Insidious Ads?/WaxPo#42 Related
shawnald_reagan
318 Posts
I'm readin the latest (to me) Wax Poetics and then all of the sudden, I'm in a Ford ad?
Whaaaat? Is this the internet pop-up ad influencing print media? Can an article on Bob Power turn into an ad for a fuel efficient car with the flip of the page? Either way, I found the ad distracting and crass. I don't want to be on some "more-punk-than-thou" steez but i don't want to read a magazine that lets an advertiser draw all over the copy. Just seems weird.
What sayeth soulstrut?
Comments
i've migrated to a magazine from Japan called Groove, which kinda do things right...
peace.
Don't be condescending. It's called an editorial firewall. Reputable publications have them.
I picked up a back issue, the Mingering Mike one, the other day and ended up reading it cover to cover... it almost made me cry it was so good compared to what passes for an issue these days. The adds that look like articles ARE super offensive. The Mag should have stuck to a quarterly format, but that's another beef.
In yet I keep buying it.... though not every issue.
Hijack: Anyone seen the ad for the Numero Group Syl Johnson box set in the latest issue. That shit made my pussy wet, lord have mercy.
Wax Poetics has never been what I would call reputable in this regard.
It's really embarrassing.
companies paying for ads pretty much drives the editorial content across the whole industry I'd think
It's the idea that advertising sales and editorial decisions are to be kept strictly separate. Advertising and editorial content are clearly demarcated and advertiser influence is kept from affecting the journalistic integrity of the publication. It's journalism 101.
When I subscribed to WP (like 5 years ago), it seemed to be one big Stones Throw circle jerk.... an article on MadVillian ... then a Stonesthrow ad.
TBH... I swore I would never touch that magazine again when they gave John Klemmer a spread.
I worked at a newspaper for 24 years, and unfortunately all that fancy-shmancy ethical stuff went right out the window when the economy went in the shitter (or earlier if you worked for Gannett).
I used to work in page layout (i.e. gather all the computerized ad info, newshole etc and build the paper with the pressroom) and you would not believe the insane shit they were bending over backwards to accommodate advertisers and their bizarre requests. I used to say it was good a lot of the old guys who were in charge when I started were already dead, because shit like that would've killed them.
Customarily, with an ad like that, the advertiser is paying extra for a spread that crosses the gutter (TDT) as well as for the space where they encroach upon the text.
I like the magazine, but that Madvillain thing was unconscionable--"Hey Egon, you wanna fellate your label's flagship artists for 5 pages? We'll pretend it's an article!" Just a horrible look all around.
One magazine I used to work for dabbled a bit in "advertorials." Everything about that word makes me angry.
The afro issue finally pushed me over the edge.
:hated_it:
What this guy said.
Expecting other people to go broke for the sake of your principles seems to be a popular position nowadays.
The problem with WP is that folks have been spoiled... The first dozen or so issues were like an academic journal.... very clean with non-intrusize ads. Lately, they are going to more mainstream. Which I can't hate on. It's the nature of the beast.
F16, what type of $$ are we talking about for this type of advertising leeway?
There's a middle ground between going broke and letting advertisers write over your articles.
But extrapolating an opponent's stance to its most extreme theoretical endpoint and arguing against that seems to be a popular rhetorical technique these days.
This is true of any number of indie niche publications, including the one I write for. Given the shrinking market for any sort of niche mag, I can't help thinking it's a wonder Wax Poetics has lasted as long as it has. Sure, the ad's ugly and garish, but unfortunately, when the alternative to ugly, garish ads is oblivion, then such a thing becomes a necessary evil.
It's not like this is anywhere near Benzino / Source material...
for all of the time spent glorifying the 'real world move' on this forum, it seems no one's very pleased when they actually happen. advertising in print media is something that happens in the REAL world.
Yeah, the whole encroaching-on-the-text thing must be fairly new and a great example of advertising gone awry. As far as it being "insidious," I am going to have to disagree on that -- can this be any more obvious? Perhaps we could have gotten Egon in a Ford Fiesta with a McDonald's Mocha and stopped at the vinyl section at Best Buy?
I can't imagine how difficult it is making a magazine work in this environment. I can imagine that idealistic wall between editorial and advertising being, more or less, nonexistent at such an operation. However, a subscriber has the right to be offended with an ad like this, especially when they are paying $38 for six issues. Seems like most of these efforts to make ends meet in tough times wind up being self-fulfilling prophesies in that they alienate the few loyal customers they have left.
Yeah, I see that all over the place.
It's one thing objecting to advertising of a particular kind, but something that happens far too often for my liking nowadays is people taking a moralistic (rather than moral) position on advertising, usually one that's informed by that Bill Hicks quote.
I mean, how many people here rely on music - their own music - as their main source of income? Not that many, I'd guess - Thes, Jake, and a few others, right? So what would be the collective SS response if PUTS or Jake were to land, say, a Nike ad (assuming they wouldn't have a moral objection themselves)? Would it be "get that paper"? Or would it be "your music is now ethically tainted, and I discard you"?
My point is this; when you're at a certain level, opportunities such as those can be the difference between being able to make an actual living from your creative endeavours and being uncertain whether or not you'll be able to pay your electricity bill for the next quarter. The same applies in magazine publishing at WaxPo level. In many cases, people will say yes to these things knowing full well they'll get shit for it, but they just can't afford to worry about whether some keyboard warrior is going to act all affronted on the internet by the sight or sound of their heroes entering into some kind of satanic pact with Louis Vuitton or Chevrolet.
Just this week, I had a conversation with a friend of mine who runs a label. Next year, he's putting out an album by a member of a celebrated and still gigging English post-punk act that gets name-checked left, right and centre by numerous hipster types. He tells me this guy is completely fucking broke right now, and is desperate for any kind of opportunity to make money from his back catalogue. At the moment, he's having to sell equipment to buy groceries. There are probably so-called fans of this guy's band who would be less bothered by that than they would at hearing one of his band's songs in an ad. If the publishers of Wax Poetics think taking a couple of ugly Ford ads will prevent them having to face a scenario like that, then good luck to them.
Oh, and by the way, that middle ground is much, much smaller than you think.