Change is bad!

[Brian Sorgatz]

This is my first contribution to the discussion. Thank you, Peggy Wilkins, 
for letting me participate.

I'm glad that Peggy has framed the discussion partly in terms of tradition 
versus innovation. I'm also glad that she has treated the subject of 
Playboy's layout and design with the attention to detail that it deserves.

Putting these subjects together, I must say that I strongly favor Playboy's 
TRADITIONAL look and feel, down to the smallest details. I hope that the 
Playboy Interview, for example, will always look the way it did in 1962. I 
was disappointed to see the main text of some articles in the March 2003 
issue printed in a new font. My eyes adore the font that Playboy has used 
since the 1950s. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

For that matter, I miss the pre-2000 format for the table of contents. It 
had evolved over the years before then, but the previous changes had been 
mere variations on a theme. A strictly sequential, book-like table of 
contents is more dignified: it seems to give weight to the magazine's 
contents, suggesting permanent interest. The new, categorically arranged 
table of contents suggests disposability and forgettability.

Perhaps my impression of these two formats relates to my sense of the 
geography, if you will, of Playboy. Periodicals have geographies and 
landmarks in much the same way that cities do. The Playboy centerfold, the 
New York Times crossword puzzle, and the Harper's Index are monuments, like 
the Eiffel Tower, the Statue of Liberty, and the Golden Gate Bridge. One 
explores a city by traveling mainly along two dimensions (north, south, 
east, west). But one "travels" through a magazine mainly along only one 
dimension (turning the pages forwards or backwards). For me, a sequential 
table of contents enhances the pleasure of browsing through Playboy by 
demonstrating the relative positions of all the stories, articles, 
pictorials, and departments within the space of the magazine. This is 
analogous to the experience of physically moving from one city landmark to 
another, which is, after all, half the fun of sightseeing. The new table of 
contents, on the other hand, destroys much of this sense of geography. Is 
this clear? It may be a small matter, but the Playboy aesthetic encourages 
us to pay attention to small matters.

I believe the most important difference between Playboy and its competitors 
can be summed up in one word: soul. Uniquely among magazines of its kind, 
Playboy has archetypal qualities that gratify our hearts and souls. One of 
these qualities is a sense of continuity in the forms of our material 
surroundings. For the sake of this continuity, civic organizations often 
fight to preserve historic buildings. Likewise, I hope for the 
"preservation" of the Interview, the Party Jokes page, et cetera.

What about marketability, you say? Conventional wisdom holds that American 
consumers, especially young ones, will inevitably favor the new and improved 
over the tried and true. I doubt this. The title of this post, "Change is 
bad!", was the tagline of a series of TV commercials for a candy product 
presented as a time-honored alternative to ill-conceived, hokey trends and 
fads. Significantly, these commercials appeared to target young people. 
Playboy could make commercials presenting itself as a faithful custodian of 
the "cool" sensibility of the '50s and '60s, an alternative to both the 
trendy repression of political correctness and the trendy vulgarity of most 
of the media's offerings to college-age males. I suspect that a lot of young 
men and women would respond enthusiastically to a traditionalist pitch of 
this kind.

I have some personal reasons for not wanting Playboy to change (except, 
perhaps, to revive elements from its previous decades). For one thing, I am 
a relatively young Playboy fan: I was born in 1972. The magazine has been in 
decline during most of my adult life, and I worry that it may never be as 
great in my lifetime as it was before I was born. Irrational though it may 
be, I'm inclined to see any change in Playboy's contents as another nail in 
the coffin. Also, I suffer from a form of dyslexia that makes reading 
anything an effort. For me, there is almost no such thing as light or casual 
reading. I have a means by which I can probably overcome this condition, but 
it could take years. In the meantime, I feel left out of a significant part 
of the Playboy experience. What if the party ends before I truly arrive? 
This thought fills me with anxiety and despair.

Brian Sorgatz
Sacramento, California

_________________________________________________________________
MSN 8 helps eliminate e-mail viruses. Get 2 months FREE*.  
http://join.msn.com/?page=features/virus