Tuesday, August 24, 2021

New Yorker humor — and I’m out

Short intro to the New Yorker item “It’s Ten O’Clock. Do You Know Where Your Parents Are?” The sample text: “I don’t want to scare you, but your unsupervised father could even be running for a Senate seat, with a thousand lawn signs that read “Commercials Are Too Loud!” [From an e-mail promoting the August 30 issue of The New Yorker.]

I’ve been wavering about whether to let our subscription to The New Yorker lapse. I think this comedy bit has decided it for me. No wavering from Elaine: she’s already said we should let it go.

Now that we’re supposed to listen compassionately to disaffected rural folk opposed to vaccination, older people might be the only group still safe to target for comic purposes. A sample from this New Yorker piece:

Right now, your mom could be holding up the grocery-store checkout line with a long, boring monologue about how much she loves “that Billy Eyelash — such a talented young man.”
I’m old enough — but also young enough — to find this kind of stuff painfully dumb.

[The average age of a New Yorker reader, according to Wikipedia: forty-three in 1980; forty-six in 1990, forty-seven in 2009. A more recent (?) estimate: fifty-four. I’d say the magazine is pitching not to the readers they have but to the readers they hope to acquire, which is one way to lose readers they have, or had.]

comments: 8

Elaine said...

Aw....really? I continue to work my way through a stack of old issues--interesting reading....retrospective!--and I get the new issues for free via 'Libby' from my local library. I have 14 days to read each one, but usually return in a few days. As long as Elizabeth Kolbert and Sue Halpern are published in this magazine, I think it's worthwhile, even if some of the "Shouts and Murmurs" miss from time to time.

Michael Leddy said...

I may waver again — we still have months to go. I read some pieces online, but I find myself looking less and less at the magazine.

The Name Drop quizzes (online) also point in the wrong direction. I get the answers, with one or two or three clues, but they seem like an odd feature for The New Yorker. WWHRS? (What would Harold Ross say?)

Elaine said...

I am unaware of those...NYT puzzles and games are enough. The Newsday Saturday puzzles often defeat me. I admire your mastery over those!

Michael Leddy said...

(Knock wood!)

Name Drop is now the first thing on the New Yorker page for games and puzzles. You have to scroll down to get to the crossword.

Fresca said...

I gave up my subscription years ago when an ad for Tiffany's ran alongside some excellent article about hardship (like the one about harvesting sugar cane).
I just can't take it.

Michael Leddy said...

Maybe there should be more cooperation—or coöperation — between the editorial people and the ad people.

Fresca said...

coöperation... LOL

Michael Leddy said...

I couldn’t resist.