i miss magazines

For anyone who cares about the decline of print media, The Devil Wears Prada 2 was a disaster movie. I'm not really a fashion magazine person (shocker!) but I appreciate the artistry and collaboration involved in putting together something as culturally significant as Vogue, or whatever the fictional version is called in the movie, i can't remember. The way the real world magazine industry was completely hollowed out between DWP1 (2006) and DWP2 (2026) is legit upsetting. I've never worked at a magazine, but I did have a couple stints at magazine-adjacent outlets in the early 2010's (huffpost live and buzzfeed). But I am a long time magazine fan, as are most of my fellow Gen X'ers. What are my five all time favorite, but now defunct magazines? I'm so glad you asked, here they are in descending order:

Vibe Magazine (1993-2014)

loved reading this on the subway when I lived in NYC. it's been so long since I've thought about it, I've kinda conflated it with SPIN which I also liked

Hot Dog (nineteen seventy-something to ninteen eighty-something? we got these as part of the Scholastic Books flyer that teachers would hand out in elementary school. You'd check the boxes of the books and magazines you wanted to order and it was thrilling when they'd arrive at school a couple weeks later)

Entertainment Weekly (1990-2019)

according to the internet it still exists, but is now monthly which checks notes is not weekly, so I'm counting this as defunct. loved their "The Must List" — according to the internet it still exists, but is now monthly which [*checks notes]*is not weekly, so I'm counting this as defunct. loved their "The Must List"

Grand Royal (1993-1997)

Mike D from Beastie Boys founded this limited run magazine which felt both directly aimed at my demographic and an invite into the lives and interests of my favorite artists at a time when that sort of thing was hard to come by.

Premiere Magazine (1987-2010, U.S. edition)

As an aspiring filmmaker in the pre-internet era, this was the magazine that got me excited to try and make movies one day. And got me excited to see what movies to look forward to each summer and fall.

I had a Premiere subscription throughout junior high and high school and would look forward to its arrival in the mailbox each month. I know most of my blog posts tend to take on a "back in my day we had to wait for things" pov, but it truly felt really different and I'm officially old now so it's my right as an elder to talk about what we've lost as a culture.

I maintain that flipping through physical pages of a magazine is inherently more satisfying that flipping through Apple News articles on my ipad where everything feels flattened and I see the same AI slop jewelry ads over and over again. I was thinking of Premiere last week when Lynn and I went to see a screening of Terminator 2 at The Egyptian in Hollywood. I remember being excited to see it that summer after reading about the making of in Premiere. The other making of feature that I still remember decades later was their "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" feature on how Bob Hoskins (RIP to him as well) had to act alongside a water pipe that became a spitting weasel in post-production. I've always loved "making of" features, both in print and as video bonus features. Even as a kid I preferred the making of Thriller more than the video itself.

And the reason Grand Royal magazine has been on my mind the past couple weeks, is that I recently went to a Mike D solo show (!) in South Pasadena.

Mike D, looking back at his two sons who are now part of his band.

After the show I came across a post on a Beastie Boys subreddit about Grand Royal magazine that offered four bootlegged downloads, which didn't feel like an ethical violation in that the physical magazine has been dead for 30 years and is going for beaucoup bucks on ebay. Reading those old issues was such a time machine back to the late 90's, complete with ads for obscure skate shops in Los Feliz, and indie record labels that are now long gone. Not surprisingly, the overlap in the venn diagram of my interests plus those of the Beastie Boys is pretty significant. The issues have interviews and contributions from Spike Jonze, Weird Al, Kathleen Hannah (taking Mike D to task in issue 2 for the casual misogyny he included in issue 1), Lee "Scratch" Perry, The Pharcyde, Allison Anders, the mullets of the 93 Phillies, the NBA All Star game...and the list goes on.

My approach to nostalgia these days is basically, find joy in any way you can, and these back issues brought me a lot of joy. Highly recommend, even if it does feel like an anachronism flipping through them on an ipad.

In general, I love that young people are getting back into some of this physical media now. My hunch is that it's a direct response to the flattening and devaluing of pop culture at the whims of the algorithm, or maybe they're just big ol' dorks. Either way, I'm into it. They're back at the movie theaters, making zines, listening to cassette tapes (which feels like jumping the analog shark to me, the sound quality is pretty awful but i do appreciate the commitment to an album format), some of them are even jonesing for analog TV!

I would be remiss if I concluded this ode to defunct magazines without acknowledging the closing of my local Larchmont Newsstand last year. A sad day for the neighborhood, but their inadvertent advice from the handmade sign still rings true for those practicing self care these days- "Do Not Open The Newspaper Please"