I recently spent a day in the city with a dear friend and former magazine editor (Austen – check out her YouTube!) and we discussed print media. I can distinctly remember being a young teenager and agonizing over which magazines I would spend my hard-earned money on and which ones I would settle for reading at the library.
Lucky magazine was my longest subscription (it folded in 2015). Before that, Teen Vogue, with its compact size, was an occasional purchase (the print edition also folded in 2015). And I remember loving the American Girl magazine (folded in 2019). If you’ve been a long time blog reader, you may also remember my obsession with Darling Magazine and the inspiring event I attended in 2015. My friend Ally got the me the gift of a subscription one year and I was thrilled.
And did anyone else’s mother keep a stack of magazines under the bed that she was working her way through that turned into an extension of your personal library?
I had such excitement when I received a new issue, wrapped in plastic to protect it, and would try to savor each article rather than devour it in one sitting. And for those that didn’t make the subscription cut, I can still pinpoint the exact spot I sat in at my local library to read them in those book-report-style plastic sleeves. Magazines were enjoyed not just for their content, but for the tactile ritual of consuming them.
While I was an eager and early adopter of digital reading (I even wrote a “Kindle Love” post in 2013!) and I fell in love with blogs – which were major contributors to the demise of print – I miss physical magazines.
I recognize that there are so many benefits to the rise of digital creation. Any voice can have a platform, you can access up-to-the-minute trends, and there is more room for creativity off a flat page. Yet, in the last year I’ve found myself wanting physical magazines again. I want a finite set of articles instead of an endless scroll (dare I say, a doom scroll – read my guide on how to stop), and I want to have the anticipation and ritual of a magazine arriving in the mail. Reading books will always be my first love, but it’s nice to have a different medium every once in a while.
The first magazine I subscribed to last year was the quarterly Magnolia Journal (who can say no to Joanna Gaines for some good, old home content) and I added the weekly The New Yorker in the fall. The New Yorker has proven to be a bit more political than what I’m looking for (even the fiction has a clear bend), so once that subscription runs out, I’ll be on the hunt for a different general interest publication.
Swapping phone time for these two magazines has been such a fun and nostalgic experience!
I’m continuing to crave more time with physical media and would love to hear your thoughts. Do you have any publications you recommend? Do you miss the days of a magazine or do you prefer the personalized experience offered by digital media?
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