I like reading magazines. But when my brother bought me a Men’s Health subscription one year, it became immediately apparent every issue is exactly the same with a “six pack workout”, “big biceps workout”, an article on cooking chicken and oatmeal, and something about shoes or watches.
I get the same feeling from Cooks Illustrated or America’s Test Kitchen — both of which I like. “I wanted to make perfect White Toast With Butter, but most recipes required special equipment and gave mediocre results that were dry and fell butter side down on the carpet. I tried 43 different types of bread, cut to 8 different thicknesses and used 9 spreading techniques with 22 different spreads. Bread was toasted using fire, friction, lightning and 12 different roasting machines. All were horrible. In desperation, I turned to our Science Editor who suggested adding positively charged cornstarch to bread rubbed vigourously to create an electrostatic attraction. Tasters agree my recipe is quick and delicious and asked for second helpings.”
By necessity, many magazines keep a similar format (Consumer Reports, Readers Digest) or cover pretty limited material. But I was wondering what the most and least repetitive magazines were, as well as the oddest focus.
My local Barnes & Noble has a magazine called “KMT.” Most people would have no idea what that is, but I remembered that from my Egyptian history unit in high school, and that magazine is indeed about Egyptology. We also get “417” and “5280” magazines donated semi-regularly at the library where I volunteer; those are tourist-oriented magazines for the 417 area code (Branson and the Missouri Ozarks) and Denver, respectively.
I tried to become a long distance runner in my early 20s, and subscribed to Runner’s World for a while, and discontinued it when I realized that they would just take the same articles every month and rewrite them. I will admit that there’s only so much you can say about running styles (or ab workouts, for that matter).
The library also recently got a sizable donation of “Hot Rod” and other similar magazines, about equally divided between recent issues, and issues from the mid 1990s. We put the recent issues out in the self-service bookstore, and listed the older magazines on our Amazon account. I’m mentioning this here because the current magazines had pictures of cars on the covers, and the older magazines often had pictures of cars with bikini models standing next to them. The pictures were not offensive; it was simply a sign of the times.
I also saw some magazines in a thrift store that were from the early 1960s: “Doctor’s Wife” magazine. :dubious: The issue I picked up and leafed through had an article in it called “The Doctor’s Husband.”
I started running in 1976. *Runner’s World * was way different then. It was aimed as much toward competitive runners as beginners(remember, the running boom was in it’s early stages at the time) and new ideas and training philosophies were still fighting for supremacy. Now, it’s more aimed at the beginning runner(hence the repetition) with Running Times taking over for the more competitive types.
ETA: Must be 20 years ago (or more), there was a new magazine called Crosstrainer. easily 95% bodybuilding workouts disguised as crosstraining with occasional articles on running,cycling or swimming written from the viewpoint of a musclehead.
I got a trial sub for Wired a bit ago (hadn’t read it in years).
Sample issue: Some tiny text on a colored background you can’t read mixed in with ads for very expensive stuff.
I guess all the people making fun of the font and color choices years ago didn’t make any difference. But the ads have switched from practical computer stuff to rich guy fluff.
What I love about Cosmo is that once a year (I think) the cover trumpets that issue as “The Sex Issue.” I always wonder, how is this issue any different from all other Cosmo issues?
I suspect that they don’t have huge subscription bases (except maybe bridal salons and wedding planners); I’ve heard that most of their circulation had traditionally been single-copy sales. I also suspect that, for most readers, the articles in those are largely secondary to the ads for dresses and other wedding merchandise.
Totally agree about Cosmopolitain. I used to subscribe in my 20s until one day I realized that I had read all of the stories they were ever going to print, in a couple years.
It felt like how the church has a liturgical calendar. You can guarantee they’re going to tell the same stories on the same cycle, year after year after year, just updated with new pictures and products.
I subscribed to Road and Track in the past until I realized it mostly featured articles on cars I could never afford. I subscribed to Sail for a while until I realized it featured boats I can never afford (although I do subscribe to Small Craft Advisor featuring boats and gear I can afford.)
I think the winner for most repetitive would be: scuba diving magazines. When I first got into diving, I would pick these up to learn about new places to go. After a few years, you find, despite the planet being 3/4 covered in water, there is a very finite set of places you’d 1) be able to go diving, and 2) want to go diving. There are some more extreme, specialized places, but the magazines cater to your average, warm water, recreational diver. So all you see are articles for the same destinations over and over again. And the annual new dive gear articles (but unlike other sports, there’s no real need to stay up with the latest with diving).
Hint: if you’re a diver, you can get far better intel on places to go diving, many of which you will never have heard of, from fellow divers.
By contrast, rock climbing magazines are kind of the opposite: new destinations are being “discovered” and routed all the time. I would put these magazines in the least repetitive category. Unfortunately many new destinations are in some pretty difficult to get to locations. And a lot of articles focus on these really extreme first ascent trips (or tragedies). But still, even within the US you can learn about new locations all the time. …And the annual new gear articles.
I am constantly drawn to machine shop magazines (of which there are only 2 that I see regularly), and they never deliver on my hopes. I always hope to see neat new tricks and some fun projects.
They are almost always dominated by one or two huge projects that are very specialized, and some multi-part project. One magazine I have on my desk now says “Machining a Propeller Shaft” on its cover; another says “Any Thread: A Parallel-linked, Adjustable Sine Bar Threading Attachment”. Both are relatively niche topics.
There’s one at grocery store checkout called “Woman’s First” or something like that. Every single issue has two featured items on the cover:
How to prepare a ridiculously decadent dessert, involving mounds of frosting and chocolate
An amazing secret plan to follow to lose twenty pounds in two weeks
The exact details vary just slightly between issues.
The pictures were not offensive; it was simply a sign of the times.
