From: Charlie Stross (charlie@antipope.org)
Date: Mon Dec 20 1999 - 06:24:12 MST
On Mon, Dec 20, 1999 at 01:54:47AM -0500, EvMick@aol.com wrote:
>
> In a message dated 12/19/99 11:55:07 PM Central Standard Time,
> spike66@ibm.net writes:
>
> > [John, this is why I gave up on Wired too.]
>
> I gave up on Wired when it was sold.....so it got pretty bad huh?
I picked up the December issue yesterday, for a giggle. First time I've
read it in two years or so; I was hoping for something as touchingly
retro as Neal Stephenson's "Mother Earth, Mother Board" piece, because
it seemed extremely fat -- but no such luck.
It is two or three times as fat as it used to be, but there's less
editorial content. What editorial content there is is about as
cutting-edge as a week- old loaf of mouldy bread. It contained, among
other things:
* A hagiography piece directed at a senior Microsoft executive, discussing
the management problems in holding together the Win2K developers.
* A list of one hundred great objects of techo-lust ... designer
wrist-watches, a new palm pilot clone, and (unaccountably) a $100K
hard-shell diving suit (which is probably extraordinarily cool,
if you happen to do maintenance work on the Troll gas platform, but
is by no means a toy).
* Droolingly envious feature on a corporation that aims to grow to a
billion buck turnover level on the basis of designer brand identity --
that has filed 441 patents in the past decade and uses them basically
for barratry against possible competitors on their heavily-trademarked
turf, while essentially producing nothing more useful than horrifyingly
expensive sunglasses.)
Did I mention the advertisements? Half of them seemed to be for BMWs,
half of them for exotic mobile phones, and half of them for online
stockbrokers. (Yeah, yeah, do the math ;-) All of them were so tiresome
and irritating that they merged into one uber-ad in my consciousness.
"Hello, little human. You have arrived in the next millennium. You are
one of the elite because you read WIRED! Because you are one of the
elite, your life will not be complete until you are recognized as such.
We are currently programming the general public to understand that
anyone who owns a [insert brand XYZ here] is one of the elite. You may
obtain [insert brand XYZ here] from www.xyz.com."
WIRED isn't about changing the future any more; it's about making money,
by whatever means necessary. The target audience are people who live
and work in Silicon Valley and think Dilbert's boss is an object of fun
because he wears a necktie -- people who just don't Get It, who think
the twenty-first century is one long status symbol purchasing spree.
Egregious parasitism that produces nothing to extend human potential
seems to meet with their approval; they're more likely to profile a
manager than a hacker. Indeed, anything that smacks of _real_ revolution
would probably offend -- their readers are more interested in status
symbols and mindless acquisition than the buzz of new ideas and self-
extension.
WIRED has turned into TIME for aspiring day traders.
-- Charlie
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