April 22, 2008
Editorial
Well, this is the first post for our new blogzine (I totally made that word up; I’m hoping it’s not already a word, because I’m trying to be ironic). Technically this should be exciting. However, neither D nor I is really sure what O, RLY? Is, or what it might become.
Our tagline is ‘snarky and sweet’. This is for two reasons. One, I’m snarky. D is sweet. (Although we both reserve the rights to switch.)
Two, what is it that is so sickening about women’s magazines? For me, it’s the lack of snark. This might just be me, but there’s nothing I find funnier than self-referential humour, and there’s nothing better than a serious subject treated with humour and self-deprecation. And, on the flip side, what’s more tragic than a trivial subject treated with dead sincerity.
I mean, I know that there are plenty of things that I take seriously that I probably shouldn’t. You know: the state of my hair, other people’s grammatical mistakes, Joss Weldon, myself. But c’mon! A bit of perspective, people. I hereby promise you that O, RLY? will attempt to walk that tricky line in the middle of sincerity and depreciation. If we are feeling really Zen, we might even manage them both at the same time.
We know what we would like O, RLY? to be: a magazine-style look at the world, without the stupidity. I know, I know. Once you take that out, there’s not much left. But I think there is something here, otherwise, of course, I wouldn’t be writing this.
When this idea started, I remember telling D how alienated I had felt as a kid, reading all those shiny girls’ and women’s magazines. All the quizzes were for people with totally different lives (‘Will he marry you?’ ‘What kind of office worker are you?’ ‘How should you decorate your apartment?’ ‘What cocktail are you?’). I always thought that maybe, when I got older, there’d be more in there for me. Turns out, just the opposite. I can’t open a women’s magazine without cringing, or having an upchuck reflex, or yelling at the page. Not only do they not have much at all to do with the life I have, they have nothing to do with the life I want.
Tomorrow’s feature will show you what I mean. It’s a list that we found online. It was originally published in Cosmo magazine, and it makes me want to hurt someone (sidenote: kids, violence is not the answer. Usually. I mean, almost always. Seriously. Very rarely.). What century do these people think we’re living in? What millennium?
I’ll keep my rant for a later date, but the point of all this is this: where is MY magazine? Sure, there are niche publications out there, plenty of them. Some of them overlap what we’re trying to be. The trouble with niches is – well, they’re niche. There’s not one that I’ve found that is just right. Just call me Goldilocks, but I’m interested enough in that magazine, that one I can’t find, to have a crack at it myself – ourselves.
And by ourselves, I don’t just mean D and I. I mean you, too. All you currently non-existent readers. Anyone and everyone. I’m not expecting to find you soon, but eventually I hope there will be an actual audience. Maybe *gasp* even a community. How web 2.0! Just call me Kevin Rose. When we find you – or you find us, that will change what O, RLY? becomes. I’m looking forward to finding out what that is. Hopefully you are, too.
C
