Wired hit the newsstand with the force of a graphic tsunami in
January 1993. Cleverly staking its claim in the competitive pile-up of
mass circulation magazines, Wired was not a nerdy trade magazine
chocked with computer industry product reviews nor was it a
lifestyle magazine, serving up personalities to cater to a
demographically predetermined ad base. In fact, Wired initiated a
brazen format that has held up through its current issue: four
graphics-and-text only pages "dead" to advertising, before the table
of contents. In the first issue, a line of text unfurled like a polyfont
banner through the front of the book: "The medium or process of our
time--electric technology--is reshaping and restructing patterns of
social interdependence and every aspect of our personal life. It is
forcing us to reconsider and re-evaluate practically every thought,
every action, and every institution formerly taken for granted.
Everything is changing . . . ." The quote was from Marshall McLuhan's
form-is-content credo, The Medium is the Massage, 25 years earlier,
in 1967. (The second issue also invoked McLuhan as graphic epigram.
But by the third issue, Wired began to quote its own authors as
prophetic sound bites.) "Why Wired?" wrote the editor, Louis
Rossetto, in a manifesto-like first editorial: "Because the Digital
Revolution is whipping through our lives like a Bengali Typhoon--
while the mainstream media is still groping for the snooze button."
He announced its charter in bold graphics: "to discuss the meaning or
context of social changes so profound their only parallel is the
discovery of fire." The font size changed for emphasis, dwarfing the
hyperbole of language with the overstatement of design. "Because in
the age of information overload, the ultimate luxury is meaning and
context." Meaning and context: two words that act like magnetics to
anyone with a post-graduate degree. I was an instant subscriber.
But one couldn't help but read the meaning and context of Wired.
The graphics were new, post-linear, polyfont. The format was out-
sized, everything was surrounded in a neon orange glow. The first
issue sold out on newsstands in New York and LA. Newsweek
magazine proclaimed it as "Vanity Fair for propeller heads." Another
writer described it as an "unholy offspring of Mondo 2000 and the
Economist." Wired was a magazine about the Wired future, but
launched in the print market, using high resolution printing, vibrant
inks and matte surface paper. If Wired began as studied application
of McLuhanism, it quickly proved, as McLuhan predicted, that new
media don't kill the old.
Wired was carving out its own niche, targeting a readership "looking
for the soul of a society in wild metamorphosis." From its beginning
Wired appealed to the insecurities of a generation desperate to stay
on the edge. The TIRED/Wired chart, a feature since its first issue,
declares what is in, hip and smart vs. what is out, nerdy and dumb.
(In 1.1 McLuhan was Wired and "Beaudrillard" was TIRED. The
misspelling of French cultural theorist Jean Baudrillard's name was
symptomatic of its surface-to-air deflection of academic readers.)
Two other standard features, Jargon Watch--a glossary of the
lexicographic boom spawned by new technologies--and Fetish--a
display of high design tech-toys--demonstrated the magazine's deft
attempt to keep its readers in-the-know.
As with most magazines, one could guess at who was reading Wired
by reading its ads. In the second issue Wired announced
demographic results from 3300 reply cards: 75% under 41, 46% had
done post-graduate work, 51% were multiple platform users; median
household income over $85,000. If they had gender, race or ethnicity
data, they didn't share it. To me, it seemed that the readers must be
more like the "gentlemen" who read Esquire than the sophisticates
who read Vanity Fair. Perhaps I got this idea from an ad in Wired's
premiere issue. On the left hand page, a diapered infant sits cross-
legged in the middle of a white space, looking confident. Underneath
a caption reads: FEELS GOOD. On the right hand page, an infant lies on
his back, chubby and naked, his little penis pissing into the air. The
caption reads: FEELS BETTER. The product, "the world's first left and
right-handed mouse," appropriately named MouseMan, seemed more
like an afterthought to the image. The recto could only appeal to a
certain kind of reader in need of an anatomically correct input
device.
Wired pioneered the coverage of a new journalistic beat ("Our
mission is to cover the biggest story of the decade--the convergence
of computing, telecommunications, and the media.") and formed both
a readership and an ad base in its wake. In the first issue only 22
pages of its 122 were ads. After only four bi-monthly issues, the
magazine became a monthly in November 1993 and its ad base
increased to 60 pages. In addition to companies marketing
technology--Apple, Intel, AT&T, Seagate, CD-ROM manufacturers--
high-end lifestyle advertisers--Dewar's, Calvin Klein, Stoli, l.a.
eyeworks, Smirnoff, Nike, Finlandia, Glenlivet, Virgin--were taking
out full page ads to sell alcohol, sunshades and running shoes to what
Rosetto described as his demographic base: "the most powerful
people on the planet today, the people making this Digital
Revolution." By March 1994, Conde Nast bought a minority interest,
forgoing editorial and management involvement. Even S.I. Newhouse
wants to keep his hand in media futures, preferring to be re-Wired
than re-TIRED.
Wired-WARE(R) hats, T-shirts, Varsity jackets and bookbags market
this join-the-team ethos. Wired has also staked out its turf in the
interactive magazine market. HOTWired, the magazine's WWW site,
gained 2000 subscribers in the first two hours. (If you've used it, you
might find the process more interesting in theory than in practice. As
one friend put it: "It's like turning the pages of a book with oven
mitts attached to pogo sticks." The download is slow, the graphics
pale. HOT Wired creates a nostalgia for the sensuousness of print
format.)
And yet I read the magazine, every last word of it. I like the
graphics, even if I hate orange. I've been caught in its net: I don't
want to be left out as these technologies transform every bit and
pixel of our daily lives. Nevertheless, I can't help but think that
Wired has already defined the team of players in the Wired future.
In the December 1994 issue, the magazine cited a survey on Internet
users: 80% male, 80% white, median age 31, median household
income between $40-59,000 with 22% over $80,000. The most
powerful people on the planet today.
Anne Friedberg is associate professor of film studies at the University of
California at Irvine. She may be reached at [email protected]
� 1995 Educom.