Predictions: Pop Will Eat Itself
George Simpson's media-world predictions for 2004 seem crazily on-target to me:
· An eerie silence falls over the magazine industry when Keith Kelly inadvertently writes something nice about someone. "It must be how Neanderthals felt during a solar eclipse," says a stunned magazine PR person.
· At 3:09 (EST) on June 14th, blogging comes to an abrupt end when the last person writes the last thing they can think of. The sun comes up as usual on June 15th. Jeff Jarvis asks his wife if a tree falling in the woods still makes a sound if no one hears it.
· Hearst launches a magazine for men who don't shop, watch sports, buy cars, need a date, or care about their abs. Called "So What!", the monthly is an instant success, building a circulation of 12 million in six months. However, it fails when renewals clock in at .0002%. "They apparently don't care about magazines either," Marty Walker tells the New York Times.
