Gosh magazines used to be good

The kids are going to bring print media back

Way before I went to law school, I used to dream about working for a magazine. When I was a freshman in college, I begged my mom to buy two Amtrak tickets to New York City so I could attend an open call for a magazine internship (writing that now feels sketchy AF, and it kind of was). She said yes, but I didn’t have anything to wear. We took the train to Penn Station and she took me to The Limited to buy dress pants, an off-white oxford shirt and black and white dress scarf (it was 2003). We stayed with her college roommate in a quaint, rent-controlled apartment on 96th Street. I was offered the internship and 9 months later, I moved in with a family friend on Staten Island and commuted via the MTA Express Bus to 34th Street to intern for Jane magazine, which, along with so many other magazines I read growing up, is out of print.

If you want to take a sentimental trip down print magazine memory lane, brew a cup of tea and read this post “The Devil Wears Primark” by

Farrah @Substack

. I may re-read it when I finish this.

Truly though, I do miss flipping through magazines, even if I’m a guilty participant in the digital media referendum. These days the only thing I actually sit down with when it comes in the mail, preferably with a gin and tonic, is the monthly J. Peterman Owner’s Manual. I have a subscription on both coasts. Even my in-laws in Boston know: do not toss.

I have lent copies of this catalogue to people and asked for them back

Back to Basics: Face to Face

It’s hit me lately how every stage of parenting is laced with a different strand of nostalgia. The Disney movies, the books we loved, all of it. I have my bad days like everyone else where I’m convinced the world is going to burn and our kids are going to ask why. But 98% of the time, I don’t even let myself go there, because as I’ve said from day 1 of this Substack: parents do not have the luxury of despair.

In this vein, there are two voices giving me hope that the kids will be alright and so will we.

One of them is definitively Gen Z and the other [I just discovered via a simple Google search] is actually a Boomer [borderline Gen X but most certainly not a Millennial], which makes me feel even more hopeful that there is common ground to be found.

I discovered

Freya India

through a friend who makes music documentaries. She was lamenting how young people only experience live shows nowadays through screens — taking videos, photos, posting on social media, experiencing what was once a communally artistic experience through a screen. The first piece I read was “A Time We Never Knew”, posted on her Substack

GIRLS

and then re-published by social media parenting guru Jonathan Haidt (more on Jon below).

She opens the piece on “ a beautiful and melancholic word I like called anemoia. It means nostalgia for a time or a place one has never known.”

Immediately, as a Millennial, you get it.

She continues on, describing in her own words what I feel in my bones could very easily be the future of my own child — but at the same time empowered by her writing to reverse course; not, necessarily, to go back in time, but help him grow up with a healthy mix of appreciation for modern life and a firm rooting in life’s analog experiences:

Of course, we have so many material comforts and conveniences now. I can follow the news all over the world, Google any statistic I want, write on Substack, and WhatsApp someone on the other side of the world. All for free. In a world like this, it’s easy to see why older generations might not understand why Gen Z is struggling to cope. 

But God, that loss—that feeling. I am grieving something I never knew. I am grieving that giddy excitement over waiting for and playing a new vinyl for the first time, when now we instantly stream songs on YouTube, use Spotify with no waiting, and skip impatiently through new albums. I am grieving the anticipation of going to the movies, when all I’ve ever known is Netflix on demand and spoilers, and struggling to sit through a entire film. I am grieving simple joys—reading a magazine; playing a board game; hitting a swing-ball for hours—where now even split-screen TikToks, where two videos play at the same time, don’t satisfy our insatiable, miserable need to be entertained. I even have a sense of loss for experiencing tragic news––a moment in world history––without being drenched in endless opinions online. I am homesick for a time when something horrific happened in the world, and instead of immediately opening Twitter, people held each other. A time of more shared feeling, and less frantic analyzing. A time of being both disconnected but supremely connected. 

I couldn’t have been more of a fangirl when I discovered Jonathan Haidt brought Freya India on as a staff writer for his Substack After Babel.

I’m not sure if he’d love being called an influencer, but showing up to the airport with Jon Haidt’s recent book The Anxious Generation is like an intellectual parent status symbol. When I see other people reading this book, I feel the pessimism go away. We make eye contact and somehow know that we’re going to raise kids that are mostly OK, in part because we’re the kind of parents who read Jonathan Haidt (his work has already had a hand in the Surgeon General calling for warning labels to be mandatory for social media platforms).

Gus’s Pick of the Week

Back to my dream of a print magazine renaissance —

Have you ever read a news magazine written for kids? It’s so great.

The Week Junior’s mission is to help kids make sense of the world by breaking down current events in a kid-friendly way. SAY NO MORE, especially in a time when media literacy is so... fraught.

Five stars for content, accessibility, and helping kids and parents revisit the magic of a coherent, glossy magazine delivered to your physical mailbox.

Here’s a snippet from their website:

Imagine a magazine that can inspire 8- to 14-year-olds to discuss the news of the week with their parents, teachers, and friends. Right now, The Week Junior is empowering hundreds of thousands of kids across all 50 states to love reading, develop their own points of view, and find their voice. No wonder they love it.

In a time when I routinely freak out over forgetting that I pay 21.00/month for YouTube premium (not worth it), this subscription is paying dividends.

Overcoming Productivity

This post. It’s Wednesday and later than I wanted to be posting. This is my middle finger to productivity.

See you Friday for our third Civics Microdose, and our FIRST giveaway of Lindsey Cormack’s book How to Raise A Citizen, which came out YESTERDAY!!!!

More soon,

Sarah