I am definitely going to miss this crazy fool.
There has been a lot of internets press around the closure of Vibe magazine. It’s as though we are seeing some institution shutter their doors. This was far from Lehman Bros. but people are talking so I thought I should add my thoughts to the discussion. Vibe magazine was pretty though. I remember when this young chick in the neighborhood had Lupus and she punched out. Vibe wasn’t like that. Vibe was more like the pretty chick who gave head to everyone and then got hit by the Q66 on Northern Blvd. chasing down a trick. That is more like Vibe’s epitaph.
I wonder why other publications don’t throw themselves out the window like Vibe did, but then I realize that other mags have a totally different direction. They recognize trands but don’t try to court them irresponsibly. When I look at a magazine like Jet I see that it is 180 degrees from the direction that Vibe was pointing. If there was ever a magazine that could kill themselves because the business model was no longer viable it would be Jet. I used to love the Jet centerfold but those features are corny and dated by today’s standards that describe women with only a string of material running up their behinds.
Jet photoshoots mean that even the sultry celebrity chanteuse will have some underwear on. Jet has never tried to appeal to the popular shock market shlock. And why not? Publisher’s dignity I suppose. I can’t really call it. All I know is that I promised myself to never again pick up a Vibe to read when they published that cover of a naked KEYSHIA COLE. It wasn’t shocking to me. It was wrong and gratuitous. It was like watching B.E.T. in 2009 and all the performers were Black people wearing Blackface. I saw KEYSHIA in a studio surrounded and naked. I could hear the publisher of Vibe laughing at me.
So maybe the Vibe cover doesn’t say those things to you. Maybe I’m a bit sensitive too. A lot of folks have defended the Vibe covers of COLE and CIARA as simply being artistic and provocative. I wonder why Jet didn’t take the provocative artistic role with KEYSHIA COLE when they had their cover story with her. They managed to still find a vintage look for her without disrobing her and frying her hair blonde. Maybe this why Vibe had to die? When you make a mockery of the artists that you are entrusted to be the caretaker for then you aren’t needed in this industry any longer.
Goodbye Vibe, and good riddance.
