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I Miss Magazines

I always looked forward to opening my mailbox and getting the latest issues of Martha Stewart, Better Homes & Gardens, Esquire, Dwell and Elle Decor.

Reading them on iPad just isn't the same.

But my husband is relieved we no longer have stacks of used magazines in the house.

by Anonymousreply 71June 3, 2025 1:53 AM

They make GREAT gifts for elderly relatives. I’ve gotten my mom subscriptions to The Saturday Evening Post (yes, it’s still published), Readers Digest, and others.

by Anonymousreply 1May 28, 2025 10:03 PM

Great time capsules as well. The attic of our summer cottage had decades old magazines of many genres. I spent many a rainy day in my teens going over old LIFE magazines.

by Anonymousreply 2May 28, 2025 10:07 PM

It's so hard to do collages anymore.

by Anonymousreply 3May 28, 2025 10:09 PM

OP, your magazine choices make you sound very heterosexual.

by Anonymousreply 4May 28, 2025 10:24 PM

I finally gave up my Vanity Fair subscription when it went up to over $100 annually.

by Anonymousreply 5May 28, 2025 11:08 PM

I just resubscribed to “The New Yorker” because I am a masochist. But I also love it. I love the covers, the games, Talk of the Town.

by Anonymousreply 6May 28, 2025 11:31 PM

[quote] finally gave up my Vanity Fair subscription when it went up to over $100 annually.

I just checked magazines.com: $24 for 12 issues.

by Anonymousreply 7May 28, 2025 11:33 PM

I used to grab the latest issue of Architectural Digest, and could escape from the world for a few hours. Now it's 1/3 the size and filled with advertisements. I bought an issue a couple years ago and I was done and over it in about thirty minutes.

by Anonymousreply 8May 28, 2025 11:38 PM

I still got my local city magazine - forgot to cancel it last year. Kind of the same stuff every time - best doctors in.., best neighborhoods, best new restaurants, best shopping, best getaways... rinse, lather, repeat.

by Anonymousreply 9May 28, 2025 11:39 PM

Join AARP and you get subs to a magazine AND a full color tabloid!

by Anonymousreply 10May 29, 2025 12:03 AM

[quote]r5 = I finally gave up my Vanity Fair subscription when it went up to over $100 annually.

I gave mine up decades ago because the cologne samples gave me a headache.

by Anonymousreply 11May 29, 2025 12:12 AM

I visit Barnes & Noble bookstores every month or two, and I usually pick up one or two magazines. Otherwise the only ones I ever see now are at the checkout area of my pharmacy.

by Anonymousreply 12May 29, 2025 12:12 AM

One of the last movie magazines available.

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by Anonymousreply 13May 29, 2025 12:54 AM

[quote]OP, your magazine choices make you sound very heterosexual.

Yeah, on Planet Oldhomo.

by Anonymousreply 14May 29, 2025 12:57 AM

R5 what r u smoking? The website says print + digital is $48 annually

by Anonymousreply 15May 29, 2025 1:07 AM

The Atlantic is one of the best magazines out there, but I just can't read it anymore. It's all just too depressing. I'm slightly more engaged now. But I try to back off when it gets too hard. I'm still just too tired of it all.

by Anonymousreply 16May 29, 2025 1:12 AM

I would buy Sight & Sound from time to time, but I found Empire from UK containing much more info on recent films.

by Anonymousreply 17May 29, 2025 1:14 AM

Raid random doctors’ waiting rooms

by Anonymousreply 18May 29, 2025 2:00 AM

[quote]what r u smoking? The website says print + digital is $48 annually

It can be had even more cheaply during regular sales at Discount Magazines. I’m in the third year of a three-year deal at $12/year.

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by Anonymousreply 19May 29, 2025 2:45 AM

Tv guide from 1976, damn it.

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by Anonymousreply 20May 29, 2025 3:54 AM

R13: I'm in Ireland and sometimes buy issues of "Sight & Sound" from a bookstore (yes, how quaint). I really miss Film at Lincoln Center's now-defunct monthly magazine "Film Comment," though. It folded during or right after Covid.

by Anonymousreply 21May 29, 2025 4:03 AM

I get the New Yorker also, and National Geographic. They’re worth it.

by Anonymousreply 22May 29, 2025 4:22 AM

We still have magazine subscriptions at work. Mostly henhouse magazines like US Weekly and People but also W and Rolling Stone. I have no idea who reads them at work.

by Anonymousreply 23May 29, 2025 4:30 AM

I was addicted to magazines in the pre-internet era. I would read anything I could get my hands on. But I'm grateful not to have the clutter nowadays.

by Anonymousreply 24May 29, 2025 4:36 AM

Magazines, sadly, begin with MAGA.

by Anonymousreply 25May 29, 2025 5:58 AM

I once knew a guy on the spectrum who called them BABA YAGA ZINES

by Anonymousreply 26May 29, 2025 6:01 AM

When we had periodicals instead of infinite scroll, we devoured new issues enthusiastically. But soon enough, we were bored with them. We limply flipped through the same pics and reread the articles now ho-hum until malaise took over and we forced ourselves outside or to tv reruns with the same effect.

Getting a letter to the editor took some effort, stationery, stamps, licking an unknown adhesive and finding a mailbox. Being selected was uncommon.

The public diarrhea of the mind we have today was impossible.

by Anonymousreply 27May 29, 2025 6:17 AM

House Beautiful pages fit perfectly in the bottom of the parakeet cage.

by Anonymousreply 28May 29, 2025 6:31 AM

You can still subscribe to print editions of Yummy, DNA, Attitude, Jack the Lad, Interview ....

Offsite Link
by Anonymousreply 29May 29, 2025 6:57 AM

My library has lots of them. I’m retired so I can go in there during the day.

I used to enjoy The Sporting News and ESPN.

by Anonymousreply 30May 29, 2025 6:58 AM

Those were the days... Going to my P.O. box for issues of Mandate, First Hand, Advocate Men, Bear, Blueboy, Playguy, Spurt, Drummer... They had such interesting articles!

by Anonymousreply 31May 29, 2025 7:09 AM

The only thing I shoplifted was FLEX magazine

by Anonymousreply 32May 29, 2025 7:16 AM

When I subscribed to a few magazines in the 1990s when I was in college, I was shocked that most were more ads than stories. I finally decided to stop paying for commercials.

by Anonymousreply 33May 29, 2025 10:06 AM

The only thing I like about digital magazines is that the photos are easy to save.

by Anonymousreply 34May 29, 2025 11:11 AM

Picking up Detour magazine at the mall Walden Books was one of my intros into gay lifestyle. The spreads by David LaChapelle were mind blowing and I still think of some of those images. I still get the New Yorker and try to read it weekly. I freelanced for EW until they folded and had a subscription. It switched to People Magazine which I actually enjoyed, great for drawing reference and reading by the pool. But I haven’t resubscirbed.

by Anonymousreply 35May 29, 2025 11:38 AM

I used to buy various magazines regularly and pass them off to two of my friends. One moved away and the other died, so instead of throwing them in the recycling bin, I would take them to my office and leave them on a corner shelf in the office pantry. I'm at a new job now where they don't have space for it, so I now leave them in my neighborhood free mini-library.

by Anonymousreply 36May 29, 2025 11:57 AM

I hate to say this, but I prefer books and magazines on my iPad now. It's just a better experience.

by Anonymousreply 37May 29, 2025 12:03 PM

I can't even imagine the amount of paper we used to go through in the world before the internet. Tons of tons of stuff gets read once and then sitting here until it disintegrates.

by Anonymousreply 38May 29, 2025 12:11 PM

At least paper disintegrates. Discarded computers, tablets and smartphones do not.

by Anonymousreply 39May 29, 2025 12:14 PM

Utne Reader was a perfect rabbit hole for new magazine articles. I was reading up on women’s studies at the time and that magazine introduced me to a lot of good information that has held up.

You could tell magazine print was in trouble when the gloss on the magazines went away, Details developed ADHD, Vogue put Paris on the cover, and Maggie Gylilenhaal modeled Prada.

by Anonymousreply 40May 29, 2025 4:01 PM

The Atlantic is the only magazine I subscribe to now, although I read it mostly online. It's got the best writing and the best political coverage. The New Yorker is a travesty of what it once was; now it's just long form writing for the sake of long form. Boring as hell. NatGeo is fun to look at but too expensive to subscribe to. Anything else you'll find online in those rare instances when one of them has a good article -- it'll go viral or, yes, appear on Datalounge.

by Anonymousreply 41May 29, 2025 4:25 PM

R6 Although it's described as a behavior of the old and technophobic, the delight in the physical presence of texts and images, holding them in your hands, not having the screen radiating light at you, the screen that conditions you like red mean did Pavlov's dogs, the screen that defines the limits of your attention span that encourages to click away to monetize your behavior for someone else's profits....

I've read the New Yorker for many decades... always (my kink) starting from the back... cinema review, paging through book and culture reviews, then the fiction (and stopping for poetry if I'm in the mood and the form of the poem attracts me) then feature articles, then memoir pieces, then stopping, slightly nauseated and complete sated, before the short local color/puff piece articles. It's a ritual than simply cannot be achieved by scrolling on a screen.

For these reasons, I also subscribe to hard copies of London Review of Books, NYRB, Harper's and The Atlantic. Oddly, only the Atlantic seems better to read in the screens... the others invite me to luxuriate and let my eyes wander across the pages.

Something is lost in our surrender to the death of 3-D space, object, and tactile pleasures.

by Anonymousreply 42May 29, 2025 4:27 PM

As a wee gayling, I treated the bi-monthly arrival of Soap Opera Digest like letters from the font. I lived for People’s tentpole issues (Most Beautiful, 25 Most Intriguing People) and Vanity Fair’s Hollywood Issue. They were events to me. And I still have it all in storage. Mary!

by Anonymousreply 43May 29, 2025 4:32 PM

I do miss paper magazines on a nostalgic level. But it’s hard to beat Apple News+ which gives me The New Yorker, New York, Vanity Fair, The Atlantic, LA Times, WSJ… etc. I saved quite a bit of money once I simply committed over to Apple.

by Anonymousreply 44May 29, 2025 5:17 PM

I miss coming out of the subway in Philly and stopping at the newsstand to by the newest TV Guide and SOD (Soap Opera Digest!

by Anonymousreply 45May 29, 2025 6:09 PM

I've had a subscription to The New Yorker, my last remaining magazine subscription, since 1976. I used to get Vanity Fair, Premiere, Esquire, TV Guide, and Time (or Newsweek; I'd alternate every couple of years).

by Anonymousreply 46May 29, 2025 6:19 PM

A friend of mine still gets US but it's really just the same photos I could see for free online.

by Anonymousreply 47May 29, 2025 11:57 PM

I get the New Yorker, Texas Monthly and the New York Review of Books. I love sitting in my yard, drinking cocktails, and reading magazines. When I'm done with them, I give them to my nerdy students.

by Anonymousreply 48May 30, 2025 12:05 AM

I subscribed to Vanity Fair for years. It was half the price it sold for in stores.

by Anonymousreply 49May 30, 2025 12:07 AM

I was getting my cellphone fixed and they had no magazines. What a missed opportunity

by Anonymousreply 50May 30, 2025 12:08 AM

Just announced today - several more magazines shutting down.

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by Anonymousreply 51May 31, 2025 3:30 AM

I Long Landline Telephones

by Anonymousreply 52May 31, 2025 4:17 AM

cover girls

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by Anonymousreply 53May 31, 2025 4:40 AM

My rich magazine era came to an end earlier this year, when I opted out of continuing to receive the printed edition of The New Yorker, the last of the once many periodicals I received in the mail.

by Anonymousreply 54June 2, 2025 5:59 PM

While reading Graydon Carter’s autobiography, When the Going was Good, I’m reminiscing about magazines of yore.

by Anonymousreply 55June 2, 2025 6:05 PM

R55 how is that? I've been meaning to pick it up

by Anonymousreply 56June 2, 2025 6:27 PM

It’s a much slimmer tome - one of many words Carter banned, btw, when he became editor of Vanity Fair - than I expected, but it has a breezy tone I’m enjoying.

by Anonymousreply 57June 2, 2025 6:37 PM

I still subscribe to "People," "New York," "Esquire" and "The New Yorker."

They are all pretty cheap if you wait around for the right deals.

"The New Yorker" is the most expensive, but oncer a year they have a sale for $35 for a year.

"People" has a sale at Christmas for $25 a year, usually, and you can get multiple years at one time. I'm paid up until 2029. Hopefully, it will be around for that long.

I'm pretty sure I just keep them all up-to-date because i like having something to read in the bathroom. I hate the idea of looking at my phone while on the toilet.

"People" articles are perfect shitting length.

by Anonymousreply 58June 2, 2025 6:40 PM

R58- you sound like a catch!

by Anonymousreply 59June 2, 2025 6:59 PM

I'm well read and regular!

by Anonymousreply 60June 2, 2025 7:04 PM

Hemmings Motor News, Collectible Automobile, The LRB, the NYRoB, Vanity Fair, Texas Monthly, Boston Magazine, Garden and Gun, Harvard Magazine, Tatler, Granta, Trains.

by Anonymousreply 61June 2, 2025 7:42 PM

At varying times in my life, I subscribed to the print editions of NYM, The NYer, Newsweek, The New Republic, VF, Entertainment Weekly, SI, The Sporting News, Baseball America, & TV Guide. Now I just subscribe online to The NYer, The Atlantic & Baseball America. As for newspapers, I receive the print edition of the NYT, & WaPo online.

by Anonymousreply 62June 2, 2025 7:55 PM

I used to take:

Architectural Digest (US, then Spain); The Atlantic Monthly; Country Life (UK); Garden & Gun; House & Garden US (superb in the late 1980s-early 1990s); House & Garden (UK, still not bad); The Magazine Antiques; The New Yorker; Spy Magazine

These days I take only Cabana Magazine; and The World of Interiors.

The couple that are current I enjoy, but things change including reading habits and sources of information, and with all the news feeds and articles I read, a fat stack of thick magazines every month would feel a burden I think.

by Anonymousreply 63June 2, 2025 8:12 PM

You take?

by Anonymousreply 64June 2, 2025 8:19 PM

I spent my career working on the biz side of the once glamorous world of magazines. Let me tell you how bleak it is to work at a modern legacy media company that was once rooted in print. It is GRIM. I’m figuring out my next move, and it’s surreal to know this is an industry that is really off the table. It’s forcing me to reinvent myself which isn’t easy as a Gen Xer used to a certain income level. Pray for me, girls.

by Anonymousreply 65June 2, 2025 8:23 PM

If Trump can bring back coal jobs, why not the printed magazine, too?

by Anonymousreply 66June 2, 2025 8:28 PM

Hollywood reporter ain’t shit for using that cover of In Touch. 😂. Lawd.

Woman married to madwoman. 😂

by Anonymousreply 67June 2, 2025 10:56 PM

I get they that are saying old Bruce is married to madwoman but they are being shady for having chose that one now in time.

by Anonymousreply 68June 2, 2025 10:57 PM

I miss coming home to a mailbox full of magazines.

by Anonymousreply 69June 3, 2025 12:47 AM

Vanity Fair was my holy grail. GLAMOUR.

by Anonymousreply 70June 3, 2025 1:09 AM

I know, OP! I used to have subscriptions to Vanity Fair, Rolling Stone, The New Yorker, and Esquire. Ican even remember when there was a Village Voice and it was a tabloid sized newspaper. I felt so smart!!

by Anonymousreply 71June 3, 2025 1:53 AM
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