to go was The Economist around 2010. But for the last few years I only read that on planes.
If I ever buy a magazine now it’s at the airport, and it was usually The Economist. Last time I saw it was $12 and just walked away.
Do you buy magazines? On a frequent basis? Occasionally? Rarely? Never?
Not currently. Probably never again.
Have you bought magazines in the past?
I used to buy computer magazines, and occasionally entertainment (movie, TV, sci-fi) magazines. Oh, and porn, of course.
Are there specific situations when you buy a magazine; like when you’re going on a flight?
No.
Do you subscribe to any magazines? Have you subscribed to any magazines in the past?
The only thing I have ever officially subscribed to was Cinefex magazine, which is sort of different to the kind typically imagined.
What’s your age?
50
Generally any information and entertainment value I got out of a magazine I can get tenfold from the internet now. Also the magazines we got down here in the southern hemisphere needed to be shipped (literally by boat) which means they were months out of date by the time they arrived.
Back in the day I had subscriptions to:
Popular Mechanics
Popular Science
Scientific American
Discover
PM and PS were mere shadows of what they once had been–in college I remember often sitting in the library between classes and flipping through bound archives of PM from the 1950s and earlier–magazines that were hundreds of pages thick with less advertising and lots of real content.
For several years I had a subscription to a super awesome magazine:
Invention & Technology
That magazine was chock full of deep stories on industrial and engineering history, such as the story behind the development and production of the first transistor radio, the first computer mouse, or the story behind the introduction of tetraethyl lead in our cars. The magazine died many years ago, but their archives have been available for free off and on over the years. Look them up, you might enjoy their content.
Finally, a couple of years ago I tried:
The Home Shop Machinist
Machinist’s Workshop
I realized that, like woodworking magazines, most articles are “look at this super intense complex project that none of you will ever build” and not enough were “here are some solid techniques to up your game”
Once I found that I can get more from machining videos on YouTube, I let the subscriptions lapse.
I love magazines. I have a couple of subscriptions to things like, “Health” or some food magazine, but I often buy them at the bookstore or, ideally, check them out at the library. They’re usually things like Psychology Today or Scientific American. If I’m traveling I might also grab a copy of Us or People or some other trash celebrity mag that’s fun to read.
I can get all the information I find in a magazine online (whether in the e-version of that magazine or just random articles), but I get more engaged when I’m reading a hard copy and I love feeling completely absorbed. It’s like reading a book but lower commitment - sorta the difference between a coffee date vs. dinner & a movie. Good god, I’m old.
I’m a 43 year old woman for what it’s worth.
Oops - this is why I shouldn’t hit refresh.
I am 58. Growing up, we subscribed to National Geographic, Reader’s Digest,Time and /or Newsweek, and TV Guide. Occasionally Life, Smithsonian, etc.
Starting in the mid 1980s, I subscribed to Discover, Natural History, American Heritage, and a few others. I would buy Fortean Times, Femme Fatales, and various sci-fi-oriented magazines like Starlog and Cinefantastique at the local comic book store. And I would often consult the Economist in the library where I worked.
I haven’t subscribed to anything since about 2008. I rarely buy magazines nowadays.
I work at an academic / university library (Vanderbilt), so anytime I want, I can peruse mags and journals in the Periodicals Reading Room. Or just look things up online.
Do magazines that are part of a club membership count? I was part of the LEGO Club for a few years as a child.
I still buy magazines for recipes. Also ‘Make’ and various woodworking magazines for projects and techniques.
No current subscriptions, but I expect that to change when I eventually retire and have more time to spend in the wood shop.
I remember wishing that I had a subscription to Dynamite as a kid.
It was a very cool magazine for an 10-year-old, and was a special treat if I stumbled upon a copy among the Highlights magazines at the doctor’s office.
They had a club, and I remember this secret challenge/response from them:
Kid 1: “Eat my din”
Kid 2: “Many diet”
Kid 1: “And my tie”
Kid 2: “It may end”
Both: “Dynamite!”
Those strange phrases are all anagrams of the word dynamite.
I continued to maintain a yearly subscription to two snowboarding magazines until they went full digital/social media presence only. To be honest, the last few years they were more ‘coffee table’ magazines and I didn’t spend much time actually reading them. I have never bought a magazine from a newsstand or grocery store.
Recently a friend’s daughter was doing a fundraiser for a school trip and as with most of my friends I will usually buy something to help support them. Unfortunately in this situation the only thing was magazine subscriptions. sigh I did purchase a subscription to National Geographic. None of the other magazines remotely interested me. So yeah, I guess I buy magazines now… or again. Haha
I’m in my early 50s.
I rarely bought individual issues of magazines, even when I was younger. If I was interested in a magazine, I usually subscribed to it.
The only magazine subscription I still maintain today is Consumer Reports. I did have a subscription to Turner Classic Movies’ Now Playing magazine, but they cancelled the print magazine and went all-digital earlier this year. I also get a couple of professional journals as a result of my membership in professional organizations. I’m also a member of AAA, so I get their magazine, which in my neck of the woods is called Crossroads.
In the old days, I subscribed to Newsweek for my current events. I was a subscriber to TV Guide for years (it used to be a jolly useful resource, in the days before on-screen program guides). I also took Writer’s Digest, back in the days when I used to kid myself that I would one day be a famous novelist. For awhile, I subscribed to Discover and Omni.
I don’t fly very often, but when I do, I don’t usually buy magazines for the flight. I will either bring a book, or more often use the Kindle app on my phone.
My wife still subscribes to Vogue, if you would like to count her as well.