The “most highly anticipated issue of Playboy in our history” has been on newsstands for nearly a week now, and damned if I haven’t heard a thing about it.
If a fully-clothed woman falls in a magazine, does it make a sound?
Remember a few months ago, when every person on the planet was talking about Playboy magazine? It’s like it was 1953, though this time it was for what the magazine was not showing in its future issues: the thing that made Playboy what it was.
I speak in the past tense with purpose, for Playboy stopped being Playboy decades ago. It seemed with this new development that the regressive transformation would now be complete.
Last Saturday a letter arrived at my home. It was from Scott N. Flanders, CEO of Playboy Enterprises, Inc. I thought maybe they were finally getting back to me about the photos I’d submitted (that’s a joke). No, Scott was infoming me about the “most highly anticipated issue of Playboy in our history.”
He informed me that the magazine feels different.
Indeed: different size. Upgraded paper quality. Somehow vintage and smooth and analog and cool. Total overhaul of the magazine. Hmm. Didn’t sell that one too well, Scott. And thanks, mainstream media, for missing the whole point.
Regardless, I paused, thinking perhaps I now had a worthwhile magazine in my hands.
I should have known better than to rest with this fleeting moment of amusement.
Yes, I should have known from that letter. From Playboy corporate. Mental note: don’t buy magazines from lawyers.
Where’s the Hefner seal of approval? One picture of The Man on page 126? (That’s the last page, by the way.) No World of Playboy, no Hef Sightings, no Mansion pics. It’s finally the “literary magazine” Hefner always joked about.
Picture, article, picture, article. Way to think outside the box, guys. More than anything Playboy used to read like a scrapbook. Cartoons, captions, pictures, and the long essays too. The photos were hit and miss in March 2016, and the cartoons were basically non-existant. And if the party jokes are really gone forever, there goes pretty much the only chance I ever had of making it back in the magazine. (One letter to the editor: July 2004)
The biggest sin Playboy has committed over the past decades from its height of popularity (explained to me by one of its former editors), has been its move away from revealing “the girl next door” to those looking to use the platform as a springboard to fame: aspriring models, actresses, and youtube stars. Read any centerfold’s profile from the past 20 years. Ambition: to become famous.
March 2016 centerfold? Dree Hemingway (yes, of the Hemingways). Already a model and actress.
Wrong.
And the full date on the photo? Please. Rule is just the month. Because centerfolds are timeless.
Jeebus, how’d they miss that one?!
With the focus off nudity, Playboy had the opportunity to do something useful with its 21st century reboot. If you’re going to make it about “the articles,” at least make the articles interesting. A few hits but more misses, in my opinion, though it’s still classier than its how-to-keep-beer-cold-articled “competitors.”
If nothing else I do appreciate what seems to be Playboy’s philosophy these days: let the sale web content and of licensed merchandise subsidize the print portion of the enterprise. No way the paper copy makes money (trust me, I’ve tried that), but if they want to continue to put it out there under some sense of nostalgic duty, I say go for it.
Look for updates here, periodically, as I continue my diligent research of this story.