My very first thought was that the story is probably worth reading, but the cover seems to be purely for publicity. I can think of a number of ways that it could have been done in a way that made this douche bag look more like a terrorist and a little less like he's trying to be Jim Effing Morrison. Or better yet, skip the picture of his face entirely. I get upset with this whole stupid ordeal when I think of all of the people who live in Boston, who are going to have to spend six weeks walking past news stands staring into the smirky eyes of the person who tried to blow up their city. In fact, if I was some mysterious, eccentric billionaire, I would buy every copy and burn it so no one would ever have to have his face burned into their memory. As of right now, I couldn't pick out the dude out in a lineup, and I prefer it that way. Why does he deserve to be remembered? We shouldn't even be talking like he's some kind of celebrity. Actually, we shouldn't be talking about him at all. He shouldn't be the one getting any of our attention.
And then it dawned on me, the obvious answer. That's why Rolling Stone is doing this. Attention. And we're all sitting here giving them exactly what they want and obviously desperately need.
Don't get me wrong, generally speaking Rolling Stone is still a decent magazine with a few great writers (I'd love to be one actually, though this blog probably isn't going to help my cause). But someone, somewhere up in the higher ups of Rolling Stone must realize that they aren't exactly in their journalistic heydays anymore. Maybe it's because the times, they are a-changin' and our attention spans are shrinking as more options for information open up to us. First our attention spans became to short for books, so we read magazines. Then our attention spans became too short for magazines, so we read everything online (that way we don't waste all of our precious energy turning all those darn pages). And finally, our collective attention span has shrunk so much that we read tweets and headlines (sometimes even the whole headline, if we're feeling ambitious). If you want anyone to notice you, much less go back to actually reading magazines, you have to do something pretty substantial to get attention, which usually involves making some kind of overblown, crazy "Oh no they didn't!" statement. Like putting a terrorist on the cover of a music magazine.
It's all about the shock factor now and I'm getting sick of it. It seems that every day there is someone acting out or acting out of character and suddenly the spotlight is on them. Doesn't it seem like the world is full of nothing but crazy people doing seriously questionable things right now? It's everywhere, like they're all trying to outdo one another, just to be trending on Twitter for about twenty minutes until something else has people outraged. But this...it goes too far. It's one thing to be Amanda Bynes throwing a bong out of a window to try to get famous again, but I would expect more from Rolling Stone. Come on, Hunter S. Thompson used to write for them, for the love of donuts! What happened to integrity? For reporting a story for what it is, not what you can gain from it, or how much you can re-boost magazine circulation? Or is this the way that the world is actually supposed to work now and I'm just ignorant and naive?
Rolling Stone certainly seems to think so, making a statement that very weakly defends their "reasoning" behind the cover, claiming that their readers will be interested in this guy because he is in our age group. Right. Sorry Rolling Stone, but you obviously don't know a whole lot about the people in your demographics. Most of us don't want to know the story. Most of us wish that this creep was just a figment of our imaginations. He is undeserving of celebrity status (to make the understatement of the year), which is exactly what they are giving him, whether they mean to or not. And furthermore, I think that Rolling Stone should be offering up a little bit more than a half-assed apology and proclamations of nothing but love for Boston. Actions speak louder than words, right? If they really love Boston, they pull the issue or donate all of the money from the purchase of the issue (though I don't know who in their right mind would want to buy it) to Boston families and victims? It would be unprecedented. It would be crazy to give your money away to a good cause. And isn't crazy clearly what they want? What everyone wants?
Crazy is the new sane, right?
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| Ahh, Jon Hamm. Someone whose face I actually WANT to see on the cover of The Rollin' Stone. |
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