And we share the noosphere with this...

[elfs]

Stuck at the vet waiting for the results of a routine vaccination, and flipping through Reader's Digest. Among their charming Americana and humor sections ("Humor in Uniform," "Laughter is the Best Medicine," etc., etc.) is the "Family Funnies," about something cute or amusing or whatever someone said. It's like blogging, only on dead trees.

I gotta say, though, the people who sent their letters into Readers Digest wouldn't survive ten seconds in the blogosphere. The sheer embarassing dysfunction on display, the hideous unselfconscious encouragement to the next generation to be no better than Homer Simpson or Al Bundy, the willingness to discourage anything better than a consumerist existence from birth bed to death bed, is everywhere on display.

The one that sticks most in my head is the woman who thought it cute that her six-year-old had never seen an oven mitt before. When he asked the teacher why she used one, the teacher explained that something coming out of the oven might be hot and the mitt protects her hand. The kid replies, "Oh. My mom's usually just really careful about opening the pizza box."

The mother's child has (a) no idea of kitchen safety, (b) no need for kitchen safety, and (c) no experience at all preparing his own food or watching others do it. And the mom thinks that's adorable.

I don't know if the editors put that letter up because they were genuinely charmed by it, or they were horrified.

Comments

[pixel39.livejournal.com]

Probably the first. It IS, after all, Reader's Digest.

[doodlesthegreat.livejournal.com]

Reader's Disgust says their average readership age is 38. My ass. That's because of all the medical waiting rooms filled with the thing. They count the doctor's age instead of the hundreds of elderly patients reading it.

[kengr]

Hey, when I was a kid I read my mom's copy. Voluntarily. It was something to read and not *nearly* as boring as most magazines.

[jenbooks.livejournal.com]

Nods. I used to love RD. But probably 10 years or so ago, it changed. Or maybe I did. Anyway, I quit reading it.

[elfs.livejournal.com]

"I was stoned on Alamout Black hashish, the best in the world, and I sat down to read a whole issue of Reader's Digest all the way through and become one with it."

"Become one with the Reader's Digest?" Case was in beyond his depth and sinking fast in ontological quicksand.

"I wanted to experience a totally alien, science-fiction reality," Malik pursued his theme. "Reader's Digest comes from another universe, grok, from a world occupied by millions of Americans who are not New York intellectuals. These people sincerely believe that our government has never waged an unjust war, that the hair of a seventh son of a seventh son cures warts, that millionaires get rich through honesty and hard work, that a Jewish girl once got pregnant by a dove, and all sorts of things like that, which are regarded as medieval superstitions in my normal environment. Entering Reader's Digest through the empathy of hash is a quantum jump to another reality."

- From The Schrodinger's Cat Trilogy, by Robert Anton Wilson

[bldrnrpdx.livejournal.com]

I used to read them all the time as a kid too - relatives' copies when we'd go visiting and there was no one for me to play with, waiting rooms, wherever I stumbled across them. They were usually not just the least objectionable but the most entertaining magazine I could find. Usually educational as well. I've looked at a handful in the last couple of years - I think they've changed significantly as well.

[xengar.livejournal.com]

No, you see, the relevant term is the "average" age. When you mix together the 10-year-olds being mentioned in the other replies with the 70-year-olds that you're talking about, 38 is about what you get...

[amythis.livejournal.com]

Chiming in that RD often was the most kid-friendly mag to read in doctors' offices and the like. (Unless your doctor was cool enough to carry Highlights!) Even now, I'd rather read lame jokes than weight loss tips or articles about fishing. Besides, RD inspired Auntie Mame, for which I'm eternally grateful.

[memegarden.livejournal.com]

My conservative Republican grandmother once asked my mom whether she wasn't concerned about what I read (as a child, as now, I read absolutely everything, from underground comics to psychology textbooks). My mother said no, she let me read everything. Except Reader's Digest. This was not completely true, since she did not in fact forbid me from reading it in the bathroom at my grandmother's house.