This time last year, we were reporting Rufus Griscom, the mind behind sex-with-a-brain site Nerve.com, was expanding beyond his latest spin-off (parenting site Babble.com) with an environmental blog. And then … nothing. Realizing we went nearly a year without seeing Griscom launch his green title, we revisited the issue in August, where Griscom told us "our research indicated that the green advertising category is inadequately mature so we put it on ice … We will launch it at some point, but only when the advertising base is there." Might Griscom have been wiser, then, than the treehugging webtrepreneurs attempting the same thing? CONTINUED »
Al Gore, the non-candidate environmental do-gooder whose television network Current TV we tell people we watch (but secretly don't), is rumored to be buying the green magazine Plenty. This is also a magazine we might pretend to read, but secretly don't. Of course, Plenty — which features Gore on its cover, because, like who else is there? — is all about the environment, which explains why it's printed on 85 percent recycled paper and supposedly remains carbon neutral by purchasing carbon offsets. But also, a magazine about the environment should know that carbon offsets are basically bunk, and a terrible excuse to continue polluting.
It's easy to forget things when your mind is filled with Olympics drivel, which is why it took us until this week to wonder, "Hey, whatever happened to Nerve.com's environmental blog it was supposed to launch?" Indeed, Jossip reported way back in October 2007 that Rufus Griscom & Co. were expanding beyond high-brow sex and baby mamas for a green site — but then, nothing. So we asked Rufus "WTF?" and he was all: CONTINUED »
A show of hands here: Who plans on buying a Louis Vuitton bag because it supports Al Gore's climate change project? How about slapping down an extra 300 bucks for a gold-painted recycling logo on your $2,300 Murakami bag?
The fashion biz, like every other industry, is feeling the push to "go green," which is less about climate change than it is about including warm fuzzies about Mother Nature in your marketing campaign. This means a look book stuffed with descriptions like "organic" and "environmentally sustainable."
It's comparable (but not quite as bad) as Exxon saying they are green because they've met with some environmental lobbyists. Or McDonalds saying their food is healthier in reaction to Supersize Me. Except in fashion, it's overconsumers like Marc Jacobs who pretend to send the message.
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Oh heaven be Outside's name? If there's one magazine where it makes sense to take the trendy "going green" anthem seriously, it's a rag about nature. The Lawrence Burke-owned magazine, which was founded by Jann Wenner in 1977, is ditching all insert subscription cards, as AdAge first reported. The move will ditch some 20 million insert cards, which Outside claims will saved 1,500 trees.
But don't think the effort from Sante Fe-based publisher Mariah Media is purely an ode to the environment. Just like when, in 2006, Philips paid Hearst $2 million to get rid of the cards from a month's worth of Redbook, O At Home, Weekend, and House Beautiful, this sounds like a publicity stunt more than anything: Outside will continue putting subscription cards in copies sold at the newsstand, since they remain an effective and cost-efficient way of snagging new customers.
The cards will only disappear from issues sent to subscribers, where their effectiveness begins and ends with copies sitting on the shelves of doctors' offices. You know, since home subscribers already subscribe to the magazine.
Wal-Mart is claiming its decision to drop nearly 1,000 magazines is part of its recent “green” initiative. Incidentally, as far back as October, 2006 Wal-Mart had “analyzed sales performances by title for every individual retail store and calculated the appropriate allocation for each store to support sales and minimize returns.” So basically, if people who shopped at Wal-Mart bought the New Yorker, Wal-Mart would be thinking of another kind of green.
Green might not have been Time magazine’s person of the year, because green is a color, and it was a stupid idea.
But green still is an adjective that comes up a lot. And if the Huffington Post has anything to say about it, it will become synonymous with sexy, which will encourage unsexy people to recycle.
The site just released their “7 Sexiest Green Celebs of 2007” list. Considering it’s January 7, this list is about a week late. And if the Huffington Post really cared about the environment, shouldn’t it be the “7 Greenest Sexy Celebs of 2007”? What’s important here: The environment or sex appeal?
Well, either way, now that stars care about the environment, being green is totally palatable. If Sheryl Crow is conservative with her toilet paper and she’s famous, that means environmentally friendly track marks will get you on the cover of Us Weekly.
