…goodbyyyyyyye.
By now I’m sure you’ve heard that VIBE magazine is no more. If you haven’t then let me fill you in…VIBE magazine, after 16 years in business, closed it doors on Wednesday June 30, 2009. To be honest I’m not surprised in the least bit…just a few months ago one of my former favorite magazines, KING, closed its doors. Unfortunately, they weren’t the first magazines to go out of business and they definitely won’t be the last. The print aspect of media, newspapers and magazines, are on the brink of becoming extinct and have been for a while. Remember back when The Source was considered the Holy Bible of hip-hop? That was back when you couldn’t wait for next month’s issue so you could see how many mics an upcoming album was gonna get, or see who was featured in the unsigned hype column or just to read an in-depth interview with your favorite artist.
Well, those days are long gone…and while I don’t think that newspapers and magazines are going to become completely obsolete by tomorrow, I do feel like they’re going to die a slow and painful death.
Why do I say that? Well there’s a few things that have happened over the past few years that have made their demise inevitable.
The Internet Came Along and Bitch Slapped The Print Industry
I wrote this and immediately after I finished I was able to post it for you to read. Now if I was writing this for a magazine or newspaper there would’ve been a delay from the time I finished writing this to the time it was available to you. That delay could’ve been a matter of hours (newspaper) or a matter of weeks (magazine) depending on the type of print it was published in. Regardless of the length of the delay, the fact that it exist is the very reason why the internet has the completely overthrown print as the primary source for news and other types of information.
We currently live in an age of instant information, the days of waiting 30 days or even 24hrs to read about something that just happened 5mins ago seems asinine. Today’s generation is more impatient than ever. Everything is about instant gratification….we want what we want, when we want it and unfortunately for print it just isn’t capable of satisfying us anymore.
Magazines Became Politicians
Most of you know that I reside in the city of Chicago and with that said, no other major city in America is as grimey when it comes to politics as The Windy City. Shout out to Daley and Blago. Whether or not your city or town participates in the perfidious side of politics, there’s one thing you can always count on…taxes. With the current economic crisis just about every city and state in America is seeing a decline in tax revenue. So what’s their solution? Raise taxes and cut public services…so basically the citizens pay more for less.
Well at some point magazines took a look at this business model (because whether or not you realize it, politics and government is a business) and decided that it would work for them. Right after the internet bitch slapped print, a lot of magazines and newspapers saw a decline in sales. So what was their solution? Raise prices and cut content…so basically readers pay more for less. Remember when magazines were less than $3 and the pages were abundant with articles. Then one day you went to pick up your favorite magazine and you got to the register and it was $3.95. You chalked it up and paid for it only to find out that for every one page of content, there was three pages of ads. As fly as Willie Esco clothing, Master P sneakers and Davoucci leathers might’ve been (that’s sarcasm), you didn’t pay damn near $4 for an urban version of GQ.
People Started To Like Trees Again
If only Captain Planet was alive to see this shit…people are more concerned with protecting the planet than ever before. A few years ago Al Gore scared the living shit out of everybody with the documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, and now everybody wants to save the earth. Hey, nothing wrong with that…I’m all for it considering the fact that we have absolutely nowhere else to go in this entire galaxy. Quick question…
How Many Trees Did I Kill Writing This Post?
…and that’s why destroying a tree to print up magazines that will be read in about 20mins and thrown out seems kind of impractical. Especially when you consider the fact that you can publish that same information on the internet without harming a leaf, let alone a whole tree. Some people might say, “If people just recycled we wouldn’t have to kill so many trees”. Yeah, we’ve been there and tried that. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but Americans are a bunch of lazy bastards. We’re talkin’ about the same group of people who catch elevators to the 2nd floor, drive 2 blocks to go to the corner store, sit in the drive-thru for 20mins when going in would only take 5mins and use remote controls for car stereos.
Of course there a other reasons why magazines and newspapers are shutting down left and right. I just think that the three that I listed contributed or are contributing the most to their demise. Oh well, the sad part is that I actually like the feel of holding and reading a book, magazine or newspaper. I still stop at the gas station at least 2-3 times a week and purchase the newspaper. It’s rare, but from time to time I still buy books and magazines just because I get tired of reading everything off of a damn computer screen. Well, while you may never hold a new issue of VIBE in your hand again, all may not be lost for the company. In a very recent interview (like last week) with EbonyJet.com, former owner of VIBE magazine, Quincy Jones said…
“I’m trying to buy my magazine back now….They just messed my magazine all up, but I’m gonna get it back. You better believe it, I’m’a take it online because print and all that stuff is over.”
Even Quincy sees where print is headed.
Doza said 
