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Media: Sisters doing it on the web
Independent, The (London), Jul 20, 2004 by Mira Katbamna
Not so long ago, the internet was a testosterone-fuelled world, peopled by young men who knew a lot about JavaScript and the characters of Star Trek. Creating a website meant either entering a nether world of coding and html, or paying an extortionate fee to get someone else to do it. Not anymore. The rise of the weblog and web publishing packages has dramatically changed that landscape, and with women making up 41.45 per cent of the total internet audience (Nielsen May 2004), the sisters are doing it for themselves.
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Women have started using the internet to publish women's "magazines" because they say that the traditional glossy magazine fare of celebrity, shoes, sex and self-help just isn't what they want to read. It's not that they don't love celebrities, shoes or sex - it's just that the formulaic, uncritical presentation gets a bit wearing, and the self-help makes them feel worse.
Anne-Marie Payne, founder of www.ampnet.co.uk, says that articles featuring the "Sex Secrets of Easily Orgasmic Women" no longer hit her metaphorical spot. "I've always been addicted to glossy magazines, but at some point you realise that what's out there is never going to satisfy your needs. It's all about `you can be like this', whereas Amp aims to reflect the reality of our experiences right now." With that mission in mind, Amp runs features about prominent rock'n'roll women, alternatives to tampons and, pre- Glastonbury, how to "Pee like A Geezer, not a Geyser".
Described as "edgy" "alternative" and "a bit Hoxton" by some, Payne admits that her magazine is not for everyone, and that she has given up on publishing a "proper" magazine. But while she is happy for Amp to remain a cult read, the trend against aspiration is also being taken up by women with a slightly more conventional vision.
The founder and editor of www.bintmagazine.com, Lebby Eyres, has excellent mainstream credentials. Currently a freelance editor, Eyres has written for numerous celebrity and style magazines, and she's not pulling her punches. "The biggest lie about women's magazines is that they are something that women buy to pamper themselves. In reality all they do is make you feel inadequate about your life - be thinner, wear more expensive clothes, have more sex. It's the constant self- improvement thing that is so depressing."
She thinks the Bint reader is a woman who loves pleasure in all its many forms - be it booze, food, books, sauciness or shopping. The site is irreverent and wry, but certainly does not shy away from discussion of celebrities, sex or the fact that Touche clat concealer is every woman's best friend. She says: "From the beginning we set out to produce a magazine where intelligence was assumed, but I don't think we are dramatically avant garde."
Features range from how to tell a sackmate from a soulmate, why Tim Henman will never win Wimbledon, to a series on how to be mediocre - mixed in with comment on war in Iraq and Hillary Clinton from a female point of view. "Our readers read newspapers, watch the news, read style magazines. But there is still a part of us that wants to read about, and empathise with, other women. I don't think we are beating people round the head with our `message' at Bint. We're working out a new way of talking to women that doesn't revolve around telling them they aren't good enough."
The key for Eyres is accessibility and the kind of straight- talking attitude you might expect from a girls' night out. "When women get together they can be very frank, but this isn't reflected in the glossies at all. I stopped reading Cosmopolitan after they did an article on anal sex and called it `very private sex'." Certainly, readers see Bint writers as peers, rather than experts. Avid reader Maria Drummer thinks that Bint is more like a chat with her friends. "If they are doing a recipe it'll be something like `I cooked this for my boyfriend and it went down a treat!' rather than `How to prepare a Tuscan banquet'." Significantly, Bint shares this approach with the innovative American glossy Jane. With circulation at 700,000 (ABC July-Dec 2003) and growing, Jane explains its mission by contrasting what they call "Traditional Magazine Think" - authority, earnestness, treating men like aliens, and assuming readers have a problem - with "Jane Think" - being a peer, being funny, assuming shared interest with men, and assuming readers have an opinion.
So will we be seeing a revolution in the pages of Cosmopolitan? Although the argument that glossy magazines do little for upmarket, intelligent readers seems to make sense, the failure of magazines like Frank and Minx have made publishers disinclined to take risks, especially when the major glossies - Glamour, Cosmopolitan, Vogue, Marie Claire and Red - continue to perform so well.
Lorraine Candy, newly appointed editor of Elle and former editor of Cosmopolitan, disputes the idea that the glossies need to be revamped. "Magazines are a business. It's all very wonderful to say you're going to be creative and break the mould, but if only 10 people are going to read it, then what's the point?" The Telegraph columnist Jemima Lewis has professed a horror of glossy magazines, but agrees. "Young journalists starting on magazines constantly complain that there is nothing in magazines for them - and they are right - but when people try it, it doesn't work. I think Bint is rather good, but I don't know if it can go on to make money."
