So you're at the grocery store, in the checkout line. You yawn idly; it's been a long day. Eventually, your attention is drawn to the magazine rack. As you look through some of the printed fare, the question eventually enters your mind.
Who actually reads this stuff?
I know. It's hard to imagine anyone reading the umpteenth article on Tom Cruise's baby or the latest celebrity to gain/lose 20 pounds. Furthermore, how many summer makeup tips can one publication possibly hold, and how are they different from the ones printed last summer? And is there anybody who hasn't noticed that teen magazines have not printed anything other than information on Twilight and Disney's phlanx of teen stars for the last three years?
Fortunately Unfortunately, I occupy a position at a bookstore which allows me to see the exact clientele targeted by these publications. Through this knowledge, I have obtained the ability to discern whether or not intelligent discourse is possible with certain people, on what subject, and to what extent. The results are bleak, but I will share them regardless, so that you can learn from my misfortunes and perhaps avoid that 20-minute conversation about Justin Bieber.
Target Audience: Everybody! If you want to know the latest news on the hottest celebrities (or was that the hottest news on the latest celebrities?), People is for you! Come find out which famous people are dating one another (especially if they're gay), regardless of whether or not it makes any impact on your life whatsoever. Remember, even though these people have their custom-blend morning coffee flown in from Venezuela every morning via private courier jet, they're still just like you and me.
Actual Audience: People trying to live proxy lives through the people they read about, in order to take their minds off of their individual, staggeringly boring existences. Also, a fair number of middle-aged women and unemployed people. Combinations of the above categories are extremely common.
Unintended Niche Audience: The people in your office who check the cover every week to see who's winning in the gay celebrity pool, because they all sucked at the dead pool last year.
Readers Want to Be: One of Angelina Jolie's adopted children.
Readers' Ideal Date: Hard to say. It changes every year, you know.
What They Think the Mag Says About Them: I totally know everything about the world's most important people.
What the Mag Actually Says About Them: I consider Paris Hilton and Kate Gosselin to be the world's most important people. Also, if you ask me who the vice president is, I will likely either say "Al Gore" or "Donald Trump."
Did You Know? People is one of the only magazines to have cornered its content market by republishing itself under a multitude of other titles. Such titles include Us, In Touch Weekly, OK! and Star. Subscribers of one magazine tend to subscribe to several, and yet somehow, nobody has noticed each magazine's identical content. A notable lack of active brain activity among the subscriber base has been blamed for the strange phenomenon.
Target Audience: Music lovers of all ages. Particular focus on the “now” generation, what with their newfangled EyePods and other contraptions we didn’t have back in my day. Look, we’re totally trying to appeal to younger readers, and definitely not at all trying too hard!
Actual Audience: Old hippies, many of the same ones who read Rolling Stone 45 years ago. Also some young hipsters who really, really wish they were old hippies.
Unintended Niche Audience: Democratic political strategists, who point to a 2009 Rolling Stone poll which clearly states that 127 percent of Americans think we should bring the troops home from Vietnam and love one another.
Readers Want to Be: Young again. Sure, they’d love to be a roadie on a Led Zeppelin tour, but they just had a hip replacement and can’t lift anything heavier than 15 pounds. So they’ll settle for being 23, stoned, and unemployed one more time.
Readers’ Ideal Date: Probably Janis Joplin. The ones who remember that she died in 1970 (which is probably some of them) will settle for Susan Sarandon. Barring that, anyone currently on hunger strike (for whatever reason) or picketing alone outside a lumberyard.
What They Think the Mag Says About Them: I’m in touch with today’s music and popular culture, and I’m still young at heart. Oh, and fight the Establishment.
What the Mag Actually Says About Them: I really wish Pink Floyd would come out with a new album. And yes, Purple Haze is still all up in my eyes.
Did You Know? Rolling Stone actually used to be a good magazine with relevant information about popular music and culture. But as goes popular music and culture, so goes Rolling Stone.
Target Audience: The magazine’s tagline says it all. Success is “What Achievers Read!”
Actual Audience: Obviously, the audience is made up of unsuccessful people. ProTip: Successful people don’t read magazines about the successes of other successful people. They’re too busy being successful. And, you know, interesting. And not suicidal.
Unintended Niche Audience: The asshole friend of a guy whose business just went bankrupt. He thought it would be a funny gift. In an ironic sort of way. Too soon?
Readers Want to Be: The person who makes Beanie Babies cool again, and subsequently makes an inordinate amount of money off them - most of it legally.
Readers’ Ideal Date: Steve Jobs. Male or female, doesn’t matter.
What They Think the Mag Says About Them: I just need a few tips from the genius entrepreneurs who came before me, and my organic llama cheese business is going to go through the roof! Just you watch.
What the Mag Actually Says About Them: This is my seventh attempt at a home-based business, and the only people who have ever bought anything from me are friends who felt bad for me, but this one… this one is going to… God, I hate my life. Just leave me alone.
Did You Know? Success Magazine was originally created in the mid-1980’s as a cruel practical joke aimed at the inventors of New Coke.
Target Audience: Twenty-something successful single “career” women, looking for practical advice on sex, relationships, sex, fashion, sex, men, and how to please your man with sex.
Actual Audience: Thirty- and forty-something single/divorced “career” women with frigid demeanors, looking for advice on things they won’t end up using. Also, 21-year-old college dropouts with more STDs than Courtney Love’s used syringes, all of whom are severely overestimating the complexity of the average male psyche.
Unintended Niche Audience: Men, to see which four or five of this months’ 772 sex tips would, if utilized, theoretically work.
Readers Want to Be: Loved for who they are, not as an intelligent, caring, compassionate person.
Readers’ Ideal Date: Calling all metrosexuals!
What They Think the Mag Says About Them: I’m a successful, independent woman, and I could have a man any time I wanted. I mean, if I wanted one. But right now, I’m just focusing on me, and I think I’m really in a good place right now. Sure, I haven’t been seeing anyone since… I guess it was about 2004 if you don’t count that stupid little thing with Tim from accounting last year…but I’ve really never been happier or more at peace with myself than I am right now. Really.
What the Mag Actually Says About Them: I’ll take what I can get. I mean, as long as I don’t have to put any effort into it.
Did You Know? Cosmopolitan actually closed its offices in 2002. The magazine now employs one person, tasked with using Google Image Search for a celebrity photo for the cover, and scanning previous issues for “new” content.
Target Audience: NASCAR fans.
Actual Audience: Rednecks. Mission accomplished.
Unintended Niche Audience: The village drunk in Dutton, Alabama, who mistook the inset Budweiser ad for an actual can of beer.
Readers Want to Be: In the pit, where the races are won and lost. Or at The Pit, the local dive bar.
Readers’ Ideal Date: The NASCAR Calendar’s Miss February. Who may or may not be Danica Patrick...this year.
What They Think the Mag Says About Them: NASCAR is my favorite sport.
What the Mag Actually Says About Them: I dun’ care what cha’ll thank, Dale Jr. could whoop anybody in here.
Did You Know? NASCAR Illustrated has fallen on hard times lately. After the magazine’s primary market research failed to reveal that their target audience is largely illiterate, they changed the name from “NASCAR Magazine” to “NASCAR Illustrated.” Unfortunately, market research also failed to recognize the target audience’s inability to decipher the word “illustrated” as meaning “with pictures.”
Target Audience: People who obviously don’t know what the socially accepted function of wine is.
Actual Audience: I’m going with these people.
Unintended Niche Audience: People who like to drink wine, as compared to watch it.
Readers Want to Be: Eternally sober?
Readers’ Ideal Date: An AA member. This is in case they want to know what it’s like on the other side, or if they want someone to teach about an exciting new way to "experience" alcohol.
What They Think the Mag Says About Them: I am a high-class, cultured individual who enjoys the finer things in life.
What the Mag Actually Says About Them: I never learned about my fifth sense in elementary school.
Did You Know? Wine Spectator is the sister publication of the popular international magazine, Food Listener.
Target Audience: Men. Men who like to be manly, with their manly cigars and poker games.
Actual Audience: Airheads who picked up a magazine with a big word they didn't understand, in an ill-advised attempt to look intelligent. Also people who like cigars. But mostly, people who like the idea of liking cigars a lot more than the cigars themselves.
Unintended Niche Audience: Cosmo Kramer.
Readers Want to Be: Fidel Castro.
Readers’ Ideal Date: Nobody in particular. No, wait, it's Demi Moore. Yeah, I bet she totally picked that up from Ashton Kutcher, and definitely not from Bruce Willis.
What They Think the Mag Says About Them: I'm a real man's man. Why don't you come into my private study and we'll share the sweet aroma together? As sophiticated men, I mean. No homo.
What the Mag Actually Says About Them: I own one cigar. It's covered in bite marks, because I think I look awesome with it, but I'm too scared to light it.
Did You Know? Tiger Woods is the world's greatest golfer (without a cigar).
Target Audience: People who like to shoot stuff.
Actual Audience: People who like to shoot other people. Probably like that skinhead sitting like 20 feet away from me, who's kind of creeping me out. Who hopefully knows there's not even $100 in this register right now. Please stop looking at me like that...
Unintended Niche Audience: Men with very small genitals.
Readers Want to Be: Able to shoot someone in "self defense."
Readers’ Ideal Date: The new fourth-generation Glock-22. If all goes well, said reader will spend the rest of his life with it, sleeping with it every night.
What They Think the Mag Says About Them: I own a couple of guns, and my favorite place is the firing range. No, really, that's all I use them for. That and hunting. Yeah, that's it. Hunting.
What the Mag Actually Says About Them: I cannot guarantee the safety of any human, animal, or personal property within a 200-foot radius of me at any time. Also, if you ask for my ID, I will show you my handgun carry permit, because my driver's license was revoked after my fourth DUI.
Did You Know? Associating with somebody who subscribes to Combat Handguns has been proven to lower average life expectancy by 10-12 years.
Target Audience: Women, particularly homemakers, looking for tips on food, health, and home upkeep.
Actual Audience: Women who like the recipe ideas, make them once (with varying degrees of success), and then add the magazine to the house's corner "clutter" pile.
Unintended Niche Audience: Men with...different intentions.
Readers Want to Be: Paula Deen.
Readers’ Ideal Date: Paula Deen.
What They Think the Mag Says About Them: I'm going to win the pie contest at the county fair this year.
What the Mag Actually Says About Them: I live in the suburbs. My kids hate me, my husband is cheating on me, I've never even seen a county fair, and I don't know how to make a pie. At least everyone really liked that bacon dip.
Did You Know? This magazine probably used to have something to do with housekeeping.
Target Audience: I seriously shouldn’t have to tell you. Okay, fine, they’re targeting stoners. Since you needed me to spell it out for you.
Actual Audience: I’m guessing they probably hit the mark with this one.
Unintended Niche Audience: The FBI.
Readers Want to Be: At White Castle, like all the time.
Readers’ Ideal Date: Willie Nelson. He has the best stuff.
What They Think the Mag Says About Them: I am a strong advocate of the legalization of marijuana, and I have the facts to back it up. I am a free and rebellious soul, who does not yield to authority, and is always ready to have a good time.
What the Mag Actually Says About Them: Dude, this stuff is awesome. We should totally… what? The police? Man, screw the police. I’m not afraid of any… oh, crap, here comes my mom! Quick, hide the bong! Dude, just do it! Where are we gonna hang out if I have to move out of the basement?
Did You Know? This magazine is actually a real thing.
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