Be happy. Please!

It sounds like a good idea. Revolt against the happy-go-lucky mainstream celebrity-obsessed magazine world with a title that concentrates on pessimism. But the reality is rather depressing.

The first issue of The Miserablist has just won the Periodicals Training Council’s Magazine Academy competition. Open to student journalists, the PTC judge proposals and help pay for the winner to be printed and distributed. ‘There’s a world of difference from making a magazine as a classroom exercise to producing something that is judged by the industry’, explain the PTC, who developed the competition to help students showcase their talents.

The Miserablist comes from Goldsmiths College, London, and has some good individual pieces in it. The trouble is the concept itself soon becomes repetitive – there’s only so much ‘I hate’ you can take. Other magazines – The Idler comes to mind – do a similar anti-status quo turn but stay just the right side of positive, their humour shines through. The Idler has a single, popular, target: it is anti- work. The Miserablist, as befits its name, goes right over to the extreme negative point of view and ends up in a dark corner where all humour has turned bitter. Nobody likes grumpy people, so why like a grumpy magazine?

I mention this not to belittle the project, but because it’s a useful reminder of what magazines exist for; they are essentially a happy medium, a vehicle of entertainment and enlightenment. Even the most harrowing news piece has value. The Miserablist is a concept piece, an interesting experiment by a student team, and I don’t wish to judge it too harshly. But it highlights one of the few limitations of magazines.

This final page did make me laugh, though:

10 Comments »

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1. This could possibly be the greatest magazine ever made.

   Comment by Woz — November 9, 2007 #

2. Are you mad, I love grumpy people – I’m one myself. I’d subscribe to this in a heatbeat.

   Comment by LondonLee — November 12, 2007 #

3. would it be overly negative for me to suggest that to call magazines “essentially a happy medium, a vehicle for entertainment and enlightenment” is just . . . wrong? (and since when was enlightenment a necessarily happy thing, anyway?) In fact, that general assumption–that good = “positive”–may be the rot in the foundation of the magazine biz. anyhoo, the miserablist looks pretty fricking smart and funny and cool to me. so i’d read it happily. and i’m a happy guy. i swear!

   Comment by Nate Nickerson — November 12, 2007 #

4. Nate – on reflection the post was misguided in emphasising ‘happy’; what I meant was hidden somewhere in my reference to ‘value’. A magazine needs wit and style about it, it needs a direction and position that brings some benefit to the reader. The Miserablist is prepared to take anything and declare their hate for it. This is great conceptually, but the reality is repetitive and dull. I like the name of the magazine, and its declaration that ‘Life is Shit’ on the cover is a winner. The actual thing, though, is grumpy in a not very enjoyable way.

   The exception is that final ‘What the fuck are you wearing’ page. It made me laugh out loud. That one page has style and a position – too much of the rest is gratuitous and rather easy.

   Comment by jeremy — November 13, 2007 #

5. LOVE the concept! i’d love to get my hands on one.

   Comment by kg — November 18, 2007 #

6. is this still in production

   Comment by Paul Thorman — December 7, 2007 #

7. so basically, vice magazine.

   Comment by joe — December 7, 2007 #

8. What are u prattling on about? I think the mag rag rack has room for one periodical that serves misanthropes. It’s nice to know other Miserablists are out there.

   I want it!

   Comment by Mark — December 8, 2007 #

9. It was so much better before it sold out, though.

   Comment by Isaiah — December 26, 2007 #

10. Hey, I want a subscription! As Groucho Marx once said, “Whatever it is, I’m against it!” This is my kind of magazine.

    Comment by Groucho — February 3, 2010 #

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