Now, I’d prefer the mainstream media to shrivel up and die at this point, but it seems that there’s been a un uptick in print subscriptions lately:

Dwayne Sheppard, the executive director of consumer marketing at Condé Nast, which owns the New Yorker, said that he’s also observed a sense of brand identification—but said that, for millennials, it extends beyond social media and into the real world. Those subscribing to the New Yorker can choose between a print and digital subscription or a less expensive digital-only option; Millennials, he said, are opting for print at a rate 10 percent higher than older demographics.

“Millennials are choosing print overwhelmingly, or digital and print,” he said. “It’s a physical manifestation of the relationship. You’re on the subway or you’re in the airport and you’re carrying your New Yorker, that’s another signal of what you care about and what you choose to read.”

Virtue signaling aside, it’s interesting to think about my generation’s relationship with the printed word. We’ve been swimming in digital medial nearly all our lives (as an old millennial, I used the internet occasionally in junior high and high school, and didn’t dive into it hardxcore until I was in college), and print always has held a certain allure.

You definitely see that in fashion magazines, with a thriving indie magazine market that is primarily print-based. Frankie, Kinfolk, Lula, The Gentlewoman, etc. You have to pay more per issue, certainly, but what you get is less Condé Nast-style product pushing and more thoughtful. Of course, that comes with a side of pretentiousness all its own, but nothing’s perfect.

I suspect that part of the motivation is a yearning to be connected to something with deeper roots than just the internet (I see it in myself also with my attraction to the liturgical church over the feels-based churches that have been workshopped to reach my generation), and print is a way to do that.

Regardless of how print and digital are intertwined, print-only feels like opting out of the system.

I’ve had a fascination for the printing press and “book arts” since I learned about them in my graphic design classes way back, and have daydreamed about what it would be like to put together a conservative (for college me, now would be alt) pamphlet-style publication and distribute it.

The rise of alt-media has felt like maybe that’s not necessary. But if deplatformings continue, maybe it will be.

I like the option we have of the online-based payment system with a print-based distribution system.