Grocery Rag Mags
Here comes
another Cranky rant!
As many of
you may know, between PBS shows such as “The Miraculous Monkeys of Madagascar”
and “Great Operas Through the Ages” I sometimes also watch reality TV shows.
I also read
a lot, and between “The Brothers Karamazov,” “Gone with the Wind” and the Bible,
I sometimes read magazines I find in the supermarket checkout lines.
Here is the
rant.
All of these
magazines have intriguing covers with large headlines such as “Obama wears Michelle’s
dresses in the oval office”, or “Was Brad Pitt abducted by aliens” or “Bachelorette
Kaitlyn is cheating with Ben.” Now, even
though I am pretty sure Obama does not wear Michelle’s dresses in the Oval
Office, I just have to find out what is the real story.
Yes, I will buy these magazines.
What fries
my patoot is these magazines will not tell me what page to find the article
that I plucked down $4.75 because the headline so tantalized me. It takes sorting through twelve pages of advertisements
and junk stories just to get to the Table of Contents page. Then after searching all through the Table of
Contents page about fifteen times I realize they do not list the very article I
purchased this rag to read.
They offer a cover page
picture, a giant cover headline and yet they will not tell you where to find the damn
story. In order to find the article that they used
to seduced me into buying the magazine, I have to leaf through seventy-eight pages
before I finally find the cover page article.
Sometimes I page by and miss the article because it is so small, and I have to search
several times.
All this to
find that Michelle asked the President to hold a dress up so she could get an
idea how it might look in the sunlight…Brad Pitt has a Mexican chauffer…and the
Bachelorette cheated in gin rummy.
This is
really annoying.
What do
these magazine editors think? Do they
think I would grab the magazine while I was waiting in the checkout line, quick
find the intriguing article, read it and put the magazine back before I paid
for my groceries?
OK, I
probably would.
Still it
pisses me off!
I remember a headline proclaiming that a prominent British politician was caught wearing women's clothing. It turned out the politician was Margaret Thatcher.
ReplyDeleteYou actually buy this rubbish?
ReplyDeleteHave you not heard of google?? (*~*)
I agree with the first rant about 12 pages of ads and junk before coming to the contents page. Even gardening magazines are the same now. I get them from the library if I'm wanting to know about certain plants, mostly I read them while I'm there and leave with a proper book.
I think the editors are laughing up their sleeves. Our magazines are roughly the same - I gave up on them after discovering Google.
ReplyDeleteOne of my favorite games to play to pass the time in a grocery line is to think up excuses for those headlines, what they could really mean. No, i don't buy them, i'd rather just have the Reader's Digest, at least it has some good jokes.
ReplyDeleteThey always entice you by their "flashy" headlines. I haven't bought anything like this in years, but when my mom lived with us way back then, she liked the National Enquirer so when I went grocery shopping sometimes I would buy one for her. I couldn't wait until she finished reading it so I could "just take a look at it" and would devour the whole thing.
ReplyDeletebetty
those mags always catch my eye but sometimes irritate me, too. and i never buy them - or even open them. :) we're inundated with the kardashians and caitlyn and kaitlyn and scandals everywhere we turn. msn.com has enough for me. :)
ReplyDeleteWell, you could still be buying cigarettes.
ReplyDeleteThank you Joanne!
DeleteI guess we are all allowed some guilty pleasures.
Hi Joeh,
ReplyDeleteNice rant. I have only bought such magazines purely as research. I ranted so much that Mrs PM took them off me and hurled them into the bin.
We get them in the UK too (as you might have guessed).
:0)
Cheers
PM
And yet you keep coming back for more .... ;-)
ReplyDeleteI think their marketing is working just fine. On you that is. I go right past these rags. Most of the media is full of smoke and mirrors. To find the truth the media isn't the place to visit.
ReplyDeleteHave a fabulous day Cranky. ☺
Here's where being a female is a big advantage . . . we can read these rags for free at the hair salon.
ReplyDeleteI'll give you a condensed, completely non-factual account of any headline you wish to know about, for only $3.95! Yes! And that's not all!! You'll also get my complete and unabridged version of the Bible!!! And that's not all......
ReplyDeleteI await your Paypal money transfer.
But wait, there's more!
DeleteMagazine pages are impossible!!! I give up on them. I'll use the internet, thankyouverymuch.
ReplyDeleteAh...now I know where you get your Stupid Headlines ideas!
ReplyDeleteYou should just skip those rags and buy Playboy or Penthouse.
I have not read a tabloid since my mom passed away. Before that, I bought a Globe and an Enquirer every week, gave them to her after reading, discussed the articles by phone all week, and then she gave them to her neighbor, who gave them to another old-lady friend, who passed them on as well. I figure I spent a great deal on those two tabloids, but should have been able to count that investment as a charitable contribution.
ReplyDeleteTry GAWKER for your trash media, Joeh. I knew a guy who wrote for National Enquirer and I saw how he worked. It's trash. Besides you can read the New York Post and the Daily News on line, as well as Gawker and many others.
ReplyDeleteI also used to subscribe to several of the "newspapers" that are at the check stand at the markets, including the Enquirer & the Weekly World News. I actually had a reason for all this--let me explain. When our kids were in college, so were many of our nieces & nephews. They were all over the U.S. & for a while & our daughter Nameless was in Italy. In order to keep a family member up to date on what was happening to the rest of us, I acted as sort of a clearing house. They would send me letters (this was WAY before email or cell phones) & I would put whatever information they gave me into a BIG letter. I Xeroxed it (remember that?) & put in stupid stories, jokes & my own thoughts & sent a copy to everyone every couple of weeks. Now that I think of it, it was sort of an early version of my blog. I mailed 15 or 20 copies.
ReplyDeleteI don't do that anymore!!
I read People magazine. The online version is not as good.
ReplyDeleteI suggest that you save $4.75 by getting in line behind some clueless guy who forgot the coupons wifey handed him and is realllly gonna be in for it if he doesn't go to the car and get them - or some other ding-a-ling - and read them for free with plenty of time to find the goodies buried in the ads.
ReplyDeleteYour other comments reminded me of my mother-in-law's obsession with the Enquirer after she started to "lose it." Our post-Thanksgiving dinner entertainment was reading them out loud to the siblings. Mother was not amused.