Libertiste

(Thanks to Jezebel for the image of the O cover, and for drawing my attention to this month’s issue in general.)

So, on to why I let my O subscription run out.

For me the final straw came a few months ago with a cover line that said, “What’s your love type? Don’t say another word to him until you take this quiz!” The first half of that is fine. The second is not. It’s not only bossy and obnoxious, but tremendously condescending — I can’t even be trusted  to have a conversation with my own husband/significant other without O there to prevent me from Doing it Wrong and Ruining Everything? I don’t want to read a magazine that thinks I’m that big of an idiot, thanks.

What that cover line did for me was solidify and confirm something I had suspected for a long time: that the whole Oprah Brand’s most prominent M.O. is to knock you down, then build you back up.

But who said I wanted — or needed — to be knocked down?

Three of O’s cover lines this month are that brand of obnoxious, which makes me wonder if there’s a new tactic afoot in their editorial board meetings: “No, trust the reader less! Instill more fear!”

The most direct comparison is “O’s New Sex Column: Don’t go to bed without it!” Wow — not only do you have no idea how to talk to your mate; you can’t make love to him, either. That thing he says he likes? Maybe he doesn’t really! And now that we’ve instilled that seed of doubt, only we can remove it. So just stop all those things you’ve been doing with confidence and flair — whatever they are, we’re pretty sure you’re doing them wrong.

Next we have another follower of the “Perfectly fine statement/ Assertion of your wrongness” format. “What Your Hair Says About You: And how to change the message.” The first part of that interests me in a casual, slightly prurient, pick-it-up-in-the-checkout-line kind of way. But the assumption that I’ll need to change whatever “message” my hair is “sending” instantly turns me off. Jeeze — can’t you just tell me whatever my stupid hair-message is and then leave it up to me if it’s wrong or not?

The third one is the worst, though. “Could a Man Drive You Crazy? What really made Astronaut Lisa Nowak snap.” Here the Oprah brand takes the celebrated “This awful thing could so happen to you!” concept and stretches it until it snaps. Could a man drive me crazy? Hmm, maybe if I was already crazy. Otherwise, I don’t think I have too much to worry about. Did O have a cover that read, “Will YOU drown your kids?” after Andrea Yates? (The more I look at that, the more possible it sounds.)  If you’re going to assert that your readers are just one bad day away from truly whacked-out, criminal behavior, you’d better have some damn compelling evidence. Otherwise, you’re just insulting them.

Is it too much to ask for a women’s magazine that doesn’t think I need to be scraped up off the floor? One that simply says, “You’re already pretty great, but here are some interesting things you might want to know about.” (Actually, BUST is a lot like that, which is why it’s the one magazine I still subscribe to.) There are, in fact, some valuable articles within the pages of O, but I’ll never get past the cover if it keeps delivering put-downs like these.

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