I subscribed to this really great womens' and parenting magazine called Cookie last year. It was one of the best magazines I'd had the pleasure of experiencing of it's kind. There were lots of stories about real people who were non-traditional in their parenting styles, articles about dealing with interesting issues, relationship stories, AND a Better Homes and Gardens style section on doing up your home in creative ways. I really enjoyed reading it AND I got a free pink and brown tote for subscribing.
Unfortunately, after three or four issues the magazine went out of print due to a lack of subscribers, and the company graciously offered to send me a replacement magazine to assuage my costs. Okay, they just TOLD me they were sending me their "sister publication": Lucky.
NEVER has a magazine made me feel so thoroughly degraded and dirty after simply seeing it appear in the mailbox. The entire concept just makes me want to vomit.
Lucky is a fashion magazine pretty much exclusively. I hate shopping unless I know exactly what I'm getting and I have very little money, so this is a thing I have never been really interested in - this provided disappointment in the replacement selection immediately, but I figured I'd at least thumb through the thing.
I have recently received my third issue and I can find no improvement. In fact, I haven't even opened it because I find it all so disgusting.
The magazine first of all caters to the very wealthy. There is no item of clothing, down to socks, that costs less than $100.
The magazine makes no bones about the fact that you simply aren't human and female if you can't afford designer clothes.
As a person who has worked hard to rid herself of as much materialism as is possible, this is a huge slap in the face.
It's also degrading, as I think most fashion magazines probably are.
For example - any advertisement that says "beauty must-haves" just says to me "you MUST HAVE this thing in order to be pretty." Gah. Why can't we just be ourselves and wear what we want to and if we want to wear make-up because we like it well then fine. But I don't see why these things have become a pseudo requirement in business or polite society. The showing off of wealth to such extremes in this modern age just blows my mind.
It reminds me of my study of Medieval and Renaissance culture, where to show your status you wore as many clothes as possible of as heavy and expensive of fabric as possible - even if it was a hot day. This stuff just doesn't make sense.
It's like corsets. I think they look fem and pretty, don't get me wrong, but to entrap yourself to the point where breathing is laborious all for the sake of "beauty" just seems ridiculous to me.
Don't get me wrong. I get why we do it. I've DONE it. I was in a version of Godspell just after having my daughter and I totally wore a crazy tummy sucker-inner. It was not so confining as a corset, but I was playing a whore who was supposed to be remotely attractive and the baby tummy wasn't cutting it.
I get all these things.
I get our insecurities and our self-deprivation and deprecation - but why subscribe to a magazine that throws it in our faces?
I appreciate fashion for art. I honestly do. I like to look at new clothing that up and coming designers have made because it's creative and often very beautiful.
I do NOT like for someone to tell me that I cannot be beautiful unless I have this item.
Advertising pretty much makes me want to vomit.
I've got enough insecurities without some screaming ad with a model who is 6'1 and wears a size 0 telling me I'm not good enough and won't ever have enough cash in my wallet to compete.
I think that the most insane part of the magazine is that they include this entire page of stickers shaped like flip flops that have the word "yes!" written on them. You are supposed to use these stickers to mark the ads for clothing and beauty products that you will commit to buying after reading the magazine.
Really?
Stickers are fun and all...but really? Playing into my childhood love of stickers and sense of whimsy and fancy so that I'll spend more money because you've succeeded in making me feel like I look crappy if I don't is just wrong.
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