The Null Device

The Oldie is a British satirical magazine formed in the wake of Punch going all trendy and yoof-oriented. As you can imagine, it went for exactly the opposite approach. Marketing itself at the old-at-heart, it's cantankerous, self-consciously old-fashioned and scornful of youth culture and superficiality. You can imagine Morrissey reading The Oldie. And it has outlived Punch -- twice, at that. and now it's on the web. And here is what it has to say about the Hello Kitty phenomenon.

The sickly sweet shockwaves of kawaii are being felt everywhere. When Panasonic were launching a new state-of-the-art portable e-mail device with built-in camera, they thought that the most important design consideration would be how many pixels the screen could display. They were wrong. After consulting their focus groups, it turned out that what they should be concentrating their efforts on was making it a cute colour, with a keyboard that did not chip girls fingernails.

(via Metafilter)

¶ culture hello kitty kawaii oldie punch 0

Falco! That venerable British institution, Punch magazine, looks likely to close its doors for the final time. Punch previously closed down in 1992, but was revived by Mohammed Al-Fayed (yes, that one) four years later. After six years of disappointing circulation, Al-Fayed pulled the plug on its life-support system, and it looks like this is the end.

And here is an article by a former writer, charting its decline over the past decades. The article suggests that Punch was a victim of the rise of television and the decline of satirical magazines. Though you'd think that with the rise of web-based humour, a revitalised heir to Punch might be able to carve out a niche for itself.

(I have fond memories of reading Punch in the school library in the late 80s. The publisher's attempt to go for the youth market was evident; they kept profiling people like Stock-Aitken-Waterman, or going on about which club Patsy Kensit or someone was seen at. All this probably led to the formation of magazines such as Oldie, which eschewed all the yoofist stuff and undoubtedly bled Punch's circulation. Though the pre-shut-down Punch did have the classic cartoon caption contest, something the relaunched one sorely lacked.)

¶ media oldie punch satire uk 0