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The downfall of National Geographic

jjpryor.substack.com

91–100 of 121 posts

Re: The downfall of National Geographic

#91

For National Geographic, I wonder if there is another dimension that isn’t talked about: Nudity For a significant portion of time, National Geographic was the only culturally acceptable and accessible place in the United States one could see photographs of nude women (and men). I would guess there were millions of boys across multiple generations in the United States who saw their fist photo of a nude woman in Nation…

Oh man, I remember my cousin telling me that his dad had nude NatGeos in his basement. :-)

Kids today would see more graphic stuff just by googling for their favorite cartoon character. :-O

Re: The downfall of National Geographic

#92
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm failing to see the political agenda in an article about Detroit that features pictures of people that may or may not have tattoos. Edit: I'm assuming this is the article and I still don't see the agenda here. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/taking-back-detroit/see-d...

Thanks for finding it. Style over substance. The people "rebuilding" the city aren't construction workers, they're cool kids with tattoos. The "See Detroit" article (which for whatever reason, Meet Detroit is redirected to as well) is even titled Tough, Cheap, and Real, Detroit Is Cool Again . As I replied to your sibling comment, cool means not Republican. And that's not to say it's not okay for a majority not Repub…

[flagged]

Re: The downfall of National Geographic

#94
post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The literal title of the article mentions coolness. This appears to be a form of projection, where you think you can internet bully me into liking an article about cool tattooed people by telling me it's an "internalized" problem. But I moved on from it. I canceled my subscription. I'll never give NG money, and you're just going to have to deal with that. Sorry. Maybe you can give them your money.

You're clearly more emotional about the subject than anyone else in this thread. For what it's worth, the "internalized" problem I was referring to was suggesting that National Geographic was some kind of propadanga that pushed "democrat = cool".

Yeah, some people take offense when a stranger attempts an unsolicited psychoanalysis over the internet.

Re: The downfall of National Geographic

#95
post #78

There are interspersed comment saying the downfall started when they went woke. There is also similar interspersed pushback saying this isn’t true. Here is an example, from 2016, which, regardless of your views, which does seem blatantly political. They put a 9 year old trans child on the cover. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2016/12/19/trans-...

It's appalling what the mother did to that kid on the cover. I think we'll look back on this in years to come and recognize this as child abuse. I feel really sad for him being gaslit and used as a political prop by a parent eager for fame.

Re: The downfall of National Geographic

#96

This isnt exclusive to NG. This phenomena exists for seemingly every IP. I'll give video games as an example because it seems so clear cut and many people experienced this cycle already. >A company starts out relatively small and is able to turn a profit or attract investment. They continue to be relatively unknown. >The company releases their first breakout hit (Halo, Morrowind or Oblivion, Zelda OOT). The employees…

Zelda's not the best example of this-- their mainline releases are fantastic as ever.

To me they are just examples for demonstration - not absolute fact.

Re: The downfall of National Geographic

#98
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It makes sense that often the old things have to die for the new things to truly take over the ecological niche. The real problem is when the old things die and nothing has really filled their niche. NG is a good example, I think.

> nothing has really filled their niche Traditional media has become replaced by Social media. A good Youtube Adventure film, such as a tour of a beach town or historic town, a safari documentary, or a foodie tour, scratches my adventure itch quite well-- along the same vein as a magazine article, yet a film feels more sensory-immersive.

> Traditional media has become replaced by Social media

But there is nothing that I've seen that fills the niche that NG filled at all. If you just want a shallow look at another place, then yes, there is plenty of that online. But that wasn't NG's thing.

It's not just NG. We have lost quite a lot of really valuable things, never to be replaced with anything comparable.

Re: The downfall of National Geographic

#99
post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> nothing has really filled their niche Traditional media has become replaced by Social media. A good Youtube Adventure film, such as a tour of a beach town or historic town, a safari documentary, or a foodie tour, scratches my adventure itch quite well-- along the same vein as a magazine article, yet a film feels more sensory-immersive.

> Traditional media has become replaced by Social media But there is nothing that I've seen that fills the niche that NG filled at all. If you just want a shallow look at another place, then yes, there is plenty of that online. But that wasn't NG's thing. It's not just NG. We have lost quite a lot of really valuable things, never to be replaced with anything comparable.

I'd argue that Vice News's website-news articles partially filled the void of NG, with their travel adventure content. It was basically the web-form of a magazine.

Re: The downfall of National Geographic

#100
post #74

Isn't this the same as "I'll listen to the song, why buy the album"? NatGeo was basically a middle-brow collection of interesting stuff. Not every article was interesting to you, maybe you like animals, maybe you liked maps, maybe you liked pictures of some tribe. You'd read the article that excited you and perhaps squeeze a bit of juice out of the rest of it. Nowadays I have HN. There's a whole bunch of stuff, I can…

Content creator, not aggregator. National Geographic generated the stories itself and provided some of the best photography obtainable in the history of the medium.

True but it was still a hodgepodge of interesting stuff. They funded different people to make various content so to the consumer you saw a bunch of varied articles and pictures.
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