Give Old Magazines A New Life

While we were out the other day we visited a few thrift shops I had never been to. One of them had piles and piles of old magazines. It took a while to go though them all (OK, not all of them, but lots of them!) and I found a ton of great full page ads for my collection. There were great ads for Apple, Saturn, Disney, Coca Cola etc. Once I was home, I had a ton of fun sitting on the couch listening to music while flipping though them all and pulling out the ads I wanted to keep. Any of the magazines that still have covers and are only missing a few pages will end up back at another thrift shop, and the rest that are to mangled to pass on will be send to the recycling bin.
One of the ads I kept was a two page ad that was promoting the idea that magazines are still relevant in an internet age. The text in the ad reads: "We surf the Internet. We swim in magazines.
The Internet is exhilarating. Magazines are enveloping.The Internet grabs you. Magazines embrace you. The Internet is impulsive. Magazines are immersive. And both
media are growing.
Barely noticed amidst the thunderous Internet clamor is the simple fact that magazine readership has risen over the past five years. Even in the age of the Internet, even among the groups one would assume are most singularly hooked on digital media, the appeal of magazines is growing.
Think of it this way: during the 12-year life of Google, magazine readership actually increased 11 percent.
What it proves, once again, is that a new medium doesn't necessarily displace an existing one. Just as movies didn't kill radio. Just as TV didn't kill movies. An established medium can continue to flourish so long as it continues to offer a
unique experience. And, as reader loyalty and growth demonstrate, magazines do.
Which is why people aren't giving up swimming, just because they also enjoy surfing."
The next ad is a recycling ad from the Publishers of America, which reads: "Give old magazines a new life. We all love our magazines, but when it's time to let go, it just takes a little extra effort to recycle. After all, helping the environment is everyone's responsibility. For more information on how to recycle your magazines, go to www.Earth911.com. Make it a habit. Recycle"
The third ad is for the Apple iPad. The ad shows a person sitting at home reading The New York Times on their iPad.
The last ad is for Movies on Demand.
Why do I include these four ads in this post? Because I think it really does show that we are in an age where physical things such as magazines, movies, CDs, and DVDs are becoming less relevant to many people, which means they could slowly (or perhaps quickly) become a relic of the past along with VHS tapes and 8-Track cassettes. Does this make me happy... hell no!
As a collector, the idea that physical things such as magazines, DVDs, CDs, even concert/sports ticket stubs could disappear is a very depressing thought. I bought tickets recently for a concert (a band I love called Skillet) and was disappointed to see that instead of traditional paper tickets they had wrist bands. The young person selling me the tickets actually made the comment that these were so much cooler than old fashioned tickets. I didn't bother getting into it with her, as she would probably just laugh at the old guy blathering on about the past. But I have been collecting tickets for as long as I can remember. I even purchased some ticket books from www.ticketalbums.com to keep all my concert tickets nicely organized. A piece of paper printed on my ink jet printer just isn't worth keeping as a souvenir of the event. As for my magazine ad collecting. a digital ad collection just isn't the same as the binders I have filled with page protectors full of ads. I have books for Apple ads, Coca Cola ads, Disney ads etc. Again, I have been collecting ads for as long as I can remember and my binder collections of ads are quite impressive. The ads I have collected on my iMac (and use as a screen saver) just aren't as cool. And then there is music. I am a self professed Apple fan boy, and I do love using iTunes to listen to my music - I have not had any other stereo for playing music since I started using iTunes. But I prefer to buy the physical CD and rip it into my iTunes collection. Paying to download the music online may be convenient, but if you don't get something physical for my cash, it just seems wrong. Collecting music CDs in my iTunes collection just isn't as cool as having a shelf full of my favorite records and CDs. But then I guess that's the point for so many people. They would rather have a hard drive full of music and movies as apposed to a taking up a bunch of space on their shelves with stuff that is just going to collect dust. So to those people... I can help you recycle your stuff. just send it to me!