Who reads Playboy anymore? I have no idea, but since striking up a friendship with the horny podcasters over at Playboy UK last year, I’ve been just kind of bemusedly watching our domestic version struggle along trying to catch up with… well, everything. The US version of Playboy, to me, has become synonymous with people who aren’t current with anything in the world of sex, tech, porn, sex culture or girls and guys my age (which is funny because their models are younger than me). Whenever I make a joke about the Playboy dino and waiting for the meteor here in the blog, I always get lots of appreciative email. I was recently emailed and asked to be on Playboy TV (again) but I didn’t reply; maybe it was rude but I just didn’t know what to say; I know that Playboy farms out all their TV stuff and the companies that do it are staffed by some really cool people working for a pittiance; it’s a classic catch-22.
So of course when I read about the whole Playboy doing the “Girls of MySpace” thing, I giggled. Of course — it’s already *so over*, and what a perfect bid for the wanna-be Hefners to get a safe taste of what the younger boys get these days? This email exchange a few minutes ago (with somone who asked to remain anonymous) sums it all up perfectly:
“Yes. It is Rupert Murdoch getting a suck-job from all his corporate lackeys. Not that I am a huge fan of Tribe or Friendster, but FOR CHRIST’S SAKE!!! All it took was some rich fuck owning it and suddenly it’s the Next Big Thing. I wonder if any of those self-righteous journalists out there have the faintest idea how thoroughly Murdoch is using them when they report on the “My Space phenomenon.” Even NPR is on the bandwagon — they did like a 10 minute segment on whether My Space was a good idea for teens, given that at a party posted on My Space somebody got stabbed in Berkeley. There was absolutely no news, but they just blathered on, interviewing like 5 kids about what they thought about My Space. “Is it possible that internet predators could find teens this way?????” It’s all carefully calculated hype and more importantly, I am sick of porn stars sending me to their My Space page where they have 200,000 “friends.” OK. I’m backing away from the coffeepot.”
So, the leading “men’s magazine” with a sad website, no podcast (unless you count the $10 a month ‘bodcast‘), nothing new to say about sex, and who ceased to affect our culture’s wider conversation about sex and culture about 30 years ago is in bed with Rupert Murdoch. Hott. Like ten million exciting sexual things (models, photogs, ideas, tech) aren’t happening in their own backyard. Yes, I linked to AVN on that one; that’s how bad it is. One thing to their credit, though — I will concede that they get a tiny bonus for selecting San Francisco’s Betty Lipstick (pictured; horrifyingly loud MySpace sound warning on link) as one of many for their Girls of MySpace issue; a real live tattooed altgirl. Even though she practices celibacy, and nary a nip is exposed on any of her gallery pages, at least she doesn’t look like a cigarette blonde twin of Malibu Barbie circa 1990. The MySpace/Playboy thing is dated and creepy and I have to scrub my corenas off after thinking about Murdoch and naked girls, but at least Ms. Lipstick means the times might be a-changing… Maybe.
