A few weeks ago, Playboy magazine decided to drop nude photographs. No more naked women will be hidden between those glossy pages that have long been familiar with the dark spaces beneath the beds of their male readers. Playboy magazine has been an American icon of manhood and pornography, the 12-year-old boy’s first glimpse of the female form and sexuality. However, in the digital age of pornography, Playboy seems tame by comparison.
There is seemingly unlimited access to porn, an industry and medium with an entire system of genres, levels of violence, and levels of narrative. Print publications cannot keep up. The former top competitor of Playboy used to be Penthouse, and when Penthouse attempted to combat the competition from digital porn by going even more explicit it saw financial failure.
So when Mr. Jones, an editor for Playboy, suggested to Hugh Hefner that Playboy drop nudes altogether the red robed, 89-year-old ladies’ man agreed, as he should. In August, Playboy removed nudes from their online publication, and web traffic increased from 4 million to 16 million unique users every month. They also saw the average age of readership drop about 15 years to readers who are just over the age of 30.
This population is exactly who Playboy is targeting with their revamped mission. By transforming their monthly publication into an art piece with a female-empowered and culturally relevant message, Playboy hopes to gather a loyal following of young and employed millennials. These readers may be more interested in reading the intellectual articles that Playboy has always provided by interviewing cultural superstars such as Margaret Atwood.
Playboy will continue its tradition of interesting, investigative journalism, plus more to lure its intellectual young readership. There will be a sex advice columnist who is a woman focused on female empowerment. There will be more visual art and more interviews with writers, artists, and cultural change-makers.
Playboy can no longer rely on shock value and explicit sexual allure, but they can cash in on their place as an American icon by changing their approach. Their new website includes advice about girls and nightlife, but it also includes articles about entertainment on Netflix and new style trends. There is now PlayboyTV and Playboy radio, as well as Playboy Twitter and Facebook.
Hugh Hefner is adapting quickly to the new world of social media and pornographic desensitization by bravely facing his company towards cutting edge journalism and artistry instead.
Playboy is likely to succeed without nudes because, after all, its articles have always been extremely popular. According to a New York Times article by Ravi Somaiya, “A judge once ruled that denying blind people a Braille version of it violated their First Amendment rights.”
So how has Playboy actually seen more success by eliminating pornographic content? Even if the articles are still mostly about nightlife and dating, the fact that people are interested in learning something new by reading rather than looking at nude pictures, is hopeful not only for the future of journalism, but for the future of humanity as a whole.