Pixels vs. Paper
(NEW BLOG AT WWW.EXTREXTRA.COM/BLOG)
Despite the fact that their effort has been inspired by monetary interest, our friends at Condé Nast, Hearst, Meredith Corporation, Time Inc., and Wenner Media came up with a pretty interesting idea for reaffirming the public’s interest in ungluing their eyes from a computer screen and picking up a magazine. In the beginning of this year, they created a series of ads that detail why despite growing forms of new media, people are still reading magazines. Today while reading an old National Geographic on the treadmill, I saw one of those ads I had forgotten about. I did a little research (online) and found a few interesting facts on magazine readership, as well as a few more more of those ads.
First on the statistics. The campaign’s website states that:
- Magazine readership has risen 4.3% over the past five years (Source: MRI Fall 2009, Fall 2005 data)
- Average paid subscriptions reached nearly 300 million in 2009 (Source: MPA estimates based on ABC first half 2009 and second half 2009 data)
- Adults 18-34 are avid magazine readers. They read more issues and spend more time per issue than their over-34 counterparts (Source: MRI Fall 2009 data)
- During the 12-year life of Google, magazine readership increased 11% (Source: MRI Fall 2009 data)
- Magazine effectiveness is growing. Ad recall has increased 13% over the past five years. Action-taking—based on readers recalling specific ads—increased by 10%. (Source: Affinity’s VISTA Print Effectiveness Rating Service, 2005-2009)
- Magazines outperform other media in driving positive shifts in purchase consideration/intent. (Source: Dynamic Logic)
Interesting, right?
But the best of the campaign, is the way the ads are constructed. One of them states that instead of reducing readership, the Internet has only changed the way in which people subscribe to magazines. “The medium that some predicted would vanquish magazines is actually helping fuel their growth. And vice versa.” Another argues that while “[t]he internet is exhilarating. Magazines are enveloping. The Internet grabs you. Magazines embrace you. The internet is impulsive. Magazines are immersive.”
For exactly those reasons, “during the 12-year life of Google, magazine readership actually increased 11 percent.”
“What it proves, once again, is that a new medium doesn’t necessarily displace an existing one. Just as movies didn’t kill radio. Just as TV didn’t kill movies. An established medium can continue to flourish so long as it continues to offer a unique experience.”
This is what brings me to my point. There really isn’t anything better than having a cup of coffee while reading a short story in The New Yorker, checking out the award-winning photographs in a National Geographic feature article, discovering new talent in ION Magazine, or getting your fill of counter-culture in an Adbusters. As long as it offers a “unique experience,” the medium will still be there. All the more reason for our publishers to find new ways of enticing an audience. Be it by hiring better writers, finding more interesting stories, or hiring even more fantastic photographs.
Moreover, there are even more innovative ideas spurring the minds of people devoted to keeping alive the glamour of print.The Printed Blog has come up with the idea of publishing online material. The printed magazine features blog articles. They’re bringing the cyber world onto page in a reversal trend. Through The Printed Blog, readers can still enjoy the pleasure of reading a printed magazine, while still taking in a part of the ever-expanding blogging world.
If the public is reminded that there is beauty in taking a break, in shutting off your computer, in tearing off a page and gluing it on your fridge, the medium is sure to stick around for a while longer. And with ideas such as The Printed Blog still continuing to rise, surely more people will keep on choosing paper over pixels.
A Change
After a very frustrating few days trying to interpret the language of computing, running across unknown terms such as “domain,” “directory,” and “FTP,” and almost ripping my head off, I managed to create a website! WordPress.com has served me very well and has been very friendly to me throughout the time we’ve been together. But now it’s time to move on to bigger and better things.
This will still be here for a while as I try to pull everything together over at the other site, but most of my posts will only be showing over there.
Once again, thank you for reading and entertaining my writing. I hope you enjoy the new website =).
Graham Crackers
I’m coming to find more truth to the saying that everything has its story. Today, you will learn about the story of the graham cracker. But wait, before a sigh of boredom echoes out of your mouth, you should well know that the graham cracker is historically linked to sex. Yes, you read it right, graham crackers and sex. Thankfully, for me, sex sells, so read ahead for a pretty good conversation starter.
It has nothing to do with graham crackers being sexy. Unless you have a crumb fetish, you probably wouldn’t find it very stimulating to have wheat bits sprinkled over your body, and wouldn’t ever consider trading in a bar of chocolate for a cracker. It also has nothing to do with graham crackers prolonging your sexual experience or helping you reach an apocalyptic orgasm. It has to do with sexual repression.
A quick glimpse into the Western history of sexual practice shows that since the time of the ancient Greeks up to the Victorian era, the subject of sex only got put into a tighter and smaller box. From around 500 B.C. to the 19th century there was a progression (or regression) of sexual freedom. The ancient Greeks were down with male-male experience, prostitution, and pederasty, while the upper class Romans liked their orgies. Then came the Christians who restricted sex to the marriage bed, preached celibacy as a Christian ideal, and condemned prostitution and masturbation. Basically, sex was only for procreation. And so it culminated in the Victorian age, where sex was not spoken of and only served the purpose of reproduction. Moreover, sexual desires had to be shut down and men had to restrain themselves from wasting their “vital fluids.”
It is here that the graham cracker joins our story. At the time, several medical and religous preachers vowed to protect men’s “vital energies” from being sinfully and relentlessly wasted. Because they believed sex only served to exhaust natural vitality, it was recommended that sex be practiced on rare occasion. Moreover, masturbation was not OK because it was seen as a “waste of seed.” So the question remains, if they couldn’t masturbate, have sex with their wives, hire a prostitute, or fool around with each other, what could Victorian men do? Gladly, Reverend Sylvester Graham came up with a solution. Graham preached that the “healthy” amount of intercourse a married man could have should be limited to once a month. During the other 29 days, they could eat graham crackers! Who would’ve thought that a diet of simple foods based on whole-grain flours could completely annihilate sexual urges and solve their problems!? Thanks Graham.
Good thing people got over that trend…
So as mentioned before, around the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century, things began changing and people gained awareness of the bogus claims of their forefathers regarding sex. Kinsey opened up scientific exploration on sexual practices, the sexual revolution of the 60′s and 70′s helped to dispel conventional moral principles, and gay activism bloomed.
Meanwhile, as sexual repression dwindles, people are still eating graham crackers. But now, instead of being used as an alternative to having sex, they work really well for making s’mores. Yum.
9/11
It’s difficult to remember where you were at a particular time and place last year, the year before, or many years ago. Most times particular day-to-day occurrences are blended together in a memory mist hovering in our heads.
But most people with access to popular media remember exactly where they were and what they were doing on 9/11/2001.
I was starting eighth grade at the American School of Brasilia (EAB). We were in Mr. Martin’s science class learning about something I thought I already knew enough about. The air-conditioner was being loud and fussy in the background. I was sitting at the second row of tables, on the right side, in a class of probably 20 other kids. There was a TV stand on the left side of the classroom and it was quickly turned on after the principal came in and whispered something in Mr. Martin’s ear.
I remember seeing the images broadcasted on the news and thinking I was watching a movie. The scenes of those planes crashing into the towers were repeated over and over again, and we still couldn’t believe they were real. Then the buildings collapsed. We were all in awe but couldn’t really realize or empathize with what was happening over 4000 miles away. But it was probably the first time Mr. Martin was able to get the whole class to sit in silence.
After a few minutes there was noise in the hallways, there were people walking around and classrooms emptying out. As soon as accusations of a suspected terrorist attack started blaring from the news, we got the news that classes were cancelled for the day and that we all had to leave school. As if out of all the places in the world, EAB would be a target. I called my parents and had to wait for my dad to come pick me up.
For the rest of the day that was all everyone was talking about. The same happened the next day and the next. Our American friends and teachers were able to contact home and see if their families were OK, and things quietly went back to normal. Little did we know the effects those attacks would have on the world.
Little did we know we would be spending our teenage years under the “war on terror” headline. That social discrimination and racial profiling would become norm, that we would have to worry about getting anthrax in the mail, and that a gigantic war would erupt across the Atlantic. The noises of that day are still echoing, maybe because it’s been kept so fresh in everyone’s memory.
Rest
Working the Edge of the Rainbow
When venturing to Celebrities Nightclub on a Friday night, it is hard to miss the fluorescent power-wigs, PVC zip-up dresses, and 8 inch heels worn by the two resident drag queens: Vegas and Fuchsia. Their job at the location is to unwind the atmosphere as well as to make it clear that the zone is a gay-friendly environment, the friendliest in Vancouver. “I constantly have to tell people ‘Don’t forget where you are, if you forget, look up and look at the rainbow. This is our part of town, this is not Granville’” says Joe who as a drag queen goes by Vegas VanCartier.
Davie street, where Celebrities is located, is known as Vancouver’s gay street and proudly yells out so. With bright pink bus stops and rainbow flags attached to every light post between Burrard and Jervis, the street became instituted as Vancouver’s official gay neighborhood in 1999, around the same time Joe began working in Vancouver as Vegas. “When I first started, there were like a billion drag queens, you could see them everywhere.” Even though Vancouver is painted as a gay friendly city, in a country where same-sex marriage became legal in 2005, Joe asserts that it is only a painting.
It takes only a quick glance at the Burrard intersection to note the sharp difference between the east and west sides of Davie street. As you cross towards the west side, you instantly notice both a visual and a behavioral change. It is common to spot both men and women hand in hand with their same-sex partners walking down Davie, or wearing unconventional attire talking outside bars during busy nights on the street. The same cannot be seen around Kitsilano or even closer by on Robson street. According to Joe, people seem to constrict their sexual urges in other areas of the city, and he sees the freedom of sexual expression as one of the goals of the gay movement. When asked if he sensed any stigma associated with the blatant sex themes seen on Davie (such as the two sex shops, erotic bookstore, and sexually suggestive store windows), Joe remarked, “no, because as gay people we are very sexual. This is what we are… The stores, they used to carry crazy shit… we are kind of taking a step back, we are becoming more conscious of what we are doing to ourselves, at least I think so.”
It is interesting to note that in a world where people are expected to be more tolerant, the gay movement’s drive for freedom and display in Vancouver seems to be moving back. As Vegas, not only does Joe face discrimination for being a gay man, but also by the gay population for working as a drag queen. “Things are changing … to be a drag queen is kind of a faux pas.” When asked how tolerant the gay population in Vancouver is towards drag queens, Joe asserted they are very judgmental. “I feel like you are very segregated by your own people here. You can be gay in this city but you … have to dress like a man and you gotta look butch… A lot of gay men ask me ‘Why would you do that, are you becoming a woman?’ ‘No honey, I make a good living doing this, it is what I am and this is something I chose to do.” He asserted to me that “guilt is one of the things that will hold you back, guilt and fear” and that even when getting disapproving looks from people, he would not stop his life to make other people happier. According to him, his outlook on life makes him one of the most loved and hated persons in the city. When asked why, he put it simply, “Because I’m a bitch.”
2009 Ubyssey Pride Supplement
What Happens in The Ellington
So, I look out my window a lot.
Ever since I moved into a 10th floor apartment with a balcony, I’d say half my time in the room is spent staring out into the building across the street. Before you think I am an absolute creep, I would like to clarify that I am reasonably normal person and that I don’t get off by seeing the old man that lives on the 16th floor walking around in his underwear, I don’t obsess about the Asian kid that joins me for a cigarette on the 3rd, and I don’t spend hours filming the spastic cat that’s been this close to death about 16 times. But, I do look out into their building a lot.
As a matter of fact, I believe there was actually a creep looking into my apartment at some point. Again, I swear I’m not a nut case. Let me explain.
It was sometime around the lovely time of 3am one Monday night when I stepped out of bed and put my computer aside to go smoke a cigarette in the company of the city view. It’s really great to take that break because for some reason, at that time of night, the city is static and all you can hear is the occasional late-night taxi gliding by.
Anyway, I looked straight forward and as my eyes were gliding down the polished glass windows of my neighboring building, I saw a bright red light shine. I squinted my eyes to try to make out where that little light was coming from. The curtains of the apartment 2 floors above the one parallel to mine were closed covering the entire floor-to-ceiling windows. But wait, there was a box on the bottom of the window. A black box, impossible to distinguish at that time of night. I finished my cigarette, secretly waiting for the light to shine again so that I didn’t feel like a paranoid stress-case, but nothing happened. I closed the curtains and waited for the next day to come.
I woke up and went back to the same window, coffee mug in hand and looked into the apartment again. Differently from most of the other rooms with curtains drawn to let the sunshine in, this one still had it’s curtains pulled down. Except for that black box. I looked at it for a long time but still couldn’t figure it out, so I pulled out my own camera (it has a 10x zoom OK?) to take a picture of the box and see what it was up close. Turns out it was a cardboard box with a hole cut in the front of it, covered by a piece of dark transparent paper, kind of like those overhead projector sheets. Inside the box, distinguishable by the contour of the lens, was a camera. My reaction follows:
“Oh my God, they’re taking pictures of my building at 3am! Holy shit! I walk around naked all the time, I have people over, my curtains are never closed, and my entire apartment front is glass! They probably know what time I wake up, what time I sleep, what I do! Oh my God, I am going to die…”
I breathed.
“OK… they might be working on some sort of project that involves taking pictures of the skyline at regular intervals so that they can make a stop-motion animation video of the city’s sunset and sunrise, right? No? Maybe too far…”
I couldn’t decide.
After telling everyone I came in contact with within the hour following my troublesome incident, there was semi-consensus that I shouldn’t be worried. I was going to wait to see what happened and keep my curtains closed.
Turns out that the next day, I heard through elevator chatter that a woman a floor below mine was followed by a man all the way home wearing a viking hat, barking at her and threatening to steal her pink and blue polka-dotted duvet cover using a chain-saw.
I wish, because that would have confirmed the fact that I didn’t have to take a moment to relax and realize that I wasn’t a character in C.S.I. Nothing ever happened and the box was gone by the end of that month.
I must admit that I didn’t learn my lesson and while writing this I’ve probably turned my head about 7 times to look over at the baby who just learned how to walk last month. But that’s another story.
For now, I’ll just admit to the fact that I might be the obsessive crazy person who lives in the building on the other side of the street and keep on enjoying the daily spectacle happening across from me.
Dance Yrself Clean
Ahhhh…. Let’s start this thing up again with this beauty.
Aircraft Discipline and Seating Punishment
Irritation. It comes and flows into me from the bottom of my toes, buzzes in my brain, and makes my stomach churn. It makes my head move from side to side wondering why they do it like this.
Knowing me, you’ll expect me to wait for the last minute to check into any flight. That usually means that I’ll be isolated to the far, dark, crammed end of any aircraft, probably about 5 feet from the tail. Which really doesn’t matter based on the fact that I carry enough drugs in my carry-on to knock down a full grown bull. That’s not where my irritation stems from.
It comes from the fact that the idiots at United Airlines board the flight all wrong. It makes absolutely no sense and it drives me nuts. As anyone who has ever taken an international flight knows, they board you in groups, or sections, or whatever they are called based on the section of the aircraft you are seated in. What would be the most time-efficient and less strenuous way of cramming all those people in? You board from the back to the front, letting the people in the far back seats to accommodate themselves, followed by the middle and the front. That eliminates the jerk with the obscenely large carry-on, the screaming mother of three, the old lady with all the plastic bags, and the incredibly annoying group of language-internship-teenagers from blocking the way of all the other passengers trying to get through to the back. (Keep in mind that the flight I’m using as example is destined to São Paulo, which means that my dear Brazilian people just make the situation 1000 times louder, messier, and more blood-boiling.)
But no. That’s not what they do at United. Instead, they board from the front to the back. So not only are my fellow latecomers and I destined to travel in the tightest part of the aircraft, we have to weave our way through a sea of screaming people, grumpy old men, bawling babies, and frazzled mothers. All of this while worrying that at any second one of us might be knocked unconscious by the violent opening of a severely overpacked overhead compartment bin.
My theory for the stupidity inherent in this process brings me to Foucault. It might be an unthought-of decision by United, but I highly doubt it. One of the things he’s theorized about is that monitoring and vigilance happens at all time. It functions in modern society with invisible and overarching force, causing us to behave adequately and harbor constant awareness of how others see us. This consequently causes us to aspire to achieve an invisibility if we feel we are in the wrong or in an inferior place, or a wish to escalate into a position to where more social liberty is allocated. In this case, it’s priority seating.
Especially now that the plane has been divided into so many individual “preferrential” sections which you can buy into at check-in, there is an added motivation to “sit further away from your feet” or acquire the “plus” status. All of which really don’t make that much of a difference. Walking down to the end of the plane only means that you skipped on the upgrades and are stepping further and further from any possible advantage available on the flight. While you walk, monitoring and social vigilance is taking place. All eyes are on you as you walk alone to the end, to a further seat, to a place behind whoever is watching. All you wish is that you had agreed to the United offer, that you didn’t have to face the hassle of going all the way to the back, that you were sitting more upfront.
Honestly, all I know is that the only thing it makes me feel is annoyance at life and the realization that I’ve stepped into my travels with a left foot. Well done United.
extra! extra! 