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They was several shops where you could look at them WITHOUT buying them (Yes it was illegal to buy them as a Teenager when I was a teen ager). Occasionally I would find them when I took walks around town (I did not have a car so it was by foot on nothing so I did a LOT of walking when I was a teen). Yes, I am "concern" about the net and teenager seeing pictures of Naked Women!!!! To be honest it is more on a problem now, for teens today just have to typed in certain key words and they have their pictures, but remember the comment about the Average Length of people in motels watching X rated Films, the average time is 8 minutes. I know the men are watching them for the serious acting in such films for that whole 8 minutes and then tire of them for some reason (And if you DO NOT know the reason you are to young for this conversation).
Anyway, as to Playboy in the 1960s and 1970s Playboy was know have well written Articles for their customers to read after they had their 8 minutes watching the nudes. The Cartoons were (and remain) very well done as were the Playboy Jokes (My Father would even bring some home from the Post Office, if they were funny enough). You had some decline in the writing in the 1980s but when the Magazine was taken over by Hef's Daughter it tried to return to its roots of well written articles. From other commentators, the consensus is Playboy is NOT up to what it was in the 1960s and 1970s, but then NO MAGAZINE IS. You have had a severe decline in Magazines clear across the board. I joked that when I was a Teen while I could read ALL of the Articles in Scientific America, I understood less then half, that is NO LONGER THE CASE, I understand ALL OF THEM. That is frightening for my Collage Background is Business and while my Knowledge is better than it was when I was a Teen, part of the reason is the decline in the level of Articles in Scientific America. I Mention Scientific America as an example BUT this is clear across the board. I find better articles and papers on the net than I find in Magazines anymore.
Now I am a vacuous Reader. I remember reading my 10 year older brother Almanac in Second Grade (it was interesting reading about various countries of the World) and stole my older Sister Collage World History Book when I was in Fourth Grade (and she was starting Collage). So I had a good reading background which I still do. I rarely read fiction (Sorry, I prefer real life) but even with this background certain articles in Scientific America when I was a teen was difficult for me (While other I understood Completely). Hopefully I expanded my Knowledge during High School and Collage so less and less articles of Scientific America should be over my head, but when I read the Whole Magazine and understand ALL of the Articles, it not only shows the expansion of my knowledge but a decline in the level of the Articles.
This decline is NOT only my observation, but by other people writing about various magazines. Popular Science use to have articles that intrigued me, but now it is either rah rah Military, or the latest most Powerful Car/plane/boat (I rarely read Popular Science anymore it has declined so much since the 1970s). As to the Articles themselves, while no grammatical mistakes or spelling mistakes, but also nothing new (except for the latest Car/Plane/Truck/Boar/Ship).
Another Example is the Wall Street Journal. While WSJ's editorial page was always right wing (and ignored) its articles in the 1970s and 1980s tended to reflect reality not right wing dogma (In the mid-1970s for example it was the WSJ who reported the then head of the AFL-CIO George Meany's comment about the proposed Postal Contract being bad, and it was). Today the WSJ would NEVER print an Article like that even if true.
In a nutshell the decline seems to reflect several problems, but all tied in with Corporate American and the decline of Newspaper and Magazines as sources of news. One of the problems of any declining business is trying to keep market share, this becomes harder and harder as the decline kicks in, so business in decline just do NOT do anything that would give people an excuse to STOP buying their product. This was especially true in the Magazine and paper business. As the decline continued, the papers and Magazines wrote more and more "Conservative" Articles (Conservative in the sense of NOT offending anyone, not in the sense of being Right Wing).
Now this decline started in the 1960s for the papers for prior to the 1960s it was not uncommon to have 2-3 newspaper in most Cities (and some cities had 5-10). Each paper had to compete with each other for customers, with at least one Newspaper in every town tied in with the Democrats or other Liberal organization (The Hearst Papers for Example). With the 1960s you saw more and more towns become one Newspaper Cities. These newspapers tended to be tied in with National Corporations. Like any monopoly in a declining industry, the surviving papers did NOT want to chase away anyone who would buy ads or papers so such newspapers turn Conservative (Not in the sense of being Right wing, but Conservative as being careful what they said let they offend anyone).
This was aided by the Corporate agenda to print articles that only support things that show Corporations in a good light (Or if it has to be reported to keep the damage to Corporation to a minimum). With this turn to Conservative Reporting, the quality of the Reporting went downhill. Corporations were able to use their power of Adversing to make sure the Papers gave good press to them, thus leading to further Delcine in reporting.
The Magazines filled in this gap for a while, but needing National Adversing, Magazines followed the same trap as the papers, avoiding offending anyone, least someone stop buying they magazine. Some magazines were able to fight against this move, but with further consolidation in the 1980s and 1990s it became harder and harder. Thus magazines and papers ALL went downhill since the 1960s, but I have seen an vast improvement in Articles on the net. Now you also have more junk on the net (Just like you had yellow journalism around 1900 when Newspapers where at their height) but most people can see the chaff from the wheat and hopefully this will improve people's general knowledge of the world.
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