The Boston bomber\u2019s senior picture – and it does look like a high school senior picture – covering the most recent issue of Rolling Stone Magazine has proven provocative, to say the least. Several retailers have refused to place the issue on their shelves. A lot of people are mad. I\u2019m pretty mad. But let\u2019s take a step outside the box, use that freshman rhetoric, and analyze what\u2019s really happening here. Is Rolling Stone an evil publication?<\/p>\n
Maybe.<\/p>\n
Are they glorifying \u00a0murder on a public stage? Yes. Are they giving another option to young, pathetic lunatics hiding in their rooms, planning a less-than-admirable way to get their \u201cbeautiful\u201d mugshot seen by everyone? Yes. Should they instead be glorifying the national outreach that rushed to help victims of the attack? Yes. \u00a0Are they selling magazines?<\/p>\n
Yes.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t know about the reader, but the last time I bought a magazine at a newsstand was when I was about to board a plane to spend a month in Europe. Dropping five dollars on something that would end up rotting in my backpack only made sense because I could rationalize not needing American money anymore. Would I regularly buy one on the way to work? Hell no.<\/p>\n
In the exact same way that Time got people\u2019s attention by putting a nose-less woman on their cover, Rolling Stone is enticing people to stop and look. It\u2019s tough times for the magazine industry, so putting a murderer’s face on the cover of your publication is a great marketing move – albeit a seemingly horrible PR one. People who don\u2019t subscribe to Rolling Stone rush to own a \u201cpiece of history\u201d like the \u201cscandalous\u201d cover photo. Plus, good luck not hearing about it in the news for the next three weeks.<\/p>\n
Rolling Stone featuring the Boston bomber\u2019s face on the cover of their magazine seems like a far cry from the typical talent they display (although, they have featured Snooki…). But it\u2019s really not. It’s all been about selling copies. People don\u2019t want to buy magazines because of heroes anymore. They\u2019d rather read about a new breed of lazy and demented celebrities. They\u2019d rather learn about villains.<\/p>\n
(Seriously, do you think he has that picture in wallet sizes? All I have is this one of him in front of a Camaro, but I know it\u2019s not his car.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Boston bomber\u2019s senior picture – and it does look like a high school senior picture – covering the most recent issue of Rolling Stone Magazine has proven provocative, to say the least. Several retailers have refused to place the issue on their shelves. A lot of people are mad. I\u2019m pretty mad. But let\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":53,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[92,89,77,90,91,93],"class_list":["post-305","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","tag-advertising","tag-boston-bomber","tag-rhetoric","tag-rolling-stone","tag-rolling-stone-magazine","tag-scandalous"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.admissions.uiowa.edu\/adam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.admissions.uiowa.edu\/adam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.admissions.uiowa.edu\/adam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.admissions.uiowa.edu\/adam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/53"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.admissions.uiowa.edu\/adam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=305"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blog.admissions.uiowa.edu\/adam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":307,"href":"https:\/\/blog.admissions.uiowa.edu\/adam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305\/revisions\/307"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.admissions.uiowa.edu\/adam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=305"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.admissions.uiowa.edu\/adam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=305"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.admissions.uiowa.edu\/adam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=305"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}