Meta-Magazines: Every Issue Is The Same

[running_coach]

@nearwildheaven

I remember the “I Am Joe’s/Jane’s (body part)” series from the 1970s, when I was a kid. I always enjoyed those stories. Do they still do those?

No idea. That was probably the last time I read RD.

[Stranger_On_A_Train]

@erysichthon

I’d be hard pressed to think of an unpredictable magazine that’s still published. However, I have fond memories of Spy. You never knew what was going to be in each new issue—but you knew that, whatever it was, it would be highly embarrassing to various celebrities and politicians and hysterically funny for the reader.

Spy Magazine was the best; from mocking Donald Trump’s latest ill-advised business venture or George H.W. Bush drunkenly crashing a car with his girlfriend as a passenger to why we should fear Fred MacMurray, it was a fearlessly inventive and investigative journalistic endeavor that Vice News and The Daily Beast can only faintly imitate.

Stranger

[furryman]

I probably bought the only copy sold of a magazine dedicated to collectors of military items. Mostly high quality pictures of various military medals.

[epbrown01]

@Dr_Paprika

But I was wondering what the most and least repetitive magazines were, as well as the oddest focus.

The most repetitive fitness mag has to be Weider’s Muscle and Fitness - month after month those poor writers have to come up with a different way to describe doing barbell curls (according to the Weider Principles, of course). Or yet another way to grill a chicken breast.

The real irony? When I started working out as a teen I bought a cheap 150-lb weight set from Venture (Chicago dept store chain) branded by the Weiders, and the 50s-style 10-page pamphlet of basic weightlifting exercises it came with remains the clearest, most effective, concise instruction on weightlifting I’ve ever seen, forty years on. No one from the magazine could have been involved…

[filmore]

Some magazines can repeat content since their clientele go through a natural churn. Bridal magazines are a good example of this. There is always a new crop of brides looking to get married. Having the same bridal articles year after year is fine since there’s always a new group of readers wanting that info. Hobby/exercise magazines are similar, as there’s always a new crop of participants getting into the activity and looking for info. Once they’re up to speed, they don’t need the magazine as much. Or they get bored with the activity and quit. In either case, the usefulness of the magazine naturally goes down over time.

I suppose the magazines could create new content to keep the experienced reader subscribing, but that might be too costly. It might be more profitable to keep rerunning the articles than try to come up with unique, new content.

[ioioio]

Someone once gave me a subscription to a magazine for diabetics. The second issue made me realize that there isn’t really that much to say about the subject.

• Diabetes is bad. You need to control your blood sugar.
• You need to exercise.
• Here are some recipes.
• Here’s a story about a nice person with diabetes.

[epbrown01]

@filmore

Some magazines can repeat content since their clientele go through a natural churn. Bridal magazines are a good example of this.

Tech-based magazines as well. I really only read Computer Shopper when I was computer shopping, to see what was out there. Once I picked a system it was years before I needed it again.