In today’s Sunday Style’s section, the reality of fashion and popular culture magazines is exposed. What is found there may not please those looking for the fictional renderings recently made popular by books, film and TV.
Krishtine De Leon, one of six interns picked to star in an MTV reality series set at Rolling Stone, expected an office out of “Almost Famous,” the 2000 movie about the early-1970s heyday of the rock music magazine. “The type of place where people were doing copious amounts of drugs to get their stories in on time, hobnobbing with lots of celebrities, no real rules,” she said.
Instead, she found a workplace that was less like Woodstock and more like Wachovia bank. “It was like any other freaking office with cubicles,” Ms. de Leon, 24, said. “Very typical.”
Keeping with his magazine’s corporate identity, Jann Wenner describes reality television as “a very good marketing idea.” AdPulp’s complimentary translation: “Wow, free exposure for my brand…this is almost as good as the Summer of Love!”
Welcome the real world, folks. Cubicles and all.
Ditto, ditto the dawning realization that many of the “consumers” winning the much-hyped, consumer-generated content contests actually come from the marketing landscape.
Let’s be honest. Most “real folks” (as fine and decent as they are) haven’t a clue about what it takes to navigate the jump-through-hoops checklists clients hang around the necks of agencies.
Yep. Reality bites, as they say. And that’s why CGC is a passing fad, not an answer.