Ep. 010: The Digital Dark Age: Why Magazines are Everything.
Out of everything I have ever decluttered, the only thing I have ever regretted throwing away was my magazine collection.
The neat stack of Girl, Shout!, and Teen Vogue used to sit neatly on my bookshelf, spanning around a decade of my girlhood-tween life. Every weekend would be spent poring over a fresh magazine, cutting out the posters to stick to my walls, circling the best products for my wishlist, memorising the advice columns. They felt like my first point of contact with the magical mystery of the adult world.
Unfortunately, I was caught by the terrifying minimalism craze sometime in my mid-teens, (I blame Marie Kondo) and they were thrown carelessly into the rubbish bin.
Why are they the only thing I regret? Crumpled pages, outdated advice, silly teenage gossip columns? How are they in any way useful?
Enter my worst fear: The Digital Dark Age.
A fairly new concept, conceived by Terry Kuny in 1997. The idea that all of our memories, thoughts and opinions are now stored in a digital database that could easily be removed any second. When was the last time you printed off your photos? Wrote in a paper diary? Read an actual physical magazine, book, any kind of media? If you can’t remember, start doing these things pronto. Our entire existence as a species from the last few decades is gradually only existing online. Think about the world in 60 years time, when Instagram and Facebook have become obsolete, and the only evidence of your existence in your 20s is a couple of receipts you forgot to throw away. Imagine your grandkids asking to see a photo of you at the age you are now, and you have nothing.
The irony that I write about this on a blog is not lost to me. Believe me, if I could get the funds, knowledge and materials to make a monthly zine instead, I would. Its also not lost on me that to run a business or having any kind of impact culturally nowadays genrally requires some kind of online presence. But I also think its vital to have some physical footing in the real world in vital too. Even the ocassional diary entry, or a collection of some kind.
My new collection of magazines is now one of my most prized possessions. Like a time capsule, they hold the worldly opinions of today so that I might have them tomorrow, they show me what was important or interesting to me and to society and this point of my life.
Call me old fashioned, but there’s something comforting about flicking through Vogue, as oppose to scrolling through Instagram. Its intentional, tangible art. Likewise, those old magazines were a testament to my tween mind.
I wait for the day that physical media comes back into fashion. With the rise of the vinyl in the late 2010’s, and the disposable cameras now becoming a staple in your night-out bag, hopefully magazines won’t be too far behind.
Buy a Vogue. See how you find it!
xoxo,
She Wrote Her Twenties
