OK, the only way to save the Hef character is to let him grow up into a cool, mellow pot-smoking, houseboat-living, golf-playing uncle figure. Then we invent a nephew (or nephew and niece) character to take over the brand. Young people interested in travel, sport, personal finance and so on.
These new characters take over as symbols of the brand and allow Uncle Hef to make occasional appearances giving advice and so on.
Hugh Hefner is certainly a very smart businessman and has made bazillions off of what turned out to be a Really Good Idea™. Chances are he’s probably done some good with his cash as well.
That said, he’s not the kind of man I’d want my daughter to marry, date or even have coffee with.
I honestly can’t imagine 18-25 year olds buying any magazine for wank materiel.I’m at the tail end of that demographic and all I’ve really known is the internet, and those younger than me even moreso.
There you go then. So what would you buy a Playboy for? The cartoons? The articles? The airbrushed women? I doubt it.
Add to that the fact that his daughter who is running the show is in her mid 50’s (I think), and I’m guessing she has no clue on what to do with the brand after her father dies.
Hef had a great run, and made a lot of money. Playboy, for many reasons, is one of the iconic magazines of the 20th century. But I don’t believe it holds much relevance today. I will admit that I am not familiar at all with what else the brand has branched out into, so if anyone is a stock holder or knows what Playboy has in their portfolio, that would be what to focus on. I think the magazine exists purely out of habit. They have one thing that no other magazine has, and that’s the ability to publish a famous woman being nude and generating a lot of buzz. No other magazine has that ability (they can post pictures, but everyone knows Playboy’s photos will be classy, airbrushed, and very PG ish. You aren’t getting Elle McPherson, for example, to pose nude in Hustler with her ass in your face, spread open wide enough to drive a bus in. She’s also not sharing the photo shoot with anyone or acting out any sex scenes.
That’s why Playboy still has some value. It provides women of Hollywood with the one place they can go and bear all and be dealt with with respect.
NBC is going to be showing a series called The Playboy Club. It’s basically an attempt at capitalizing on the 60s appeal of Mad Men and I doubt that the series will succeed. But if it does and someone smart is running Playboy Enterprises, they could revive the brand. Perhaps a new chain of clubs? Perhaps a popular website? I don’t see a revival of the magazine, given that print media is failing everywhere.
Oh, but I do, and I think my long-ago OP and other posts convey that. He was, in sociological terms, a beta-turned-alpha-through-business-success, and it shone through (still does) in all his fawning obeisance to his trite obsession with boring surgically enhanced vapid blondes and superficial coolness. An earlier prototype for Gates, Jobs, etc. – first you get the money, then you get the power, then you get the women.
This alone contradicts “nobody thinks of him as [a nerd].” This is a good part of it for me.
Bond is yet another homoerotic strong-guy-porn-for-weak-betas prototype.
Normal heterosexual men don’t read how-to guides on how-to-be-a-man.
Self-help magazines are generally read by . . . women.
This stuff is generally the province of closeted publications like Details and FHM. To my point precisely, this is one of the more pathetic things about Playboy even to this day. The how-do-I-knot-my-bowtie or which-Scotch-should-I-drink-to-impress-my-girlfriend or how-do-I-satisfy-my-lover crap that pollutes the Playboy Advisor every month is pathetic. Do you think Navy Seals, or whatever the real equivalent of James Bond is, learn how to impress or bed women by reading fey magazine articles? Like Hell they do, and like Hell is it possible to learn that stuff by reading prissy articles by pasty eighty year old Midwestern white dorks who have bribed dumbass California bimbos into posing as their grotesque “girlfriends.”
What I do not believe is Crystal or other women claiming that he only lasts one or two minutes while having sex.
He must be a bit jaded and numb after having sex for probably the last 70 years.
Why would he be so excited that he only lasts “two seconds in bed” ?
Viagra may make you hard, but it also tends to delay orgasm.
I would guess that it would take a long time for him to finish.
The accounts I read (can’t find them momentarily) are that they have very artificial staged sessions where the multiple “girlfriends” mess with him (gross) then the main one finishes him off, which is consistent with your impression. It all seems pretty sad.
You don’t need to be some kind of brute to be “alpha.” Nobody who is ambitious and shrewd enough to build a multimillion dollar magazine empire, lifestyle phenomenon and major cultural milestone through his own hard work is a “beta.”
Since when does simply being financially successful equal “nerd?” It’s not like Hefner spent every day reading comics. To build a publishing empire, you need to be a confident businessman, have social pull, be good at talking to people and convincing them that you’re worth their advertising dollars…none of that is “nerd,” dude. It’s salesmanship.
:rolleyes: Please. It’s a clever, humorous and engaging series of novels and films with an enduring character and interesting settings. It’s not “strong-guy-porn.”
I think you have a very, very skewed and constricted vision of what is normal and what isn’t.
Some men are interested in fashion; some are interested in Scotch; most guys could probably use tips on how to be better in bed. How is any of this pathetic?
I think Navy SEALs are more concerned with doing their extremely demanding jobs professionally and safely than with impressing and bedding women. The whole worship of Navy SEALs and other elite commandos is an absurd creation of popular culture and too many guys are definitely too into it, but that has nothing to do with Playboy or Hefner.
I just wanted to come in here and say ya’ll are CRAZY!! HEF IS DA MAN!!! 
:dubious: Seriously? Really?
So “normal heterosexual” men are just born knowing? And I suppose “Alphas” are just born, as well? :rolleyes: