Chris Butcher goes over the debut issue of PiQ magazine, the replacement for Newtype, and doesn’t keep the kid gloves on for very long:
Page 2: The letter from the editor is kind of awful. I hate it when marketers (and let’s not kid ourselves, the people producing this magazine are marketers, selling popular culture and hoping to sell adspace to go along with it) try and tell me who I am: YOU HATE YOUR PARENTS! YOUTUBE! RETRO GAMING! TEAM FORTRESS 2! PLANETES! (really, Planetes?) According to the editor, “You’re not ‘normal’. That’s why PiQ is entertaiment for the rest of us. Video games, movies, TV, anime, comics…” Are you… f’ing kidding me? Video Games, Movies, TV? This is the way in which we are abnormal? And then the “Editor Guarantee”, where he promises to never use “made up” words or to use language in an interesting way… Just what I was looking for, a boring, consumer-focussed way to express my individuality.
Uggggggggggggggggh. This is the first piece of writing, from the editor, on the second page, and it’s awful. This will not end well.
March 18th, 2008 at 8:50 am
Unfortunately, his type of hijacked hipsterism (or in this case hijacked geek-ism) isn’t new.