The biggest issue is when they have fashion and accessories that cost the earth but write as if we all spend hundreds of pounds on socks. On one page, they show a range of watches that 'every man should own' - the cheapest being £2,500. The other thing that they do is to include 'fashion' shots with stupidly expensive clothes that would make any man look like a complete twat. Here is the proof Your Honour... from the latest Esquire:
However, on the way to Nice, WH Smith at the airport had a great deal on magazines - any 3 for £10. So I bought a photography mag, Mens Health and GQ. In the copy of GQ was a lot of rubbish, including half of the magazine being adverts. There was a clever list of 'men commandments', so in the next blog entry, I will choose a few to share with you.
I think magazines that present materialistic prosperity as being normal are one of the things that leads to depression. Oliver James, who writes on psychology for The Guardian, has written about inappropriate social comparisons, when people see apparently happy and prosperous people in adverts and news articles and are made to feel that they themselves are failures when actually in real terms (i.e. by their own lights) they're very happy and successful. It's the dark side of our consumerist society.
ReplyDeleteVery wise words
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