Cosmopolitan Magazine

Note:  This review was originally posted to my Epinions account.



One day, I received a Cosmopolitan magazine in the mail.  This concerned me primarily because I didn’t order a subscription.  I was worried that someone was pulling a prank by subscribing me to as many magazines as they could get the card for, but I couldn’t think of anyone that I could have offended that badly.  I had thought that maybe it was something through work, but my supervisor didn’t know anything about free subscriptions.

This left me with the question of how, so I posted what had happened to Facebook.  As near as anyone can tell, Hearst must have gotten my name and address and given me a free subscription.  Apparently, postage is so cheap that it doesn’t take many subscriptions to make their money back.  As an adult male, I’m not really in their target demographic.  I’m thinking that they may have gotten my address from CVS, since my mother uses my loyalty card to buy cosmetics there.  Either way, I was able to go online and verify that the subscription had been paid for until December.

As long as I didn’t get a bill, I wasn’t going to complain.  I had always wondered what was in Cosmo.  You’ve probably seen the headlines:  “212 Things Guys Don’t Know They Should Tell You In Bed” or “689 Things Guys are Thinking About When They‘re Not With You”.  Was the information really that useful?  In a word, No.  (Well, not to me at least.)

I actually looked through a few of the magazines.  Many of the articles seem to be about image and/or sex.  One article had advice on applying makeup.  One section was called “The Total Sex Bomb” while another was “The Faux Natural”.  Really?  This is what women are trying to go for these days?  Why not just call it “The Total Slut”?

There’s a quote from Jean-Paul Sartre, “Hell is other people.”  Having worked in retail, I initially assumed that it meant that hell was having to deal with other people, but from what I’ve read, it has more to do with how we think other people perceive us.  Cosmo seems to feed into that.  I would actually be more likely to date a woman who realizes that she doesn’t need a magazine like Cosmo and has the confidence to be herself.

Yes, image is important, but you don’t need an entire magazine devoted to it.  Consider that there was an article in one issue (I don’t know if it’s a recurring column” on how to deal with unsolicited advice, like family members that criticize your lipstick or parents that think you should tan more.  There’s another article on make-up sex.

Mostly, the magazine is advertising, which should come as no surprise.  Most of the ads deal with image and/or sex.  The fact that you can get a perfume-free subscription should tell you something.  If you’re still wondering how bad it is, you can go to their website and see some articles.