You know what’s crazy? Magazines basically invented influencer culture 300 years before Instagram existed. I’m serious. Some wig-wearing European dudes figured out people would pay money to read other people’s opinions about literally everything, and we’ve been hooked ever since.
Europe Accidentally Invents the Blog (1663)
The Germans kicked this whole thing off. Not with beer or cars, but with Erbauliche Monaths-Unterredungen in 1663. Try saying that five times fast after a few drinks.
These Leipzig scholars sat around discussing theology and philosophy, then thought “hey, let’s print this and see if anyone cares.” People did. It ran for five years, which doesn’t sound impressive until you realize most businesses in the 1600s lasted about as long as a TikTok trend.
But the French? They saw what Germany was doing and went “hold my wine.”
Denis de Sallo launched Journal des sçavans in January 1665. This wasn’t your grandfather’s boring academic journal – de Sallo roasted bad books, called out scientific frauds, and basically invented the hot take. The Catholic Church got so pissed they suspended him after three months. His replacement was boring. Readership tanked. Lesson learned: controversy sells magazines. Always has.
The Brits jumped in with Philosophical Transactions that same year. Still publishing today. 359 years and counting. That’s longer than America’s been a country. They published Newton, Darwin, Hawking. Not bad for something that started as basically a newsletter for science nerds.
Colonial America Screws It Up (Because Of Course)
Andrew Bradford beat Ben Franklin to the punch by three days in February 1741. Three days! Bradford’s American Magazine hits Philadelphia first. Franklin’s General Magazine comes out still claiming to be “first.” The pettiness is beautiful.
Both magazines died faster than a houseplant in my apartment. Bradford’s lasted three months. Franklin’s made it to six. Why? Colonial America was broke, barely literate, and had bigger problems. Like survival.
According to NoodleMagazine Here’s the part nobody talks about – these early American magazines were terrible. I’ve read copies in archives. They’re unreadable. Just reprinted British articles, local government announcements, and poems that would make a greeting card writer cringe. No wonder nobody bought them.
But then something weird happens. After the Revolution, Americans went magazine-crazy. By 1800, there’s 90-something magazines floating around. Most last about as long as my New Year’s resolutions, but they keep coming. The Port Folio in 1801 actually makes it – runs for 27 years. Joseph Dennie, the editor, calls his readers “my dear piddling public.” Can you imagine The Atlantic trying that today?
The 1800s Magazine Explosion Nobody Saw Coming
Graham’s Magazine paid Edgar Allan Poe $4 per page in 1841. Doesn’t sound like much? That’s $130 in today’s money. Per page. Poe was making bank writings about ravens and buried people. Graham’s hit 40,000 subscribers by 1842. That’s huge when Philadelphia only had 93,000 people total.
Sarah Josepha Hale took over Godey’s Lady’s Book in 1837. This woman was unstoppable. She convinced Lincoln to make Thanksgiving a national holiday. Just wrote him letters until he caved. She published everyone – Emerson, Hawthorne, Longfellow, Stowe. Paid them more than the male-edited magazines. By 1860, Godey’s had 150,000 subscribers. That’s like having 6 million Instagram followers today, adjusted for population.
Harper’s Monthly launched in 1850, immediately pirates British novels. Just straight-up steals Dickens chapters and prints them. No copyright law between countries yet. British authors are furious. Americans don’t care – they’re getting free Dickens. Harper’s hits 200,000 circulation by 1860. Stealing content for profit – some things never change.
The Civil War should’ve killed magazines. Instead, they explode. Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper sends sketch artists to battlefields. They’re drawing corpses and sending them back to New York where engravers work overnight to get images into next week’s issue. It’s basically war photography before cameras worked right. Circulation goes from 100,000 to 300,000 during the war. Turns out people really want to see other people’s misery. Still true.
The Price War That Changed Everything
Munsey’s Magazine. August 1893. Frank Munsey drops the price from 25 cents to 10 cents. His business manager quits on the spot, says he’s insane.
Six months later, circulation jumped from 40,000 to 500,000.
How? Munsey figured out the math everyone else missed. Sell magazines at a loss, make it up in advertising. Procter & Gamble starts buying full-page ads. Coca-Cola, Ivory Soap, patent medicines – they’re all fighting for space. By 1895, Munsey’s hitting 700,000 copies monthly. The magazine itself loses money on every issue. The ads make him rich.
McClure’s follows. Then Cosmopolitan (yeah, it used to be a family magazine). Ladies’ Home Journal drops to 10 cents and hits ONE MILLION subscribers in 1903. First magazine ever to do it. The editor, Edward Bok, starts running articles about venereal disease and patent medicine scams. Loses 75,000 subscribers overnight. Gains 200,000 new ones within a year. Controversy still sells.
When Pictures Ate Words
Look at a magazine from 1890. Wall of text. Tiny engravings if you’re lucky.
Look at one from 1920. Photos everywhere.
What happened? Halftone printing. Invented in the 1880s, perfected by 1900. Suddenly you can print actual photographs cheaply. Everything changes overnight.
National Geographic went from 1,000 members in 1899 to 100,000 by 1920. Why? They start running photos of topless “native” women. I’m not kidding. Editors claimed it was “educational anthropology.” Right. Teenage boys across America suddenly developed a deep interest in geography.
Life magazine – the picture one, not the earlier version – launches November 23, 1936. The first issue sells out. 380,000 copies were gone in hours. By 1937, they’re selling a million copies weekly. The cover price? 10 cents. Same as Munsey’s 44 years earlier. But Life’s genius wasn’t just pictures – it was picture stories. Margaret Bourke-White’s photos of Depression-era America made people cry. Robert Capa’s D-Day photos made them understand war.
Time did something different. Henry Luce launched it in 1923 with this insane idea – summarize all the week’s news in 30 pages. Everything is broken into departments. Everything written in this weird, backwards style. “Backward ran sentences until the mind reeled.” People hated it. Then they got addicted to it. By 1930, circulation had reached 300,000. By 1960, 2 million.
Teenagers Get Their Own Drug
Calling All Girls appears in 1941. Becomes Young Miss. Then YM. Each name change trying to sound less like your mom’s magazine. But the real revolution? Seventeen in 1944.
Helen Valentine creates it after her daughter complains there’s nothing to read. First issue sells out – 400,000 copies. Within two years, they’re moving 2.5 million copies per issue. Triangle Publications buys it, runs it like a money printer.
The content was insane by today’s standards. Articles on “how to get pinned” (that’s wearing a boy’s fraternity pin, get your mind out of the gutter). Fashion spreads requiring girdles for 14-year-olds. Diet tips that would get you banned from social media today. But teenage girls finally had something that was THEIRS. Not their mom’s Good Housekeeping. Not their dad’s Time. Theirs.
Teen People launched in 1998, folded by 2006. Killed by the internet? Nope. Killed by teens realizing they could get celebrity gossip free online hourly instead of monthly for $3.99.
Playboy Changed More Than You Think
December 1953. Hugh Hefner’s in his kitchen gluing together the first Playboy. Marilyn Monroe nude calendar photos he bought for $500. No date on the cover because he doesn’t know if there’ll be a second issue.
Sells 50,000 copies.
By 1959, circulation’s at 1 million. By 1972, 7 million. More than Time and Newsweek combined.
But here’s what everyone forgets – Playboy published serious writing. Nabokov, Kerouac, Vonnegut, Bradbury. The Playboy Interview got people to say things they’d never say anywhere else. Miles Davis talking about racism. John Lennon’s last major interview. Jimmy Carter admitting he “lusted in his heart” probably cost him evangelical votes in 1976.
Hefner paid more than anyone. $3,000 for a short story in 1970 when The New Yorker paid $400. Writers would publish their best work sandwiched between centerfolds. Readers actually did read the articles. Sometimes.
The Internet Doesn’t Kill Magazines (It Just Makes Them Weirder)
- 1994: HotWired launches. Wired magazine’s digital sister. Loses $30 million in four years. Everyone thinks digital magazines are doomed.
- 2000: Salon.com goes public. Stock hits $15. Today? Doesn’t exist as a public company.
- 2010: iPad launches. The publishing industry collectively orgasms. “THIS WILL SAVE MAGAZINES!” Murdoch launches The Daily, iPad-only newspaper. Loses $30 million annually. Dies in two years.
But wait.
BuzzFeed hits 200 million monthly readers by 2016. Not a magazine? Tell that to their long-form journalism winning awards. Vice goes from free magazine in record stores to $5.7 billion valuation (then crashes to near-bankruptcy, but that’s another story).
The successful digital magazines didn’t try to be magazines. Politico acts like a wire service on steroids. The Athletic covers sports like 500 local newspapers combined. Morning Brew makes business news feel like your smart friend texting you.
Print’s supposedly dying but:
- Kinfolk launches in 2011, sells 75,000 copies at $24 each
- Monocle charges $18 per issue, has 80,000 subscribers who pay $200 annually
- National Geographic has 12 million Instagram followers AND 1.8 million print subscribers
These magazines are remarkably successful because they offer actionable advice, providing readers with tangible blueprints to achieve their aspirations. The demand for lifestyle content continues to surge as individuals perpetually strive for self-improvement, seeking to enhance their physical health, culinary skills, organizational abilities, and overall well-being, ultimately aiming to transcend their current limitations and become the best version of themselves.
What Actually Happened vs What Everyone Predicted
2005: “Print will be dead by 2015” 2024: US magazine industry still worth $28 billion. Not growing, but a long way from dead.
2010: “Nobody will pay for digital content” 2024: The New York Times has 10 million digital subscribers. The Athletic sold for $550 million. Substack writers making six figures from newsletters.
2015: “Millennials don’t read magazines” 2024: They do. They just call them “curated content experiences” and pay $300 for a year of Apartamento.
The Real Truth Nobody Admits
Magazines never sold information. They sold identity. “I’m a Cosmo girl.” “I’m a New Yorker reader.” “I’m a Guns & Ammo subscriber.” The magazine on your coffee table tells visitors who you think you are.
That hasn’t changed. Your Substack subscriptions, your Instagram follows, your podcast library – it’s the same thing. Just faster, more fragmented, and with worse fact-checking.
The biggest magazine success story of the last decade? It’s not even called a magazine. It’s called Instagram. Same business model as Life magazine – free to users, funded by ads, all about the pictures. Zuckerberg just figured out how to get people to create the content for free.
TikTok? That’s just Tiger Beat if Tiger Beat updated every second and knew exactly which teenage crush you’d stare at longest.
Substack? That’s the return of personal magazines. Remember when one person could launch a magazine from their apartment? We’re back there. Except now they don’t need printing presses, distributors, or venture capital. Just opinions and WiFi.
Where This Mess Goes Next
Publishers keep trying to predict the future. They’re always wrong. Nobody predicted blogs. Nobody predicted Instagram. Nobody predicted that people would pay $15/month for someone’s personal newsletter when they won’t pay $15/year for Time magazine.
But magazines – or whatever we call them now – aren’t going anywhere. Because humans are narcissistic pattern-seekers who desperately want someone to tell them what’s important, what’s cool, and what everyone else is doing wrong. That needn’t change.
The delivery method? That’ll keep mutating faster than COVID variants. Maybe it’ll be AR glasses streaming curated content directly to your eyeballs. Maybe AI will generate personalized magazines just for you every morning. Maybe we’ll go full circle and paper magazines become the ultimate luxury item for rich people who want to prove they can afford inefficiency.
Doesn’t matter. Someone will package opinions, call it revolutionary, and charge for it. Someone always has.
The Germans started it 361 years ago with their unpronounceable theological discussions. Now we’ve got MrBeast treating YouTube like a magazine publisher and making more than Condé Nast. Different century, same hustle.