RIP Playboy’s print edition

I went through the same process. Got a subscription when I was graduating college and kept it for about eight years. I let it go when I got married, not because I was afraid of the wife intercepting it at the mailbox but because I felt like I'd outgrown it as I was approaching 30. It hit a certain sweet spot in my early 20s, but seemed to not be geared toward me by the time I was 28 or 29.

 

Why post that on Medium rather than Playboy.com?

 

Medium won't get flagged by web filters as NSFW, so more people can read it?

 

It's been the better part of 20 years since I saw the inside of a Playboy.

 

The same Paula Kelly who was in the first season of "Night Court," among other acting credits. Man, you learn something new every day.

I had a subscription to the mag back in the '90s. Back then, the 'type' for the centerfolds was somewhat more varied; you'd get brunettes or redheads once in a while, and a minority once in a blue moon.
I think the big allure to the magazine during its prime years was that they would always get quite a few female celebrities to pose nude, and on certain occasions (Vanessa Williams, congressman's wife Rita Jenrette) ignite a media firestorm.
It has outlived its usefulness, unfortunately.

EDIT: Just realized the Vanessa Williams pics were Penthouse. Point stands though.

 

I think Playboy was so successful initially and Hefner so narcissistic that the magazine became very boring. I started reading it in the late 60's and the sports features could be very good and frequently featured in Best American Sports Writing. At that time most long-form features of athletes were hagiographies but Playboy was willing to provide a grittier view of the athletes. They also paid for some really good writers.

But they never evolved with their audience. For example, Hefner loved jazz and they sponsored a Playboy Jazz festival. But despite having a huge audience of young men they never attempted to cover the current music scene in the same fashion as Rolling Stone.

 

Rolling Stone and Playboy two magazines very definitely anchored to a specific era. And two of the better examples of publications establishing a very strong brand identity.

 

Last time I picked up a Playboy was strictly by accident. I had just moved into a new apartment two weeks before and the previous tenant must have forgotten to forward his subscription. It was the issue that had Leilani Rios, the Cal State track star who was thrown off the team for being a stripper. That was, like, September 2001.

 

The jokes page and cartoons were great, seeing a famous person naked before you could go to R movies was fun (the NFL cheerleaders issue back in the day, wow), but the interviews really tailed off drasticly. From John Lennon, Jimmy Carter to sitcom stars?

 

Playboy's shoots at least left a little bit to the imagination, unlike Penthouse or Hustler which a lot of times resembled a veterinary birthing textbook.

 

Not that I don't believe you when you say you bought it for the articles, but your handle is two gloves and... well... I'll let you fill in the rest

 

There was nothing better for a teenage boy in the 70s and 80s then stumbling across an issue of Playboy. Teens today, with a phone full of porn, will never get that.