And if so, do you want to?

I’ve decided to seriously pursue the magazine idea. I’ve wanted a non-leftist style-type magazine for as long as I can remember, one that is focused on truth and beauty and actual real ways that actual real people live their lives. Everyday glamour, maybe.

Pretty much the opposite of the “aspirational” paged of Vogue, but with crossover for a lot of content.

Darling has made a good start.

But I also miss the irreverence brought by Sassy and Jane. It’s never worth treating the fashion and beauty industry with too much seriousness.

I’d also like to see a magazine that addresses issues in my own life. How to be a red-pilled gal in a blue-pilled world. How to gracefully tell your hostess that, sorry, you don’t eat food that grew from the ground. How to reconcile your love of pretty shoes with the functionality of the Vibram 5-fingers.

(Don’t get me started on the Vibrams that are designed to have shoe-like design details. Blech.)

I don’t know what that magazine would look like, but I’d like to find out.

So to start, I’m going to take a look at the history, structure, and content of other successful ladies magazines.

First up: the Ladies’ Home Journal.

Remember how recently I went on a giant rant about magazines basically being propaganda?

What I didn’t realize was that magazines have always been this way.

At the turn of the 20th century, the magazine published the work of muckrakers and social reformers…. During World War II, it was a particularly favored venue of the government for messages intended for homemakers…. In March of 1970, feminists held an 11-hour sit-in at the Ladies’ Home Journal‘s office, which resulted in them getting the opportunity to produce a section of the magazine that August.

Magazines: telling you what to buy and what to think since the steam-powered printing press.

So my question is: can you have a non-propagandic magazine? Would someone read such a publication?

Or is a magazine simply a physical manifestation of our desire to believe in something?