Slog: News & Arts

RSS icon Comments on Hard Times

1

Well, that's actually pretty smart on their part. "Playboy" after all, is probably more valuable as a brand-identity than as simply a skin mag that almost no one reads anymore.

Posted by COMTE | May 12, 2008 9:39 AM
2

Might help if playboy models started sporting bush again.

Posted by Greg | May 12, 2008 9:39 AM
3

Print media is dying a slow death. In another generation or so, people will look at paper as "old fashioned."

Posted by Fifty-Two-Eighty | May 12, 2008 9:42 AM
4

Looks like Playboy's also reaching out to the gays.

Posted by sherman | May 12, 2008 9:47 AM
5

Full bush, real boobies and enough with the airbrushing already. They're target audience is still Hugh Hefner - pics of fake chicks who are sensitive about ED if the money's good. That works at a Playboy club or strip bar. That and pinball machines are all Playboy has left.

On the other hand, I think Dan underestimates the ability of straight men to completely objectify. No man wants to live with those chicks and have to listen to them, but who's saying 'no' to a week of silent f'ing with the three of them.

Posted by left coast | May 12, 2008 9:52 AM
6

Playboy's got about five years before the money dries up. Hef is as close to dead as a person can get, and their market has been completely superceded by internet porn on one side and Maxim/Stuff-style mags on the other. Guys who dig airbrushed chicks with implants don't read articles anymore.

I predict as the magazine fails and so do all their high-class enterprises, they'll sink deeper into trash like the TV show (which is one of my alltime favorites -- look, they're having another party for the dog!)

Posted by Fnarf | May 12, 2008 9:54 AM
7

Like what Comte said, Playboy would probably be better off reinventing itself foremost as a fashion label cashing in on 1970s/80s nostalgia, kind of like American Apparel. They've always been about selling an image of a certain lifestyle (if a slightly silly image), and that image won't be sold through a magazine anymore.

The only other option is to just go become a full-on porn enterprise, and they probably face too much competition there.

Posted by tsm | May 12, 2008 10:01 AM
8

Hugh Hefner's taste in women has always seemed like one of the most extreme fetishes I know of. It's such a narrow, tortured, uniform definition of beauty. It's kind of awesome that for like 50 years people have so closely followed one sick freak's kink when there are so many other kinks to choose from.

Posted by elenchos | May 12, 2008 10:04 AM
9

@2 and @5 are right - it would help if they showed real women instead of some plastic blow-up doll image that a septuagenarian thinks is sexy.

Posted by Will in Seattle | May 12, 2008 10:31 AM
10

Playboy has been garbage since the early 80's when they started featuring surgically enhanced bimbos rather than the "real" women that made it so good. Just a bunch of whores now, not even remotely attractive. Also they've gotten crude, it used to be they'd do dignified and graceful shoots, now it's almost pornographic. One 90's playmates, Terri Weigel, has gone on to be one of the most prolific porn actresses, doing pretty much anything you can imagine on film, a whore of epic proportions.

Bring back the girls with a full figure and naturally large breasts, or smaller women with breasts that fit the frame. REAL women.

Posted by Phil | May 12, 2008 10:49 AM
11

Exactly, Phil.

Straight American men know what we like - and it ain't what's in Playboy now.

Posted by Will in Seattle | May 12, 2008 11:41 AM
12

Too many blondes with fake boobs. Hey, good for Hef -- he has his type and at age 113 he's still the envy of most men on the planet -- but how much of the same girl can anyone take? Whatever happened to the days of Cynthia Meyers? (Her pictures from damn near 40 years ago are still... uh, awe-inspiring.)

Posted by Jason Josephes | May 12, 2008 12:14 PM
13

We are all prostitutes, Phil.

Posted by Fnarf | May 12, 2008 12:45 PM
14

softcore doesn't sell

Posted by Andy | May 12, 2008 12:55 PM
15

Dan, no need to fret, straight men don't watch E!

It's interesting hearing from other straight men on this issue since I basically have an opposite position. I recently picked up a Playboy after a very long time and was pleased to see bare pussies. They resisted for longer than anyone.

It seems to me that they are the victims of two forces, both of which are devastating. Print journalism is in a terrible position these days. They really did have quality journalism and fiction. The market for that kind of magazine is shrinking at an incredible rate.

Then there is the naked side of things. How is a magazine supposed to get by on 24 pages of pictures of naked girls posing by themselves when we are drowning in a sea of hardcore porn?

The truly crippling thing in my mind is while there is no social stigma in having a computer in your living room, having a Playboy there will always be a social gaffe. This is true no matter how mild the porn in the Playboy is in comparison to that on the computer and no matter how high the quality of the articles in the magazine.

This is why Maxim can do well. By having tiny wisps of fabric on their models they pass the girlfriend test. This despite the magazine is much more lowbrow than Playboy has ever been.

The only reason I every look at Playboy is that I like the college girl layouts. They are the closest to real women that appear in naked magazines. I especially like seeing the Ivy League women or women from other exclusive colleges. I will occasionally be excited about a celebrity that they show as well. Other than that, they are going to have to get hardcore if they want any chance of getting my dollars.

The way that I do agree with previous posters is that the implants and airbrushing have got to go. How tedious.

Posted by Jim | May 12, 2008 12:57 PM
16

It's funny that everyone here pretty much gets it, but not Hef. His narrow standards of beauty is one of the most grotesque in the major media. If they were publishing relevant literature, but recycling photo content from the 60's and 70's, I'd be more than happy to subscribe.

Posted by Dougsf | May 12, 2008 1:30 PM
17

they need to drop their prices on their merchandise catalog. I wanted to order the flips flops but they were $24 frickin' bucks and a T-shirt was $42.
forget that!

Posted by irl | May 12, 2008 3:49 PM
18

Yes, Hef's kink is boring, but he's a mainstream kinda guy, always has been. Do all men want a Pam Anderson robot? Fake blonde hair, big fake tits? No. But a damned large % of them do. Which is why she's a giant star. Same re. the late Anna Nicole Smith.

Ditto to all the others who are sick of the fake.

Fake boobs
fake hair color
fake facial features, even

Are any of the print mags doing well? I know Guccione's empire has just about crumbled into dust. How about the shack of sleaze that Flynt built?

Jim @ 15, yes, it's silly, in the eyes of some, Playboy is just the same thing as... name anything else slightly or greatly raunchier. I live in a part of the country where people think a new Hooter's restaurant = strip club.

On a feminist level, er, sure, similar concept, but the folks here in Red State Jebusland who get upset about a Hooters are _not_ feminists.

Posted by CP | May 12, 2008 4:31 PM

Comments Closed

In order to combat spam, we are no longer accepting comments on this post (or any post more than 45 days old).