With publication on paper ceasing, how much is the online presence of Playboy still worth? I mean, it’s a big brand with a lot of brand identity. And what about publications outside the US? I know that Playboy Germany always was some different beast than the US Playboy, because I’ve known it from my early youth (don’t get me wrong, of course I only ever read it for the nudes).
They may have said that 50 or 60 years ago, but they changed with the times.
True that. I can’t claim to remember official updates to the “Playboy Philosophy”, but the cartoon humor reflected it:
An attractive young woman in a sports car asks a rural, rotund gas station attendant, “Hey Slim, where does a Ms. go around here to get laid?”
A middle-age man in a bar glares at his wife (who is seated next to a young stud), “You know very well dear that when I suggested a menage a trois, I mean another woman!”
Playboy’s cause was the sexual revolution. That’s over.
Before this thread was posted, when was the last time anyone reading this visited the Playboy web site? When was the last time somebody pointed out something they found on the web site to you or discussed something that was on the web site?
I’ve never visited it.
My late Chicago-based mother-in-law’s final job was as a fact-checker for the Playboy editorial department. Back in the ‘80s, she asked if I wanted a free subscription.
My 13 year old self in 1974 would have jumped at it. By the mid-80s, the fashion for feathered hair and heavy makeup on the models was a turn-off, and the cartoons and written content were in sharp decline. I apologetically declined the offer.
If that wasn’t on purpose, it’s one of the best typos I’ve seen in a long time.
That’s true, but in my, ahem, studies on human anatomy on the web in the last 25 years, I saw a lot of pictures of models from Playboy, most of them exclusive online content. Now, don’t ask me how online porn and erotica make any money at all, I never understood THAT, but somehow they do, and the Playboy brand was always a big player in that segment of the net.
I think the problem with the playboy brand is that its image turned and remained sleazy, not sophisticated, even though the nudes in the magazine stayed about like they were. If you had people over and they see GQ or Cigar Afficionado on your coffee table, their impression was that you’re a fashionable man with an expensive cigar hobby (or interest in those). If you have Playboy, you’re a skeeze that didn’t hide his porn (and today you’d also be someone who pays a lot for not-that-great porn). I remember seeing playboy-logo shirts and hats and stuff when I was younger, but I also remember just about everyone considering them really tacky to actually buy and wear. They had strong brand recognition with the bunny logo and the name, but it wasn’t really a brand you wanted to be associated with by other people.
Would definitely need to be handed over earlier, and would have had to do something to make it a brand you want people to see you using. “He looks like he stepped out of GQ” is a compliment on a man’s clothes, “He looks like he stepped out of playboy” just doesn’t have that ring.
double
Nah, it was just basically Robert Brown’s granny. Along with the venerable Mr. Wilson, I also dug the two Charleses: Rodriguez (who figured more in Nat Lamp) and Addams (who figured more in The New Yorker)
Some of my favourite things about the rag were The Vargas Girls and (less so, but still dug) Leroy Neiman’s stuff.
So, who was the hottest of 'em?
Marriane Gravatte?
Patty MacGuire/Connors?
Glenn Close?
Shannon Tweed?
I think we should have a pole on this.
Even back in the 80s, the image many people had of someone who was into Playboy and its related gear was basically Bloom County’s Steve Dallas. Playboy once hired an image consultant agency about how the publication could increase its appeal among readers who weren’t so intensely hedonistic and they responded with a short film about the dilemma faced by a young executive when his boss recommends he buy an issue of Playboy in order to read a relevant business article. At one point, there’s an imagine-spot where the executive envisions himself looking like a lost Festrunk Brother when he goes up the counter to buy the magazine. Playboy responded to the film by politely declining any further consultation from the agency.
It looked silly in the '70s also. I remember that they ran articles on what college students wore in 1970 - and showed stuff that no college student, anywhere, would ever go near. They were very 1950s in their outlook.
Porn, tasteful and otherwise, is free. No magazine, even the New Yorker, can attract advertisers with articles any more. Their interviews were good, and so was their fiction. But it’s a dead market.
I interviewed at Playboy for a job on their web development team back in the early 2000s (didn’t take it as the work was out in the burbs rather than at the headquarters near Mag Mile.)
Every single person I talked to there was a woman. Part of it may have been Christie Hefner’s doing, but from what I understand, they had a very difficult time hiring men. I was asked if my wife would be OK with me working for Playboy, and they told me a lot of wives and girlfriends of potential hires objected.
There was indeed. When I was volunteering with Recording for the Blind a braille edition came through, as a curiosity not to be recorded. We were joking that it used to have RLDs (raised line drawings) but they had to stop because the most interesting parts would get worn out.
“What sort of man reads Playboy?”
Remeber that page in the magainze? Always it was some dapper-suited dude with his peopre cigar and peoper car and proper ascot or whatever.
I thought that was unrealistic, so in college I took a short series of photos of my friends, with the same caption. Guys in their bathrobes with a beer and chew, with a handy spittoon on the floor, and Nagel prints on the wall. Much more accurate. Funny, PB never bought any of my photos…
The Playboy Club opened it’s Dallas franchise in '77 and a friend of mine had a membership. He invited me to the club a time or two for a drink and I remember that the clientele was most definitely not the sophisticated men-of-the-world type in accordance with the image presented in the mag (my friend included.) My prior image was that of people like Jean Shepherd, Ray Bradbury and Ian Fleming sitting around a table with ancient scotch being poured and engaging in deep, witty conversation. What was there instead were guys who looked like their next destination would be one of the nearby strip clubs.
The women working there definitely met the image presented by the magazine as they were conversational and rather nice looking. My shy, early 20’s self definitely felt a bit intimidated.
Fiction? As I recall, every story began with something like “I can’t believe this actually happened to me.” You’re telling me that was fiction? I’m crushed.
I used to hang out with the prepress folks for Playboy (at trade shows back in the early 90s) and they were all women. They hardly ever met the models, but said that almost all of the photogs were self-absorbed assholes with delusions of grandeur. Then they would complain about the work involved involved in doing so much retouching to the photos to make them look “Playboy”.
But only because we aren’t allowed to publish fiction like that here on the Dope. 