Monocle on artisanry - Page 2

Seeing well designed ads for well made products really pisses me off too. I mean, what the hell is that all about anyways? Remember when magazines were JUST content?

Oh wait, that was never the case?

I wouldn't call them well designed, as the ad' are the same in every magazine and yes it does, especially the pure amount they have.

When I started buying Monocle they had a appropriate amount of ad's and all of them were targeted for what they called the monocle man and was products that was coherent with the content.

Gradually things started to change and when I stopped buying it, they had ran a Hublot red stone watch ad for 6 months straight and who the hell buys monocle and read about small Japanese companies, thinks hey look it's Rick Ross' Hublot I must own that, as it will work with my Porter bags and Inoue Brothers knit. That was just one of the ad's which annoyed me and made it very clear that things had changed and it was all about Mr. Brulee's PR business and much dough they could pull in from companies with the biggest possible budget.

Another thing witch was pissing me off was those ad ins from Nokia etc. WHY THE F**K would I want to buy a magazine to look at a 29 page Nokia ad, I know that I could just skip it, but that doesn't real change that fact that I find it annoying.

The last issue I bought I counted the ad pages and the editorial and it ended being 60/40 or something in that manor in the ad's favour, which I my opinion is way to much, as I don't buy a magazine for the ad's.

I read a free magazine, which only is distributed to good customers of BMW, Audi, watchmakers, Furniture shops etc. and their ad to editorial ratio is a lot better than Monocles

I hadn't seen that thread.

I do understand everyone frustration for the ads, shouldn't more ads bring down the price of the magazine? I still do like the magazine for its articles. Some interesting things to read, that you don't really find in other magazines, but that is just me.

I've been enjoying the Monocle 24 pod casts. Interesting interviews that make a commute to the city pass quickly.

Monocle is to post-hipster douchebags as dollhouses are to 8 year old girls. It's little more than a vain platform for 26-35 year old pseudo-commies in Band of Outsider shirts to delicately contrive their ideal society after a hard day of graduate school or graphic design. The entire mission of the magazine is to cultivate self-satisfaction so all the pretty readers can vicariously live through its vacuous plasticity under the pretense of authenticity. Within every dedicated Monocle reader is a flickering flame of hope that one day, in a More Just World, every neighborhood has its own family-owned charcuterie that stocks first edition Philip Roth novels and chrome grooming accessories.

So wrong. If anyone hates on the type of shit you just described, it's me.

Monocle actually has a few key focuses and it has stuck to them since its beginning: Design, urbanism, transport, and current affairs. To say this magazine is somehow in the same zone as GQ or Nylon or VICE is ridiculous.

Bitch about the ads, but the content has always been solid.

It's not like those other magazines. It's uniquely shitty in its own special way. Here's every issue:

Design: Young design collective X rethinks everyday product Y, with a focus on sustainability.
Urbanism: City in Northern European country X rethinks how to spend tax money on Y for the enjoyment of magazine editors in country Z.
Transport: Fledgling entrepreneur X rethinks distribution of Y on scale Z, by "taking lessons from China" and "harnessing social media".
Travel: 80 page insert about country X, featuring the latest trends in regional bar food, avant garde cocktails, and urban bike paths.
Current Affairs: Delusional idiot writes op-ed about issue related to "emerging markets" and its effect on X industry. Remedy: A) Public investment B) Winning the future C) Bicycles

Here's their description of their latest issue : "Issue 50 indexes the businesses, brands and nations that have the charm factor." That's it. Charm factor.

They're basically doing missionary work on behalf of urban-bourgeoisie asceticism, except they're less like the Cistercians, and more like tyrannical Visigoths in Fred Perry cardigans. They should just fuck off.

So much hate for no reason.

Their latest issue basically explored the usefulness of warmth and service in national branding. What the hell is so deplorable about that?

It might not be "Foreign Affairs" but you make it sound like it's a publication aimed at douchebag hipsters from Park Slope. Those guys don't even read this thing. It's a well put together and often thoughtful publication with fun pieces. Quit being such a curmudgeon, for fuck's sake.

It's not necessarily deplorable, but there is an overarching tone of worldy-derived righteousness that is antithetical to what the magazine really is, which is an insular lifestyle magazine that offers shallow mental and visual fodder to a very narrow segment of society and its equally homogenous worldview, which is upper-middle class progressives who can't comprehend why K-Marts or minivans exist. They cherry-pick esoteric topics from weird places that might seem to be novel sources of wisdom or cultural sensibilities at first glance, but in reality, everything is half-baked, meaningless, or delusional and heavily relies on its spiffy graphics to pass as high-brow, sophisticated material. It does do a good job of making its readers feel sophisticated and "global" so it's admirable or successful from that standpoint, but that's about it.

so sig-able.

There was a story a couple months back in the Danish media about the Danish government had payed 150k$, for monocle to write about the country.


The creator....

Jokes a side Brule, was woted Londons most annoying resident a couple years back, which says a lot.

Isn't The Monocle printed on shitty paper?

I have a new goal in life.