What Your Favorite Magazine Says About You
By Thoughtis
Nylon
What It’s About: Fringe! Leopard! Trends! Founded in 1999, Nylon slowly evolved into an alternative lifestyle magazine for youth, giving It Girls Cory Kennedy and Peaches Geldof their own column and featuring EDGY celebrities like Zooey Deschanel and Evan Rachel Wood. It has also branched out into television and formed a record company. It’s basically the one mainstream magazine targeted at hipsters.
What It Says About You: You’re a 17 year old girl who lives in Ohio and you hate things that are cookie-cutter. You write fan letters to Chloe Sevigny and it bums you out that no one, besides your best friend August, knows who Jean-Luc Godard is. Oh, and you kind of want to marry Joseph Gordon-Levitt or Paul Dano.
Vanity Fair
What It’s About: Really insane rich people. Vanity Fair is arguably the thinking man’s Us Weekly. Their premise is sort of the same as a tabloid: write about the lives of crazy rich white people, but Vanity Fair takes it a thousand steps further by featuring in-depth investigative reporting and great interviews. It’s a real treat to read about the trials and tribulations of some weird oil heiress that’s been fighting over her inheritance and sleeping with her stepfather. There’s definitely an inherent snobbiness to the writing and it’s very self-referential. Don’t feel bad if some of it goes over your head because it’s sometimes just a bunch of rich writers masturbating to the glamourous lives of their friends.
What It Says About You: You’re an old WASP who can’t get enough of the Kennedys or conspiracy theories. You went to a college swimming in Ivy and maybe your name is Bunny. When you greet people, you establish a rich lazy drawl, pinch their cheeks and call them “Monkey.”
Lula
What It’s About: Based out of England, Lula is one of those fashion magazines you buy for $20.00 at a bodega in Soho. Sometimes it’s worth it though because reading the magazine can be like being in a weird codeine-induced dream. Every photo is kind of faded and hazy, like it was a discarded gem from The Virgin Suicides movie. Ethereal and dreamy describe the magazine’s aesthetic perfectly. In terms of the fashion print world, they’re also pretty progressive- they’ve put a redhead and a black model on their cover and that’s just something you don’t see every day. My only gripe would be the interview questions (ex: What do you dream about? What’s your favorite kind of cake?!!!!). It’s clear that they’re trying to keep with the floaty editorial vision by trying to capture some whimsical rapport but it comes off as inauthentic. Like, who gives a shit about cake?
What It Says About You: You’re a ~dreamer~ who wears $600 potato sack Rodarte dresses, or you want to anyway. You never spend your money on U.S. fashion magazines because they just don’t “get it”; they’re so dull. You like flowery pastel colors and hearts and spend all your time pattern making in your bedroom while listening to Au Revoir Simone.
Details
What It’s About: Men and the materialistic possessions that make their world go round. There will be a lot of articles about the new designer drug, a $10,000 watch and without fail, an article about something going on in gay culture. It’s sort of the gayest straight magazine ever.
What It Says About You: You work on Wall Street and you have a strong Patrick Bateman vibe. Friday nights are usually spent with hookers, cocaine, and maybe a random blowjob from your friend Steve who works in HR. Um, you’re not gay though. No homo.
Butt
What It’s About: Naked gay indie boys who come in all shapes and sizes. The editorial is mostly just transcriptions of conversations with obscure gay icons that will typically go into graphic detail about their sex life. It makes being gay seem really fun and full of sexy possibilities, which I guess it is. Thank gay God for this magazine.
What It Says About You: You’re not a regular gay boy, you’re a cool gay boy. You vacation at The Ace Hotel, listen to Abe Vigoda and Veronica Falls, and try to avoid mainstream gay bars. Sex and drugs are great but you try to keep it classier than the average gay-whatever that means. You are Ryan O’Connell.
Redbook
What It’s About: Menopause and baking. I’ve actually never read this magazine but judging by its covers, I don’t think menopause and baking would be that far off. And yes, you do judge a magazine by its cover.
What It Says About You: You are somebody’s mom and you really like Bethenny Frankel. In fact, you’re actually going to make her recipe for tofu veggie lasagna tonight! That is, if your kids will ever call you back…Where are they?!
Rolling Stone
What It’s About: Bands from the ’70s and Vampire Weekend. Political reporting sandwiched between an expose on Kim Kardashian. Rolling Stone‘s writing is always sharp but their attempts to modernize themselves have been awkward. They still put Bruce Springsteen on the cover six times a year.
What It Says About You: You’re old, or you enjoy great investigative reporting. But you’re probably just old.
Bust
What It’s About: Feminism and being crafty in a non-housewife feminist-y way. They are NOT like that magazine Bitch, okay?!
What It Says About You: You like Best Coast a lot, maybe you went to Hampshire or UC Santa Cruz. You dated guys for a sec but you think those ~daze~ are over. You don’t believe in negativity simply because it’s not nice. You only want to read good reviews and happy interviews. Happppppy. Feminism. Happpppppy.