Not book or comics- what else do we read?

[SmallBlueThing(Reborn)]

There was a day when I was a voracious Devourer of magazines. Even fairly recently- in the last twenty years- there have been periods where I have regularly (which for these purposes seems to mean buying two out of every three) purchased issues of, amongst others, The Fortean Times, The Dark Side, Fangoria, Doctor Who Magazine... and going further back, I remember with great affection mags such as Space/ New Voyager, Deathray, Samhain, Comics International and many more.

These days, however, I'm down to- very occasionally an archaeology mag if it features something in which I'm particularly interested (this month's British Archaeology has 12 pages on Boxgrove, for example), the odd New Scientist (I did try to buy it regularly, but at six quid a week, I just can't), still The Fortean Times once in a while and very rarely something from TwoMorrows publishing- Alter Ego or Back Issue. I suppose I should also mention that I buy Landscape Photographer (or whatever its called) for my youngest son every month, and Playstation Magazine for both of my boys.

When did mags stop being essential? I refuse to believe it's because all the information is online, because the pleasure a print mag gives me is so far beyond such a petty concern. Is it just storage? (no, because I give them away or recycle them)- so it must be cost.

Anyway, I was wondering what we all read. Are there trends? Is there anything most of us also pick up?

SBT

[Dandontdare]

The only non-comic publication I read religiously is Private Eye. I have a subscription to the New Internationalist but that often goes in the recycling unread as it's turgid and preaching to the converted - I treat it more as a charitable donation to keep them going than a subscription. The only time I buy glossy movie or music mags is for something like a long train journey.

basically print is expensive and now that we can get unlimited content on our phones, Magazines are dying out. I used to be  newspaper junkie and bought a physical paper every day - but when the Guardian decided on their suicidal business model - keep hiking the price of the paid-for version (£2 p/d last time I looked), whilst investing and improving the free online version - I now just do it on my phone.

[Colin YNWA]

I used to read loads of music magazines and papers regularly, loads of film magazines and would get the Saturday Guardian religiously to consume The Guide. I've not done any of these really for what, 15 years maybe. On the rare occasions I do get a none comic related magazine for train journeys and the like I find I'm disappointed with the amount of content I enjoy.

I've found that the content in magazines is so much easier to replace with content from the internet and time is of a premium these days and so hobbies are reduced to the essentials - for me comics - and all that together when I look in Smiths and see there is still a vast array of magazines I do wonder how the survive.

[SmallBlueThing(Reborn)]

 I was thinking the same thing- I dont really remember the sheer volume of magazines available in WHSmith during the seventies and eighties (I was fixated on the comics, plus ca change) but was struck today that there still appear to be hundreds still on the shelves. How *do* they survive? I bought my son the *first issue* of a *new* landscape photography mag today- which joins the many photo mags already there. I would have thought photography would have been one of the first sectors to see a decrease due to the internet.

As for newspapers- ditto Mr DontDare. I haven't bought a daily paper in, what, sixteen years? Maybe more. With various tv news channels and the internet I simply dont see the need. I know we have journalists here, so apologies to them for saying that. At least those are transferable skills that are not dependent on the medium. But does anyone really want to write just for the internet? Is it just "our generation" that romanticises print?

SBT

[IndigoPrime]

Magazines are in trouble, but the problem with Colin's point that you can replace them with content from the internet is two-fold:

1. Magazines are about a set selection of curated, carefully edited material where the broad subject matter might be self-selecting but the individual pieces of content are not. In other words, you don't just hone in on what you want to read, but get fed things you didn't realise you wanted to read. That rarely happens online.

2. Those publications you might enjoy online are quite often funded by magazine/print subscriptions. Once the print subs are gone, the online content is going to vanish. If not, it'll have to radically restructure, which means massive cuts to budgets and — usually — what's there going to shit.

In short, pay for what you love or it's going away.

That said, I don't have patience for anything that isn't high quality, and I don't care for volume. That's why I fling a DD at The Guardian (which I read often) but don't get paper copies. Mags I'm currently subscribed to are Wired and Wireframe. Basically, give me something that begins with Wire, apparently.

[pauljholden]

Check if your local library can let you get some mags out digitally. If I have a hankering to read empire, this is my usual route

[Funt Solo]

I used to read Empire cover to cover, but it waned (somewhat coincident with becoming a parent) - there's just not enough time, either to watch a ton of movies or to read about them. So, I'm a total nerd for movies up to about 2012, then I have no idea.

[abelardsnazz]

I used to subscribe to everything I was interested in (Empire, Total Film, Classic Rock), but these days I've narrowed it down to Sight and Sound only, which I spend much less time on than I used to. I like to think I'm making at least a small contribution to the film industry, which needs as much help as it can get right now.

[wedgeski]

I allowed my Empire sub to lapse last year. Even before the Bad Times, we were going to the cinema less and less. I think the film obsession of my 20's has morphed into a TV obsession in my 40's. Plus, movies are available to stream and/or buy so quickly after the cinema release these days that forking out £30 for a pair of tickets to a smelly, noisy, understaffed Vue, just to see something I can watch in comfort for £5 a few weeks later, seems like a bad deal.

Erm, off topic. I read NME all through my 20's, but that's long-since been halted. I bought gaming mags religiously from the age of 10 (ZZap! 64) through to my mid-30's (PC Gamer), but the internet has completely obviated the need for such things. I bought drumming mags for a few years, but you have to be a real obsessive to find those very interesting for more than that.

So the only regular print I buy is all things house nof Tharg. I'll pick up the odd New Scientist or NatGeo at the supermarket if they look interesting.

[shaolin_monkey]

I used to read Metal mags back in the day, Kerrang and suchlike, but haven't bothered for a couple of decades now. I occasionally pick up a music mag if they have some feature about a band I like - Maiden, Floyd, Lizzy, Hendrix, Zappa etc - but otherwise don't bother.

I occasionally grab Empire, but haven't read that seriously since after Dredd came out. That was probably the last time a film made me interested in reading more about it, and other films out at the same time. Now I just can't be bothered with it, partly because I find the films they recommend more and more mediocre, at least to me anyway.

Nowadays my non-comic and non-fiction reading is taken up by more academic stuff as I navigate around the science of climate change. 'Dire Predictions' by Prof. Michael Mann is a good example of a hard copy book, as opposed to an online study or research piece, which seeks to frame the data and findings of the IPCC reports in a more relatable way.

[Barrington Boots]

I also used to read a shedload of magazines and now don't read any. When I was at university I was reading masses, which is mad because I never had any money.
I occasionally pick them up for train journeys and usually end up unsatisfied by the brevity of the articles - if it's something I'm interested in they never really go into enough detail, which I know is kind of the point of a magazine, and if I'm not interested in it then... I'm not interested. Because the content is curated, if you're not on the zeitgeist then it's start to seem like a lot of filler and I'm old now so that's definitely me.

I used to use them for reviews - music, video / board games etc - but the internet's definitely changed all that because for the latter I can find reviews online quickly and for the former I can now usually listen to stuff myself and make my own decision. Music reviews in particular were a big bugbear of mine as they nearly all say something like 'this record is so heavy it's like being crushed by an elephant in a steamroller' which tells me absolutely nothing about it.
The internet also replaced the news aspect of magazines: it used to be really hard to find out news about, say, US wrestling and now it's easy.
I would read a magazine a bit like Dragon or how the old White Dwarf used to be where there's a bunch of new content for stuff I'm interested in, but I'm not sure there's anything like that on the UK Newsagent shelves.

[sheridan]

Ah, old White Dwarf!  Last RPG mags I bought were Arcane and Visions, around the same time period.

Within the last few years the only mags I've bought have been Linux magazines (largely for the cover-mounted distros) and fanzines, which I usually by at festivals or other events and haven't seen many recently (not counting this year).

[IndigoPrime]

For people who used to like quality games mags, do check out Wireframe. It's by the Pi Foundation and gives you something different in concentrating on the stories behind games and how they're created. If you don't want to pay, every issue is freely available as a downloadable PDF — but if you do enjoy it, please obviously consider a sub. (Full disclosure: I'm a contributor to the mag, but a rare one; I'm also a subscriber, since issue 2 — I bought the first one in a store.)

[Barrington Boots]

For people who used to like quality games mags, do check out Wireframe.

Cheers! I've download the most recent issue, if I dig it I will support with a physical purchase!

[Dandontdare]

I used to love White Dwarf - news, articles, scenarios, Thrud the Barbarian - even had Dredd on the cover once. I remember picking up a copy on a whim several years ago and wondered why they were charging money for a Warhammer catalogue