Magazines

Shauna was writing about reading material over on her blog, and I said something to this effect in the comment section, but I wanted to talk about it here too.

I think I'm between magazines.

When I was in high school I like Cosmo. I thought it was fun and interesting. On occasion I would pick up Glamour and flip through it, but I always found it boring and tedious. Cosmo seemed, though in retrospect this sounds impossible, more relevant to me? Not in that at age 16 I was in desperate need of tips on how to give the blow job of my guy's life or whatever, but it just seemed more interesting and young.

At some point, I think when I was in college, I started to find Cosmo boring. I noticed that it was really unfeminist and horrifyingly man-centered, and that the content of the magazine was pretty much exactly the same from month to month, only with different headlines.

So then, at some point in my early 20s, I looked at Glamour again. And I liked it. It's pro-woman in a very mainstream, limited kind of way, and it has articles about things other than just sex and fashion, and a lot of it was interesting. So I subscribed, and I still subscribe.

But I've noticed over the last few months that I'm just not that interested in it anymore. I flip through the magazine very quickly and skip half the articles. Their attempts at exposes and hard news pieces don't really matter to me because I get that kind of info in much better form from sources like the New York Times. I feel informed about the harder stuff they cover, from news to health, and less interested in the softer stuff, like relationship advice and fashion tips.

Part of it probably has to do with the fact that we have no money--things like a "steal" of a dress at $55 aren't relevant to me at the moment since I will not be spending anywhere near $55 on any article of clothing at any point in the near future--but part of it is just that my interests have diverged with its subject matter.

There are other magazines that I enjoy off and on, like Bitch and Bust, but what I really want is a fluffy, shiny magazine that's a quick, easy read (not quite on People level as I am not interested enough in celebrities for that to matter) but that is still relevant to my life. Glamour seems like the last frontier of that in terms of fashion magazines--or am I wrong? Is there another that I might still like at this point in my life?--but what other magazines would be a good replacement?

So basically my point here is, what magazines do YOU read, and why? And should I be reading them too?