These days, dirty magazines — like VHS and cassette tapes, flip phones and the Walkman — have become relics of yore. The Internet, for better or for worse, quickly phased out the need for clunky adult DVDs and magazines.
Unlike vinyl LPs, for instance, pornographic magazines like Penthouse and Playboy don’t have a cool, vintage appeal. Anyone with Wi-Fi access can view millions of images of millions of different nude bodies in an instant, reducing the need for an old-fashioned physical magazine. Owning nudie magazines presents its own set of logistical difficulties, anyway: They only support one-time use, and it’s near impossible to hide them from nosy roommates or significant others. We watched MTV’s “Room Raiders” every day after school just like you did, and we know that all the good stuff is hidden under the mattress.
Smartphones have made it easy to satisfy our taboo fascinations. With a few swipes of an index finger, anyone can — for the most part — wipe away his or her digital footprints from sketchy websites. So why bother with magazines at all?
This declining demand for physical porn manifested itself last week when FriendFinder Networks, the publisher of Penthouse magazine and owner of various adult entertainment websites, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The magazine has been suffering from financial difficulties since 2003, so filing for bankruptcy protection seems like a stupidly optimistic move on CEO Anthony Previte’s part.
According to http://www.philly.com, Previte said bankruptcy will allow the company to reduce interest expenses, eliminate debt and strengthen its flagship brands.
The United States bankruptcy code stipulates that individuals or businesses that apply for Chapter 11 bankruptcy must prove that, with proper restructuring of assets, the individual or business can stabilize and become profitable again.
According to Reuters, the company’s social-networking sites have taken the hardest hit. FriendFinder, in addition to publishing “Penthouse,” hosts http://www.adultfriendfinder.com, which promotes casual hook-ups, and http://www.bigchurch.com, which advertises spiritual connections. Hopping on the social-networking train a la Facebook and LinkedIn has proven to be unsuccessful for company, and it’s not difficult to see why.
After all, who constitutes FriendFinder’s market? Younger people — college students, young professionals and anyone who falls under the dubious “millennials” umbrella — rely on newer, less skeezy free dating websites such as OkCupid that make use of matrices to match users based on personality traits. On the other end of the scale, older online daters who are interested in a deeper connection typically use more credible, fee-charging dating sites like Match.com and eHarmony.
Besides, who meets anyone on chat rooms anymore? Chat rooms, as Dateline’s “To Catch a Predator” has proven, are full of weirdos, creeps and police decoys posing as 12-year-old girls.
So are we surprised that FriendFinder has tanked?
Not really.
If anything, we’re just surprised they lasted this long.
A version of this editorial ran on page 6 on 9/23/2013 under the headline "Internet killed the porno mag: Publisher bankrupt"
