The Magazine Wars

You may remember my frustration over Vogue magazine and the lack of relevancy to my life (“My Love-Hate Relationship With Vogue Magazine,” September 12, 2013). Well, the plot thickens! Not long after that blog, a September issue of Cosmopolitan appears in the mail. Right address and everything. And then in quick succession comes the October issue. I didn’t subscribe, even by accident. I can’t imagine who sent it to me. Or why. No doubt because of my ranting about Vogue, to give me another magazine option. Or just to mess with me.

But I am curious, so I scour the magazine looking for a number to call, which wasn’t as easy as it should have been, call and am told to call another number to find out who paid for the subscription. So I call that number and get a computer program that gives me an address to write to and a website about five inches long to check out for the answer to my question. I hang up.

So the magazine keeps coming. Boy, I thought I had nothing in common with Vogue. I hadn’t seen anything yet! Cosmo’s target audience must be the 18-25 age group of hormone-heavy females with questionable taste. I have tried to give the magazine the benefit of the doubt and try to read it. Trust me, it doesn’t take long to flip through and look at the pictures, the article titles, recognize almost none of the celebrities pictured and interviewed, and make it to the last page in record time.

But I have tried. I did read in the November issue (see, I let them pile up before trying to wade through the flotsam) a disturbing article about increased heroin use by middle to upper-class and supposedly intelligent college kids. I had to chuckle at the comment on the Thanksgiving food lay-out that suggested buying an already baked turkey so you wouldn’t have to deal with the gross giblets-yeah, like that’s the hardest part of cooking a turkey dinner. The fitness page had good exercises, but not that my old body could easily master. I did read with interest the article about Revenge Porn, something I didn’t know existed but does now, thanks to the Internet, vindictive ex-boy friends, and  bad choices. For those of you also unaware of this new tactic, it is when the discarded boy friend posts nude photos of the former girl friend online and in all the wrong places. I really do understand the frustration of the girls who have been victimized by this new method of revenge and none of it is right, what the boy friends did or the lack of response by the law, but none of this would have happened if the pictures had not been taken at all. If a little common sense and good taste had been used, perhaps some if not all of the problem could have been avoided. I am not saying the girls were asking for it, so don’t get all bent out of shape and tell me I am making the girls the guilty parties here.  i just think young people sometimes don’t think things through. And then there was the Did I Ask for Your Opinion?! page with advice on how to deal with friends and family who poke into your business or aren’t crazy about some of your lifestyle choices. Such as, “My dad hates my tattoo-he won’t even look at it.” Well, duh. Unless her dad is covered in tattoos himself, what did she expect? She probably knew deep down what his reaction would be, which is most likely the reason she got the tattoo in the first place. Or the one about being laughed at for wearing dark lipstick. These are life-defining questions? These are things young women should lose sleep over? Really?

And I could go on, but you get the idea. When the February issue came the other day, I was horrified to realize that, if I read the address label correctly, the subscription runs until September of 2015! A 2-year subscription! I can’t imagine who spent that much money on this magazine for me, someone not in the target audience. Which was the whole point, no doubt. Yes, I could cancel it and probably will, but I keep thinking I will find something of value in it if I just keep looking. I also think that eventually the perpetrator will give themselves away and the truth will come out.

I had to smile when comparing Vogue with its sophistication, smoothness, and snob appeal to Cosmopolitan, with its youth, primary colors, and cotton candy viewpoint, that I actually could relate in some ways to Vogue. Go figure. 

So I will just be patient, read my More magazine, which really does fit my age and life style, enjoy my Cactus and Succulent Society of America Journal-yes, there is such a thing!-recycle the Cosmos off to the Thrift Shop, and wait for the mystery to unravel itself.

Stay tuned.