Mags I Love - O Magazine (it's about the big picture)

There is nothing democratic about publishing, and the editor’s blurb in a magazine can often sound like a political party line .... "as a reader of this magazine, you're concerned about this or that, you live this kind of life, doing these sorts of things, blah blah blah ... ".

By purchasing a mag you are, in effect, buying into the party. That’s why I don’t buy Field and Stream, and it’s precisely why I do support O Magazine …

In spite of the fact that Oprah's gay and lesbian fans greatly contributed to her success, you wouldn't know it by watching her television show. She is either completely unaware of this or just isn’t interested. I think it's this intentional distancing, this big step back, which fuels the unending “is she or isn’t she” gay rumour machine.

So, I’m not Oprah’s key demographic. Actually, I am not even in her top 5 target markets;

I’m not black; female; straight; any other non-white race; nor unmanageably troubled (struggling with; my weight or hair, chaotic debt, abuse or the result of, unhappy singledom)

I might possibly fit into an age demographic, the over 35s, but even that group is second-string to her headliners; the easily influenced, and influential 15 to 35 year old females.

Still, I have no immunity to Brand Oprah, nor do I want to.

Years ago a friend told me she wasn’t a big fan of Oprah because it felt too much like medicine. At the time I thought “who rejects medicine?” It took me years to realize the answer is someone healthy. This is why The Oprah Show is best watched, like most television, critically and sparingly. Tune in too much and she’s just preaching to the choir, attempting to heal the healthy. So how do you keep the attention of viewers who’re starting to wander?
Expand into another media, which is a game plan she’s repeated several times, and it all started with O Magazine.

Her name and face are on every cover, and she has the first and last words. Someone not aware of the entire Oprah universe might mistake this for ego or megalomania, but this is more than just vanity. Underlying the surface of rah-rah team spirit and custom place settings is a message of such magnitude that few publishers would have the courage to ask it of their readers, let along expect it.

Her message is, simply put, make yourself a better you. That's not a new concept but, in the case of Oprah, there are a couple of things that set her apart from, say, Nike or Jenny Craig, or church;

one - she actually expects you to do what she suggests;

and two - it's backed up with multimedia; daily TV program, a huge website, lecture tours, two magazines, books, DVDs, Harpo films, radio and now a television network. She’s created an incredibly far-reaching pulpit.

Like the namesake herself, O is big, glamorous, multi facetted; Pop Culture drizzled with pop psychology.

Much of the magazine's contents are off target for me (I don’t care that grey is the new black) but when Team Oprah hits a bull’s-eye, it’s so on-the-money that it compensates for all the misses. Largely the product of the advice she extols, she’s motivated to share the secrets of her success (this was particularly evident when not-yet-famous Phil McGraw saved her bacon in Texas during the big beef trial), and despite her carefully edited and coiffed persona, has somehow managed to remain grounded in reality. Earth to Celine Dion! And as with J. K .Rowling in to the UK, Oprah has the necessary pedigree to honestly speak of pulling yourself up by your bootstraps.

She continues her support of the book publishing industry with an entire section of the magazine devoted, each month, to books and reading; Books that made a difference and The Reading Room. My favourite column, which never disappoints, is Aha! Moment but, for the last few months, A million ways to save the Earth has been my flip-to section.

One mistake the magazine designers have made (possibly a trapping of being a part of a multimedia empire), is to lay it out like a website even though, of course, it can only function as a printed magazine. They’re created these bottom-page horizontal columns which, on a website, you could scroll down to read. Instead, I find myself moving the magazine higher and higher. It’s such a bother, I usually skip them. And since the publisher is Heart Corporation, you get saddled with the usual big corporate screw-ups, which we experienced while attemting to change our address.

So, I’m more of a supporter of the “party” than of the magazine specifically and I guess I read O Magazine more as a monthly progress report from the Oprah Foundation, with my eyes focused on the "bigger" good, than any one particular Samaritan event, and my subscription is a way of supporting her causes.

“What I know for Sure” is “Oprah’s Favourite Things” have financed positive changes in the world, and for that I’ll suffer through any amount of cheese.