For those of you who don't know, I used to work at a Doubledown Media, LLC which, if you don't know what that is, was a company that published magazines geared specifically towards certain types of the super rich: traders, investment bankers, CEOs, various people who own planes or smoke cigars, and, for a brief period, professional athletes -- basically all types of people that Real Americans despise for reasons that are only partially clear. On the one hand it was as shitty as the products imply (it's one thing to fact-check a ten part series on sorghum for the William Shawn-era New Yorker, but it's a whole other thing to fact-check stories trying desperately to glamorize the world's most unintersting occupation.); but on the other hand, I worked with some generally awesome people who were talented in their own right, it's one of the few times in my life when I felt as if I was actually part of a team and was, in some way, crucial to that team. Anyway, Doubledown, rightly or wrongly, went out of business earlier this year, and its entrails have been languishing in dreaded Chapter 7 proceedings, since then everyone associated has moved on to whatever else is out there.
Among those people is company co-founder and chief financer Magnus Greaves. I met Magnus on a couple of occasions and found him to be a charming fellow, carrying himself as someone who was actually quite grateful to have you on board. Granted this is the demeanor of every entrepreneur ever, but it was nice enough of him. Some time ago I finally decided to show Doubledown President Randall Lane a copy of the first issue of Biopsy. I dropped it off at his then-apocalyptically arranged office whilst Magnus was sitting across from him. Randall gave me his kind kudos and asked if I had one for Magnus. Not intending to give one to him (not because I didn't like him or found him square, but you have to draw the line somewhere, right?) I didn't bring any extra, so Randall and Magnus flipped through the one issue together. Randall's basic assessment of it was that it was "too raw" and in some cases should be concealed from future employers; but it may have had a different effect on Mr. Greaves.
It was brought to my attention recently that Magnus has put together a new publishing venture called MYMAG, which gives celebrities the opportunity to create their own magazines with material culled from other magazines and sell them for $10. Granted it resembles Me magazine more than anything else -- only Me has original content and guest editors that are actually interesting, if not as well-known as the MYMAG's subjects -- but one wonders if Magnus' light bulb for the idea was illuminated, if only very dimly, in that moment he saw a print publication in which some nerd wields 75% control over its creative direction and makes creative use of the public domain writings and art. The term "fanzine" has been dropped once in an article about MYMAG in Folio and again in the letter of one of MYMAG's guest editors Steve Akoi of Dim Mak fame. I hate the term, but that is how some people obviously refer my mag and other mags like it, and the magazines by Akoi, as well as Brett Ratner and Olivia Munn so far, are like fanzines in a way, if fanzines were mindless vanity projects made up of articles from other, better magazines and had corporate sponsorships.
This is not to say that zines aren't sparked into existence by vanity in some way, they are, but we treat our readers like reasonable peers rather than sycophantic fans who will swallow up anything with their idol's name on it, and we honor that treatment by offering original -- or at least obscure -- shit that's worth reading, which they can take or leave as they choose. So maybe the people are MYMAG aren't necessarily ripping off Biopsy, but maybe they should.
Post-script:
Apologies for the sanctimonious moralizing in the final paragraph, but at least for a good portion of zines and zine-influenced mass-produced magazines, that's essentially true.
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