Many many years ago (1995), while I was in Boston, I bought my first copy of Wired magazine (how could I forget the absurd cover to the right (yes, there IS a picture there) [And I’m very impressed that you can easily link to all of their back issues, just as I did with the link above]. I’m not sure how long it had been in print , but I think it was still young and buzzworthy. [Research shows that this was its 3rd year]. I remember thinking the magazine was very difficult to read. Literally. Text ran across pages, the colors were all wild. The ads blurred completely with the content (by design). And it was very “techie.” I don’t remember if I subscribed exactly then, but I did subscribe eventually. And then I stopped (sometime in 1999).
Recently I got an offer to re-subscribe, for a dollar an issue. (This is where my idea that I will cancel a magazine once I stop getting a dollar’s worth from it). I wasn’t sure if I should subscribe, but I figured what the hell.
Not a resounding chorus of cheers for this publication, huh?
Well, since I’ve subscribed I have been pleasantly surprised by the magazine. And interestingly, the cover story almost never interests me. In fact, and my brother in law Tim first pointed this out: the cover stories and the big articles take themselves very seriously. Everything is always The Future Of This. The New That. Don’t Be Left Behind! It’s over the top in its wanting you to take them seriously.
So, this current issue’s cover story is The New Economy: Detroit Re-imagined, Socialism Redefined. It’s all Very Important. Whatever. I skimmed the articles, gleaned an idea or two from the pull quotes and then moved on.
For me the fun of Wired comes in the earlier sections.
Oh, and the layout of the magazine has improved (or become more commercial if that’s your attitude). It’s much more legible, thank you publishers. Although I notice that the early section that I like so much feels the need to cram the ideas into somewhat artificial categories.
The Star section usually has some fun techie, gadgetry, sci-fi-in-reality stuff. Even if I don’t read the article, I like the pictures. This one has an interesting piece about these guys who are trying to measure corporate risk outside of the market driven system. Check them out freerisk.org. There’s also some fun things ala Esquire with lists and Q&A guys (these are all tech-related questions). A further fun thing is the What’s Inside segment in which they evaluate all of the ingredients in a common household item (usually the information is quite fascinating and horrific). How To provides silly or techie things you can do at home (again, not unlike Esquire). And, in completing the Esquire comparison this most recent issue is all about the New Rules (Esquire has has “Rules” in all of its issues since time immemorial); admittedly, the Wired Rules are very funny too.
Playlist is a Top 8 or so cool things to check out…and who doesn’t love that. There’s almost always at least 1 thing I wind up checking out from here. This time it’s the board game Hive, which sounds awesome (and maybe the Tiny Masters of Today CD). Their music reviews tend toward the techno side, although it’s usually pretty interesting (this month has Dark Night of the Soul (Danger Mouse, David Lynch and Sparklehorse) which is the first I’ve heard of the collaboration (although by now its totally buzzworthy and already banned and in legislation).
We usually get a brief interview with someone in entertainment (this issue has Guillermo Del Toro who is going to be filming Slaughterhouse Five and The Hobbit) very soon. And the back page always features a Found Artifact from the Future. These are usually funny mockups of what we’ll find in 2050 or so.
The one weird thing about Wired is that unlike any other magazine I have ever seen, they frequently have articles that start about thirty pages from the end of the magazine (you think you’re into the back pages’ classified and continuations of other articles and then blam a brand new one (Weird Al was featured once like this, although this time…come on Jimmy Fallon? Really?)
And although the layout has improved it is still pretty hard to tell what is an ad (they do have the word Advertisement at the top of the really hard to distinguish ads), but I guess that is how you make money as a periodical.
So yes, Wired usually earns its dollar. And some months it earns a lot more. I just make sure not to take it too seriously.
Original content from Periodicals Page:
Wired. Wired created the “is it worth a dollar” criterion for me. My brother-in-law saw me reading Wired, and said, “It’s always THE END OF, or THE BEST OF or some other superlative with them.” And it’s totally true. For the most part Wired is a silly magazine. Hyping technology for the sake of technology. And, there are frankly much better web sites out there like Boing Boing to keep up with silly fun things. However, the selling point for me was when they had an article on the Beastie Boys’ upcoming concert with handheld cameras that resulted in Awesome…I Fucking Shot That. I said, huh, that was worth a dollar to me. I keep waiting for it to not have $1 of interest so I can cancel it, but it keeps living up to my minimal standards.
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