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Thanks Rolling Stone Magazine!


DaveAronow

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I have never liked Rolling Stone. I really don't like most journalism, so you should take my opinion at face value.

 

This is a magazine that started off as an alternative publication, almost like a pamphlet. They had Hunter S Thompson writing for them. It was a small operation that turned into a self-serving, self-indulgent, conservative POS publication. When you have Britney Spears on your cover, you lose all credibility as a rock publication.

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You're calling Rolling Stone conservative? Really?

 

I once got a free subscription to it for almost two years. I don't remember why, but I think it was a surprise incentive with another magazine I had a sub to. I read it, mostly because it was entertaining.

 

I enjoyed the humorously pompous, opinionated writing, and the two-faced nature of those opinions. For example, they gave Green Day's American Idiot a mediocre-at-best review upon its release, saying specifically that "Jesus of Suburbia" and the other imitation of "A Quick One While He's Away" on there were just a bunch of leftover, bad ideas strung together. Well, after the album got popular (and the band got anti-republican), the magazine hailed it as genius, groundbreaking, whatever. I liked reading their republican trashing, partly because I generally dislike republican politics, and partly because it was often exaggerated to the point of silliness. I continued reading for maybe a year or two after my free subscription ran out, but I eventually got tired of it. I read fewer magazines these days, though I used to read five or six a month.

 

Rolling Stone a magazine that desperately tries to bring the shock, desperately tries to keep its rep as being relevant, and has just shot itself in the balls with its most recent act of desperation. At least they have publicity, I guess.

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@wankdeplank

 

Probably true about the pandering. I agree that they haven't been really that relevant for a while, and their days are numbered. The whole nature of print magazines is going out altogether, and I don't see them contributing all that much to the news these days. Of course, since everything you see online is tailored to your preferences, maybe that's why I don't see RS news all that often.

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Glossy magazine paper is a BAD substitute for toilet paper. RS isn't even absorbant enough for lining bird cages, which makes it pretty much completely useless.

I really don't care that they put that douchebag's picture on the cover, it's just a generally bad magazine. I remember back in 1987 they gave U2's Joshua Tree album three stars when it first came out (what it deserved, IMHO), but by the end of the year when U2 were being hailed as the best band in the history of human existance, three had miraculously become five!

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Beyer160 wrote:

 

 

Glossy magazine paper is a BAD substitute for toilet paper. RS isn't even absorbant enough for lining bird cages, which makes it pretty much completely useless.

 

I really don't care that they put that douchebag's picture on the cover, it's just a generally bad magazine. I remember back in 1987 they gave U2's Joshua Tree album three stars when it first came out
(what it deserved, IMHO)
, but by the end of the year when U2 were being hailed as the best band in the history of human existance, three had miraculously become five!

 

This.

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Rolling Stone stopped being relevant to my world a long while ago. 

I'm not really hooked into pop culture anymore. I didn't know what you were talking about and had to go look up the cover. I suppose this could be considered in poor taste, or giving a terrorist undue press. RS covers used to be reserved for rock stars. That's how you know when you "made it", right?  

On the other hand, I haven't heard much about the case lately, or the suspects, or the victims. Don't know if it's on the nightly "news" or what (I don't watch). Maybe it's not a bad thing that the public is reminded of this kid. How hatred, disillusionment and whatever else it was can turn a pretty normal kid into a rogue terrorist who kills innocents. I think people should know how this came about. How the older one flew under the radar all that time. How law enforcement showed nothing but ineptitude, but came out playing hero when they finally caught the guy.

Seems prior to 9/11 people pretty much took what they were told at face value, with the exception of the tin-foil hat set. Now, more and more, you've got lots of people questioning the "facts" that they're fed every step of the way. A lot of people no longer inherently trust their government. IMO, people need to be riled up. People need to not forget this, lest we just keep letting it happen. Of course you need to be careful of the feelings of the victims' famlies, and that's probably where RS is getting the most pushback. Not that I think RS really had any of this in mind, they're probably just trying to drum up sales.

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I think most people missed the point of that cover (it was a poorly made point, but . . . )

The whole point of the cover and article was to ask how someone who (according to his friends, etc.) was a pretty "all-American" kid as far as they knew.  The article is exploring how someone who shows no real outward signs became radicalized here at home.

It was a poor choice of cover, but the fact is that when the same picture was on the cover of the New York Times, nobody cared.

I'm not a huge fan of RS (though they have come up with some pretty fine journalism in the past), but I don't think this cover was as egregious as most people believe.

Either way, I haven't bought an issue in years and have no current plans to do so, so this doesn't effect me one way or the other :).

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We are super saturated. Twenty years ago, we could watched tv, maybe read some magazines, and saw ads in the mall. Now, we turn our phone on, and we get an influx of pop culture. We go online, and teenagers make nostalgic meme pics of Nintendo 64s like those were the good old days. We are saturated and obsessed (as a society). I won't lie, though - I read entertainment news on purpose.

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kayd_mon wrote:

 

 We go online, and teenagers make nostalgic meme pics of Nintendo 64s like those were the good old days.

 


 

Teenagers, huh?

I'm 22; my girlfriend is 21. She has a tumblr based around N64 that's pretty popular. She was a child when the N64 came out. If she had been a child when the NES came out, she would have a blog on that. If she was a child when Led Zeppelin were popular, she'd have a blog on that.

(I didn't have an N64 until Conkers Bad Fur Day was out, and the Gamecube was taking over. I have nostalgia for Pokemon, Alan Jackson, and my mom's Van Halen and Led Zeppelin cassettes.)

Grant Kirkhope, who is 51, composed music for games like Banjo Kazooie and Goldeneye 007, and he really misses that era. He still plays those games.

It's nostalgia, and almost everyone has it. I'm sure you have some for the SNES and Chrono Trigger (The most overrated RPG ever).

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That's cool. And yeah, I'm sure everyone has a measure of nostalgia, but my point is, which you apparently support, is that we are pretty obsessed with pop culture. I mean, you would have to be to take the time to be nostalgic about something that really isn't even old (like an N64, which you could still buy at Walmart about 10 years ago).

 

I like video games of yesteryear, (which we've discussed in other derailed threads), and other things, too. The internet and trends being what they are just change the way we act about things. And I say we're obsessed, as a culture. Individual, it varies, of course.

 

Like I said, I would consider myself pretty obsessed, because I pay attention to entertainment news and am amused by gossip columns. I don't do the meme or blog thing, but I do read and laugh at them regularly. I just think it's funny that we get nostalgic so fast. I wonder if my parents, as they were just starting their adult lives, were sad that Howdy Doody wasn't on TV anymore, and some Mr. Rogers guy was entertaining kids on TV instead. Being nostalgic for that (actually) old stuff seems to make more sense. But times have changed, apparently.

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Oh, and Chrono Trigger is only overrated if you didn't like innovative battle systems, amazing graphics (for its time, of course), deep, engaging story, and peerless replayability (again for its time, but that still looks good compared to many JRPG games).

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kayd_mon wrote:

 

Oh, and Chrono Trigger is only overrated if you didn't like innovative battle systems, amazing graphics (for its time, of course), deep, engaging story, and peerless replayability (again for its time, but that still looks good compared to many JRPG games).

 

Nostalgia goggles.

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Bucksstudent wrote:

 


kayd_mon wrote:

 

 We go online, and teenagers make nostalgic meme pics of Nintendo 64s like those were the good old days.

 


 

 

It's nostalgia, and almost everyone has it. I'm sure you have some for the SNES and Chrono Trigger (The most overrated RPG ever).

Huh?

 


kayd_mon wrote:

 

Oh, and Chrono Trigger is only overrated if you didn't like innovative battle systems, amazing graphics (for its time, of course), deep, engaging story, and peerless replayability (again for its time, but that still looks good compared to many JRPG games).

 

 Pretty much this. It was remarkably accessible, they handled battles within the flow of the game very well, and many of the menu functions I found to be really streamlined and functional.

The multiple endings based on when/ how you beat the game was also brilliant.

I understand folks not evaluating it as being up to the substantial hype it has since garnered, but in many ways I think it does represent the peak of SNES RPGs with exceptions allowed for personal preference.

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People expect their idols to be more than they are. That's why the idolize them.

 

How different we are. And all I expect from Kanye West is that he makes an idiot of himself, which he excells at. I do care that his baby is named North West, because that is funny. They are both entertainers, and they really put themselves into their work - they even entertain people by giving their child an unfortunate name. Now that's dedication!

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