Newspapers: Paper Mache or Toilet Paper?

Let's be honest folks--the only thing newspapers are good for is creating those creepy paper mache gifts. You know, the ones you give your mom for her birthday so you can avoid buying her a real gift. I've been saddled with the tree-killing fluff-jobs that are newspapers for a large portion of my life. My mom and dad both loved to sit quietly at the breakfast table and thumb through those coarse ink-stained pages. I couldn't stand it.

Don't let me confuse you, sir or lass. This isn't a tutorial on how to make paper mache. I mean, you use water and flour in a certain combination, but I don't care if you ever exercise your creative license. My only goal here is to let you know that newspapers are officially classified as the walking dead, and you should abandon them immediately.
The New York Times, The Washington Post, and even the Dundalk Eagle are all a bunch of aging dinosaurs refusing to accept the sweet death. Dylan Thomas wrote about fighting the dying of the light, but I can tell you without a doubt that once the lights go out it's time to get your ass off my couch and go home. Newspapers are like that lonely friend that stays just a little bit too long at your apartment. I'll walk outside in my Dr. Pepper pajamas and find a slew of ink-blotched dead trees laying in my yard. I still get newspapers delivered to my house even though I don't pay for them. They're giving away coarse toilet paper! Hurray.

Maybe I'm being a little acerbic. Listen, it's not that the paper doesn't have useful information. It does! Unfortunately, I can get that same information for free every time my fingers crap out a thought into a google search engine. Why do I need newspapers? Why do you? I'm positive that once the older, newspaper-reading generations start to die off we can finally be rid of the entire business. Then society will look back on this experience with mocking glee. Ha ho ha, those silly old farts used to waste thousands of trees a day printing drab crap! What were they thinking!

Newspaper subscriptions are declining. Advertisements are increasing. Content is thinning. Fear is fattening. As the Beatles once said, let it be. Time is always pushing us forward. If you can't keep up, prepare to be trampled in its wake. Don't get caught up in the decay that is this aging medium. You're reading this blog because you know that anything worth reading is on the internet. You're reading this blog because your heart is telling you to move on. You've been good to us, Newspapers, but it's time you take a long, lonely walk into a recycling bin.

Magazines are Brainwashing You to be Stupid

Ugh, magazines.

Never has there been a medium that more deserved the sweet death. Instead of covering the more specific failure of magazines, that they propagate bad body-images, I wanted to address the issue of what magazines offer the general public. I’m of the belief that magazines offer very little in the realm of positive qualities. They make you feel ugly, you read them on the toilet, and you really gain no deep intellectual understanding from their content. Consider every Cosmopolitan you’ve ever read. If pleasing your man is all that’s on your mind, I stand corrected, but what are the odds that you’re a vain sex-bot in search of your next master?

As I was carousing the Rite Aid magazine isle, I came across Men’s Journal. With a macho motorcycle on the front, I peeled back the cover in hope of finding the key that would unlock my inner man. Instead, I found this:
What other facet of the media is so insecure that it’s trying to justify itself? If magazines weren’t in danger, why would they feel the need to tell everyone that they’re growing? Does television run advertisements to let everyone know that television is important? Does the internet spam you pop-ups telling you how wonderful the internet is? Of course not. As you can see in the picture, “the appeal of magazines is growing.” I ask you, my blog readers, what is appealing about a magazine? Half of the pages are advertisements. A third of the pages are cheaply written quips that a child would find amusing. There is a song, a not-so-safe-for-work song, that has the lyrics, “read a book…read a book…read a…” I’d recommend that everyone choose the internet or novels for their entertainment or news needs, as I personally despise magazines. Even the texture of their pages Is offensive.