Are you ready to read Playboy for the articles?
Actually, that may be the only reason to read Playboy anymore. The iconic pin-up magazine pioneered the publication of nudity, but it may have done its job too well—now that nudity is everywhere on the Internet, that which once was one of Playboy’s main attractions can now be had elsewhere—everywhere—for free. So why buy Playboy?
Its executives admit that Playboy has been overtaken by the changes it pioneered. “That battle has been fought and won,” said Scott Flanders, the company’s chief executive. “You’re now one click away from every sex act imaginable for free. And so it’s just passé at this juncture.”
That’s why Playboy has announced it will be dropping full nudity as of next March’s issue, as part of a redesign intended to try to bring the magazine back toward mainstream relevance by dialing it back to a PG-13 rating. This follows a previous decision to drop nudity from the magazine’s website last August, and other changes to let content make it onto social media. The magazine will still feature a Playmate of the Month, but not a totally nude one anymore.
There’s more than a little irony inherent in the idea that, to differentiate itself from the crowd, Playboy now has to drop total nudity. But on the other hand, like many clichés, the idea of “just reading Playboy for the articles” is based on fact. Playboy has always sourced high-quality textual content to go along with the pin-ups, including publishing original James Bond stories by Ian Fleming. It’s just that the nudity was such a prominent element that it eclipsed everything else, and people frequently used that high-quality content as a cover for scoping out the nudity.
Like many magazines, Playboy’s circulation has fallen over the last few decades (down from 5.6 million in 1975 to 800,000 now), and they’re interested in doing whatever they can to try to boost their numbers. But their problem might not just be all the nudity on the Internet, but the availability of Internet content in a larger sense—the same thing that’s torpedoing circulation numbers for many other print magazines.
People have so many more sources for interesting reading matter to take up their time and attention, thanks to the Internet. We can effectively make our own personalized magazines via RSS readers and content aggregators like Flipboard—and that’s true whether we’re looking for informative articles or sating more prurient interests. Is there still a place for print magazines anymore?
Perhaps that remains to be seen.
