I Read It for the Articles: Difference between revisions
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[[I Read It
[[Trope Namer|Name comes from]] a common justification for reading ''[[Playboy]]'' magazine, which an incredible number of people claim to only read for the articles. While certainly [[Discredited Trope|discredited]] today as a ''legitimate'' excuse, this could have reasonably been [[Truth in Television]] in [[The Sixties]] and [[The Seventies]].<ref>Playboy paid writers nearly three times as well as other publications, meaning that it drew considerable talent, such as [[Jack Kerouac]] and [[Arthur C. Clarke]].</ref> ''Playboy'' used to (and still does) have a variety of short stories, snippets, and interviews that wouldn't be out of place in ''The New Yorker''... just with naked women.<ref>This is true to the point that the Braille edition of Playboy is one of the top selling Braille magazines, even though it completely lacks [[Bow Chicka Wow Wow|its usual selling point.]]</ref>
Just to be clear, works that ''you or the fandom'' consider
Compare [[Or So I Heard]] and [[Came for The X Stayed For The Y]]. Contrast with [[Unconventional Learning Experience]] and [[Just Here for Godzilla]].
{{examples}}▼
▲{{examples}}
== Advertising ==
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{{quote|''"If anyone asks, you watch it for the science. But we know the real reason."''}}
* At least at one point, ''[[Playboy]]'' sold and advertised shirts with their logo in small and the trope name in large print.
** Playboy actually sold compilations of all its articles. You can get the last
== Periodicals ==
* Amusingly, for a long time ''[[Playboy]]'' paid better per word than almost any other magazine; as such it attracted some serious writing talent. [[That Other Wiki]] points out that along with interviews with all sorts of famous people (Martin Luther King and [[Fidel Castro]] for example), ''Playboy'' has featured short stories by [[Arthur C. Clarke]], [[James Bond|Ian Fleming]], [[Margaret Atwood]], and even the original ''[[A Christmas Story]]''. One issue even has article written by Elliott Gould - look it up - wherein he tells of his recent trip to Disneyland...on acid.
** Its interviews are often fairly noteworthy in their own right. For example, [[Jimmy Carter]] admitting that he's tempted to cheat on his wife, and [[Metallica]] revealing just how dysfunctional they actually were in the late 1990's. The last major interview [[John Lennon]] gave was for ''Playboy''; it was on newsstands when he was murdered.
** ''[[Playboy]]'' used to be downright draconic about what they would accept. [[Stephen King]], in the foreword to one of his short story collections, recounts a time when he brushed off a friend ragging on him for the high cut his agent took from the pay from a story: "He damn well earned it. He got me in ''[[Playboy]]''."
** The novel ''[[Fahrenheit 451]]'' actually started off life as a series of short stories in Playboy.
** [https://web.archive.org/web/20150224015952/http://www.izetit.de/index_projekte.php?page=projekte
*** Vehicles: 12 g and 0.2115 m<sup>2</sup>
*** Girls 36 g and 0.415 m<sup>2</sup>
*** Articles and other interesting content (the entire rest?): 274 g
** Playboy is also one of the few magazines which are also published in braille so that blind people can read the articles. Not only that, but that publication is government-subsidized... and when the United States Congress tried to cut off the funding in the '80s, that move was ruled unconstitutional as a First Amendment violation.
** They've also played on this reputation - they sell (or at least one point sold and advertised; don't know if they're still available) shirts with their logo in small and the trope name in large print.
** As of 2015, ''Playboy'' is going PG-13, [http://nymag.com/thecut/2015/10/playboy-to-ditch-nudes-focus-on-the-articles.html moving away from naked women] toward a greater focus on articles. CEO Scott Flanders recognized that because print can no longer compete with [[The Internet Is for Porn|free Internet porn]], ''Playboy'' ought to focus on the journalism that it ''can'' do better. And it appears to have worked, attracting a somewhat more desirable demographic of younger men.
* The articles in [[wikipedia:Mayfair (magazine)|Mayfair Magazine]] (still the leading men's rag in the UK) are commonly of topics suited to [[The History Channel]] ([
== Literature ==
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* Another inversion happens in [[Mork and Mindy]] in an episode where Mork becomes addicted to advertisements. When Mindy finds a magazine, Mork says "I swear, I only read it for the naked women."
* In ''[[Will and Grace]]'', Will mentions "actually reading ''Playboy'' for the articles" as something he used to do before he [[Coming Out Story|came out]].
* ''[[Life on Mars
{{quote|"You know what the really sad thing is? I believe you."}}
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* In ''You'll Have Had Your Tea: The Doings of Hamish and Dougal'', the Laird reads ''Big Fit Birds'' for the gardening tips.
* One of ''[[Round the Horne]]'''s running gags is Kenneth Horne mentioning some absurd and often vaguely smutty-sounding publication and claiming to read it for the crossword/spot the ball competion/etc.
{{quote|"Now the other day I was leafing through my copy of "The Lady Wrestlers Home Journal", which I buy for the fat stock prices..."
"Recently I was leafing through my copy of "Throw off Your Clothes and Live"- I buy it for the chess problems..." }}
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== Video Games ==
* [[In-Universe]] in ''[[Fallout 2]]'': when asked by Miss Kitty in New Reno why you have some
** She gives you a quest to find a full set of the Cat's Paw magazines, since she runs the Cat's Paw brothel. When you bring them all back, she says there's two issues of #5, and some of the pages are stuck together,
* [[Noble Demon|Mao]] of ''[[Disgaea 3: Absence of Justice]]'' ''claims'' that his obsessive collection of comics and videogames is merely research on heroes... it's pretty obvious that he's one of [[Even Heroes Have Heroes]].
== Webcomics ==
* ''[[Cyanide
{{quote|'''Wife:''' Japanese Playboy?
'''Husband:''' I, uh, read it for the articles.
'''Wife:''' ''(happy)
[''Husband grins
* ''[[Sam and Fuzzy]]'' has a character use an inversion of this. Sam, embarrassed to be caught reading a porn magazine's advice column, insists to his coworkers that he only reads it "for the pornography".
* Inverted in ''[[Fans]]'', where Shanna, who claims to be a lesbian, keeps around a stack of ''[[Playboy]]''... which (being a closet scifi geek) she reads for the articles.
* ''[[Questionable Content]]'' has a [http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=35 comic] where [[Robot Buddy|Pintsize]] swears he is reading a Apple magazine for the benchmarks despite a suspicious can of [[A Date with Rosie Palms|WD-40 lubricant]] nearby.
* [[Two Lumps|Eben's]] [http://twolumps.net/d/20070926.html justification] for reading "Cat Fancy".
* Igor of ''[[Dork Tower]]'' quotes this when trying to explain why he's a ''[[Dead or Alive]]'' fan, then immediately self-corrects to "I buy it for the gameplay." This does not convince anyone.
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[[Category:Stock Phrases]]
[[Category:Discredited Trope]]
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