from the now-you-really-CAN-read-it-for-the-articles dept.
In December 2014, CEO Scott Flanders hinted that nudity could vanish completely from the Playboy brand.
In a bid to make itself more relevant, Playboy magazine has officially announced they're no longer running photos of fully nude women:
Playboy officials have declared that they've won a culture war, so they're moving on. "You're now one click away from every sex act imaginable for free. And so it's just passé at this juncture," said Scott Flanders, Playboy's CEO, in an interview with the [New York] Times. He also said: "That battle has been fought and won."
[Ed. note: I was unsure as to whether this story was germane to our site. But then I stepped back to look at the bigger picture. At one time, Playboy pretty much *owned* its category, though with time other publications later rose up to challenge it. Times have changed. Just how relevant are print publications these days? What other storied publications have disappeared? Which are next? What will the publishing landscape look like in ten or twenty years?]
(Score: 4, Funny) by Francis on Friday October 16 2015, @09:04PM
I guess this means nothing is changing because everybody was already reading Playboy for the articles anyways.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 16 2015, @09:17PM
For those who legitimately did read it just for the articles nothing will change. Those who read it for the nudes would... wait... who reads Playboy anymore anyway? It used to be a right of passage for an of-aged teen to successfully hide issues of it from their parents/guardians. Now it's a relic from a time long gone. It's too easy now. Just make sure you're incognito, Google with safe search off, and bam.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 16 2015, @09:30PM
10 year olds now have access to all the midget farting porn with baseball bats they desire. This is a good move for Playboy.
(Score: 2, Touché) by Francis on Sunday October 18 2015, @12:56AM
That sounds more like Hustler than Playboy.
(Score: 2) by Pslytely Psycho on Sunday October 18 2015, @11:34AM
Naw, smartphone, tablet,, and of course the good ol' computer.
If I had had access to portable porn like those, I would of spent all my time in the bathroom and today I would be known as "Needle dick the bug fucker...."
Alex Jones lawyer inspires new TV series: CSI Moron Division.
(Score: 5, Funny) by davester666 on Saturday October 17 2015, @03:05AM
I still remember having breakfast in a restaurant, reading a newspaper, and a friend of mine comes in with his girlfriend [I knew both of them though a church I no longer attended], and the place is busy, so they ask to join me. No problem. They sit down, and she notices I have a magazine in a plain brown bag.
"Is that an explicit magazine?", she asks (but doesn't pick it up or look in the bag).
"Yes, it is".
"Do you read it for the articles or the pictures"
"Mostly for the articles, but the pictures are also pretty important."
Finally, she looks like she is ready to lay into me for being a creep and decides to critique the specific magazine I bought, picks up the bag, pulls out the magazine, and.... Electronics Monthly.
My friend starts laughing.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Saturday October 17 2015, @10:19AM
I'm sure it contained many pictures of undressed electronics. ;-)
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by davester666 on Saturday October 17 2015, @07:51PM
The pages did wind up getting sticky.....
I always would read it eating a jam sandwich.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 17 2015, @12:30AM
You laugh but I know multiple people who read the braille edition. They definitely don't do it for the centerfolds.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Saturday October 17 2015, @01:11PM
I can only imagine what the, um, artifacts on the braille version do for the reading experience of the blind.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 17 2015, @02:03PM
They tried a braille version of the centerfold but ran into a problem. They couldn't fold it.
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Saturday October 17 2015, @09:05AM
http://www.toptenz.net/top-10-writers-published-in-playboy.php [toptenz.net]
No one subscribes to Playboy for the nudity when there's so much free nudity on-line. They can and should serialize short-fiction and comics targeting the same or slightly more adult demographics from Breaking Bad and The Walking Dead towards The Sopranos and Game of Thrones.
Honestly, if they'll just steer clear from the DC \ Marvel's "rich patrician wears mask and protects the poor plebians from themselves" propaganda, then they'll do fine.
compiling...
(Score: 3, Funny) by mechanicjay on Friday October 16 2015, @09:32PM
My Grandpa used to keep a Playboy in the stack of golf magazines next to his easy chair in the living room. Hidden in plain sight. The right of passage came, when you turned about 13 and he'd throw to it you, "Check this out, boy!"
My VMS box beat up your Windows box.
(Score: 4, Funny) by bob_super on Friday October 16 2015, @09:42PM
I'm hoping each teen was getting a new copy...
(Score: 3, Funny) by Gaaark on Friday October 16 2015, @10:34PM
Now we need a "+1 Eeeewwwww"
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 3, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 16 2015, @10:35PM
I'm still trying to figure out how he managed to throw an easy chair.
(Score: 2) by fritsd on Saturday October 17 2015, @12:30PM
Strong wrist muscles, from years of training.
(Score: 1) by termigator on Saturday October 17 2015, @02:56AM
Reusing the same mag would make it easier for later teens to catch
(Score: 2) by NCommander on Saturday October 17 2015, @06:12PM
I'll be honest. That's the first comment I've read in SN in awhile that nearly caused me to need a new keyboard. GG parent.
Still always moving
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 17 2015, @02:21AM
It's rite of passage.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 16 2015, @09:51PM
I graduated from the University that brought the world the first graphical web browser, the first visibile light emitting diode (LED), the transistor, and plasma TV's among other things. But I still believe our most well known and beloved alumni is Hugh Hefner.
(Score: 1, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 16 2015, @10:03PM
Every living organism which has evolved on this planet is compelled, by natural evolution, to attempt above all else to pass on its genes to the next generation. All else follows.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 16 2015, @10:24PM
Yeah, but in this case most of those genes get passed into a wad of tissue paper.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Friday October 16 2015, @10:29PM
obligatory [youtube.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 16 2015, @10:45PM
You don't understand evolution.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by deimios on Friday October 16 2015, @11:03PM
And every ad agency is compelled to exploit this fact to shovel their sh*t towards the male demographic. Sex sells.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 16 2015, @11:45PM
Same way the garbage romance writers sell their s*it thanks to female demographic.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 17 2015, @01:49AM
Asexuals exist, you know. You're generalizing.
Not everyone wants to have children, either.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 17 2015, @10:18AM
Wanting to have sex and wanting to have children are two completely different things. Being asexual is an evolutionary dead-end unless you want children and use artificial means, which have only become available relatively recently (i.e. not 2 million years ago).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 18 2015, @08:22AM
Sorry, I forgot: Jesus.
(Score: 2) by Hartree on Saturday October 17 2015, @12:09AM
I'll agree with all but one. The transistor. John Bardeen came here 4 years after he, Brattain and Schockley invented it at Bell Labs.
(Well, sorta "and Schockley". Schockley worked on an improved version (the junction transistor) that became what was widely used which was why he was included in the Nobel. He also alienated Bardeen so thoroughly he left Bell Labs and came to the University of Illinois, and Brattain soon refused to work with Shockley anymore).
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Tork on Saturday October 17 2015, @12:37AM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 5, Insightful) by maxwell demon on Saturday October 17 2015, @10:30AM
There, FTFY.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by wonkey_monkey on Saturday October 17 2015, @12:22AM
Playboy magazine has officially announced they're no longer running photos of fully nude women
"You're now one click away from every sex act imaginable for free. And so it's just passé at this juncture,"
So instead they're going to show scantily clad non-naked women, which, in contrast to naked ones, there are absolutely no pictures of on the internet.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 17 2015, @11:46AM
HOHO, YES! He say there are no non-naked pictures on the internet! He say this when he know there is non-naked pictures on the internet! IS SO FUNNY.
Seriously though, they've done their market research.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 17 2015, @12:43AM
[Ed. note: I was unsure as to whether this story was germane to our site. But then I stepped back to look at the bigger picture. [...] What will the publishing landscape look like in ten or twenty years?]
SoylentNews to Stop Publishing News About Technology
Anonymous Coward [soylentnews.org] writes:
In October 2015, a SoylentNews editor hinted that tech news could vanish completely from SoylentNews.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday October 17 2015, @01:28AM
Here's a technology article: https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=15/10/16/0213236 [soylentnews.org]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Saturday October 17 2015, @01:07PM
I posted this tally [soylentnews.org] a couple days ago of the stuff I submitted over last weekend. SN's spam filters perceived it as such and sank it to -1, but the numbers are there. Depending on how you rule on Science & Technology policy (topics like Net Neutrality or the Right to Privacy in the EU), my story submission mix was either 64% (pure science) or 87% (pure science + science & technology policy). General news + social science "BS" was 13%. The average comment count for "pure" science was 20.75, the average for science & technology policy + social science was 33.33.
Of course you may quibble about the categorization of these articles, but you must keep in mind that these are stories that are generally freely available to view on the web. The more "hard" science sources like Nature and journals like that where scientists tend to publish their research are inaccessible behind hard paywalls. Also keep in mind that even if we could access and post summaries about those articles for the community, how much discussion could realistically be generated by "Mitochondrial Drift in Freshwater Bivalves?" That's an invented title, of course, but that's not too far off from how specific those academic papers can be. And it bears considering that the value of a community like Soylent is the discussion, with people from all technical walks of life putting their two cents in. If all you wanted were "hard" science articles, then you'd be better served with an RSS feed or a pricey subscription to one of the aforementioned articles.
Lastly, I'll repeat the point that others have made here and on Slashdot repeatedly over the years, that even if a topic itself is not necessarily a technical one, prima facie, the technical-minded readers in the community usually bring a much different, more interesting, and more informed perspective to it than you would get in nearly every forum. That is, the value of all this is in YOU, and US, not necessarily in the article itself.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by CoolHand on Sunday October 18 2015, @03:12AM
Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job-Douglas Adams
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 17 2015, @02:28AM
With all the social bullshit stories being posted here, why so shy now? At least this one has some ... color to it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 17 2015, @02:43AM
Pics or it didn't happen.
(Score: 4, Informative) by janrinok on Saturday October 17 2015, @09:16AM
As I am sure that you know, we strive to provide a mixture between science/technology and other stories of interest. The split should be around 70%/30% but this cannot be precisely achieved on any specific day but does average out over time. It was the community that asked for this mix of stories. If you feel that the split is wrong then say so, and if enough people agree with you it can be changed to whatever the community thinks would be a better division.
The vast majority of stories are submitted by our community too. Other than the division already mentioned, as long as those stories meet the other criteria that we have established, we as editors are duty bound to at least consider them for publication. To do anything else would be tantamount to the editors enforcing a form of censorship. You can probably guess what I am going to say next, but I'll say it (again) anyway: if you don't find the stories that we are publishing suit your own tastes, then please submit a story that does.
Nexuses are in the pipeline. This will enable stories to be published in different categories depending on their content. Your own preferences page will allow you to select which of the nexuses you view and which will be hidden from you, thus allowing you to tailor exactly which stories are displayed on your screen. I fervently hope that there will be a nexus for stories regarding "social 'bullshit'" as you term it: I, too, will not be viewing them. Not because the topic is not important, but because they are better covered elsewhere and personally I come here for the science and technology stories. Nevertheless, as an editor, if that is what is submitted I will still be processing them and pushing them out for publication.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 17 2015, @09:00AM
Ed. note: I was unsure as to whether this story was germane to our site.
Rest assured it is not.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 17 2015, @12:11PM
Being artistic or porn. Looks like they're leaning more towards the artistic side now.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 17 2015, @08:30PM
... in ten or twenty years?"
I take the answer isn't bare.