Call me superficial, but when the Atlantic ran a cover with Britney and my subscription was running out, I decided that they would need to beg me to resubscribe (and now that they have to a satisfying degree, I probably will). With their latest Obama cover, the New Yorker finds itself in a similar situation vis à vis resubscription.
While I find both magazines to be essential reading, they also grace my coffee table and on occasion serve as conversation pieces in that capacity. For this purpose, I require something less banal than People's magazine, a requirement the Atlantic fatally failed to meet. I don't want something that appeals to the basest level of populism. I don't want images about which any airhead has about 2500 half-witted things to say.
That's why I'm renewing today. The New Yorker pulls no punches when it comes to social commentary, satirical or otherwise. It appeals to an elite sensibility to which the notion of a "snark tag" is quaint and rather low. That the New Yorker doesn't feel any need to explain itself to every efficiency dweller in Queens, to me, is a selling point.
The truth of the matter is that not a hell of a lot of the people outraged about this cover were subscribers in the first place. They probably just have the feeling that since there is a select few amongst kossacks who actually are, they'll join in some massive boycott. As bloggers like to say, let's be clear: This is Malkinism. This is creating controversy through mass stupidity and the unworthiest form of outrage. It's demagoguery in its purest form and seeing the mock incredulity of popular diarists at the cover just reminds me of why I don't read them -- and reminds me that these are not the kind of people who read the New Yorker.
The sort of sentiment we're seeing against the cover is usually made known via catcalls and other animal sounds, but the internet gives its adherents the time and mode of expression to bestow upon it by means of shibboleth and semi-coherent prose a patina of intelligence. It's a demonstration of why there is such disdain for blogs in many quarters of elite opinion, even in the face of a small minority of blogs and bloggers producing exceptional commentary and insight on a regular basis. One can't neglect the simple reality that the vast majority of blogs, particularly those making the most noise against the elite media, are really very questionable enterprises authored in large part by self-styled Jacobins without much of an eye for the written word or for analysis more subtle than what's standard on cable news opinion shows.
In short, I hope to see more subversive wit from the New Yorker. If they deign to respond to the "media firestorm" brewing here, I'll be eager to see that too.
Update: I see some people have lied on the poll. Just remember: Santa's watching.
Another update: I realize now that I neglected to explicitly exclude the possibility of not having subscribed in the first place from the second poll option. Clearly, that's the reading I intended, but I confess to some carelessness on this point.