My goodness, this turned out to be quite an experience. What started out as innocent perusing through the magazine store...
This prompts many reactions, in part because it raises many issues.
I agree on so many counts...I disagree on one fundamental and concluding point, which is that it is about irony. Or at least intentional irony. It's all about the intentions. Wallpaper shouldn't be taken out of context from the industry it belongs to: the magazine industry. (The entire magazine industry in my opinion has shifted, and what we are left with is the mass production of sales catalogues. Which is what I really believe Wallpaper is. I think they are just selling the concept of "design".) Women's fashion magazines can be looked at as a leading example in the magazine biz.
They are the masters of marketing images and lifestyles that are unattainable, and in fact don't represent the majority of their readership/audience. Their intention is to sell product through well-researched theories and formulas of the relationship between advertising and marketing, hierarchies of human needs and insecurities (and countless other psycho-social theories), Darwinian-like concepts of self-preservation and competition related to basic biological and social drives toward beauty and physical prowess, and a capitalist economy which relies entirely on our consumption of goods and services and fuels a culture-less society that finds meaning and power in buying and ownership. I've now forgotten what my point was.
Well, suffice it to say that I don't believe that irony figures into their intentions at Wallpaper. I think you're giving them undue credit. I think their intention is to market and sell products and a certain "metrosexual" (I like that term by the way) lifestyle image (because after all, that's what the advertisers pay for) to as many people as they can reach. Listen, plenty of people in New York attempt to live out Wallpaper fantasies. And they'll pay good money to do so (may put them another grand in credit card debt, but that's another story).
Wallpaper is a magazine, or I should say, a print product, like so many other print products, that truly lacks in substance. Then again, so many media products lack in substance. Shallow, but well-designed. Appeals to our aesthetic desires, but not our intellectual or creative needs/interests. Or at least, not mine. The notion that it doesn't represent people of color is fascinating and disturbing. Kind of reminds me of the gentrification that has taken over NYC...and frankly made it less of an interesting city to live in.
Very nice!
A well written summary of all the issues ( no pun ) regarding the W* mag. I note that you have bought into, at least partially into the Wallpaper "lifestyle" i.e. Strolling down the block,carefully casual, but stylishly dressed into your corner "magazine lounge" To sit and sip with the rest of the "so cool that they are actually HOT"! folks and ingest some carefully crafted "eycandy" (your words I believe) , maybe a smoothie while keeping an eye out for any stray ladies -also casual but stylishly dresses,lounging with no agenda- who you might strike up a conversation and buy into your image and walk out with ya. Not that I am saying there is anything wrong with that. More power! The thing that struck me is that you love the mag. but somehow loath the slickness of it. I think the mag is a caricature. A very enticing slick cream filled donut that you are drawn to. But I believe that is has to be. It is eye catching and different enough to grab your attention and to hold it for a while and fo! r a low on patience guy like me thats perfect. Empty calories :) I also have a different response than the one you mentioned
"you feel underachieved, unaccomplished, and feel like either your goals were too low, or your achievements not important enough. "
I get the felling that they are full of shit and who would want to live like that. They may be telling us that that the lifestyle we should aspire to but I don't buy it. I love the graphics and the presentation, the articles are sort of non to me. The magazine is equivalent to most cutting edge or highly stylised modern architecture. Great to browse, nice to tour, but who the hell would want to live or work there. I buy it faithfully till I am so sick of it that I swear of it f! or months, then I catch myself re-reading the old issues. Curious 'eh !
you know me.....king of the one or two sentence replies but this last e-mail has evoked a certain urge to respond....why? because i feel that this magazine you speak of as well as other forms of the media a kin to this narcissistic frame of mind is what is killing us black people.
yes i said it, i know i'm usually saying that we as a people expect too much of a handout, but i truly beleive that these publications dangle the preverbial carrot in front of our face just to make us react. i completely understand and agree with affirmative action to help us get into school, and get jobs...shit if the man won't choose to help us then we will force them too. but when we start asking for reparations for shit we didin't have! a damn thing to do with...that's just trifling. Only a black person could dream up such a bullcrap scheme. they are basically sayin' "my greatgrandad was beat by yo' greatgranddad and even though i wasn't even imagined or dreamed about for another 80-90 years, and my great granddad died thirty years before i was born i am in an emotional hell......i can't sleep....i' can't go outside....OH LAAAAAAWWWWD HELP ME!!!!!!!!! but if you give me some money to pay my car note for a month i should be straight."- utter bullshit.
i digress.....back to the magazine. how does this contribute to our problems??? this form of media, as i see it, is the last but most formidable barrier for a african american to overcome.
it gets th e underpriveledged because, it is coupled with the music videos and these poor children think that if they forget studyin' and just right rhymes, their life will turn out okay. it doesn't... so now they're stupid and old......and virtue that they fell into this hoop dream way of thinking means that they are more impressionable. now we got a dumbass late teen that's impressionable livin' in the ghetto where the pimps, and drug dealers try to by these items in these magazines that these children also buy. but hey, these kids in the projects get fucked anyway you look at it. the man has MANY ways of keepin' them in check......as for the few of us that have made it, like you and me......this is the most potent weapon.
i want you to understand that i in know way, shape, or form believe that that type of med! ia was intentionally put in place, it just worked out that way.....as an aside lemmie say that i believe taht many of the reasons why the upper hand has been given over us is because shit just works out for them, not because they did any elaborate schemes....they are just some lucky muthafuckas......i mean their asses wiped out a whole continent of american indians by given some blankets, what kinda bullshit is that????? they happened to be nasty as shit and the blankets that the indians bought or stole happened to foreign germs that got in their asses.....red people are dead, white people win. damn, i'm off the point again....
like i was saying, these magazines are our worst enemy. they dangle all of these extravagant things in front of our faces that DON'T MEAN SHIT. they fool us into buying shit th! at we can't afford, so that we are in debt without shit to invest.&nbs p; although the statement seems innocuous enough, the content is devastating.
for the most part the black professionals in this country are starting from zero....we don't have old money to draw off of. in fact when we speak of our population (educated black people) that is the last true advantage they hold over us. if they can find ways for us spend what little cash we amass then they can continue to dominate over us because every generation must start from zero......it sux.
and when all is said and done......why do you want that shit???? what the hell makes that $4000 wine glass any better than one found at ikea??? what makes that 1898 wine! any better than one from 1985???
don't get me wrong i'm all for letting wine age and can even taste the benefits of it (most of the time), but is a forty year old, or even a twenty year old wine any worse than a one hundred year old wine..... i doubt it.
i say all this to get across the point that the establishment's (which truly is colorless) last hold on us is our greed, which the african american community is plagued by. even us....smart, black, professionals suffer from it. but we also are able to recognize it and put it at bey. we must in order for us to be able to succeed.
i could go on for another 3000 words but i'll stop it here.
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