BoSacks Speaks Out: First Loves, Lasting Lessons - A Romance in Print

Before the infinite scroll and the tyranny of the feed, before algorithms decided what we wanted before we did, there were magazines. Real ones. Paper. Ink. Passion. They didn’t stalk you across devices or track your keystrokes, they arrived invited and welcomed, wrapped in cellophane or paper and wonder, promising not dopamine but devotion.

You remember. We all have a first magazine love. My progression went something like this, Highlights for Children, first DC and then I graduated to Marvel Comic Books, Sports Illustrated and then perhaps Rolling Stone and GQ. For others, it was Sassy whispering truths in a language their parents didn’t speak. Or National Geographic, with its yellow-framed dispatches from a world far grander than any zip code could contain. I loved National Geographic and even as a youth understood the near perfection of its printing. Later in life when I was a Director of Manufacturing, I once had the dream of being the production person for Nat Geo and all the pursuit of printing excellence that would entail.

These weren’t just periodicals. They were passports. Portals. Permission slips to a larger world. They taught us that curiosity wasn’t a defect, it was a destination. They said: You’re not weird. You’re early.

The Ritual of Seduction

Magazines had foreplay down to a science. First the cover, aspirational and deliberately provocative. Then the scent, a heady cocktail of fresh ink and ambition. Then came the heft, the crackle of the spine, the slow, luxurious unfurling of what lay inside.

You didn’t just read a magazine. You consumed it, cover to classifieds, features to footnotes. You dissected the masthead like it was the Rosetta Stone. You circled subscription cards like a prospector finding gold. You learned not just from the articles, but from the ads, the layouts, the kerning. It was education disguised as entertainment, art masquerading as consumer good.

And for many of us, that’s all it took. One issue. One moment. One perfectly placed sentence, one wild photo spread, one act of editorial courage, and we were hooked. For life.

Print as Professor

Magazines were our first teachers in aesthetics and attitude. Mad taught us to question authority, one spitball at a time. Wired made the future feel like something you could touch. Playboy gave us interviews better than most universities. The Face turned youth culture into gallery-worthy expression. Highlights taught us virtue with a wink and a hidden picture.

These titles were training grounds, not just for readers, but for citizens of culture. They taught hierarchy, composition, and pacing. They taught that ideas could be stylish. That criticism could be cool. That design mattered. That attention was currency, and curation was a calling.

Democracy in Gloss

What made magazines revolutionary wasn’t just their content, it was their accessibility. For a few bucks, you could be initiated into a subculture. The kid grabbing Thrasher Magazine at the skate shop had the same intel as the dude in the corner office. The teen sneaking glances at Vogue learned the language of style as fluently as any fashion editor.

Magazines didn’t care where you went to school. They only cared that you cared. That you wanted in. That you were hungry. And in return, they fed us, monthly, obsessively, joyfully.

The Gateway Drug

For many of us, magazines weren’t just a habit, they were the gateway to everything that came after. Journalism. Advertising. Photography. Publishing. Design. Editing. The whole glorious mess of media. Magazines showed us that words could be stylish, subversive, and sacred all at once. That ideas could be made tactile. That culture could be crafted.

They proved that being a generalist didn’t mean being unfocused, it meant being curious. That taste wasn’t elitist; it was a skill. That passion wasn’t a hobby; it was a compass.

Ghosts in the Feed

Today, most of that magic has been flattened into pixels. Stories disappear in 24 hours. Feeds refresh endlessly. The algorithm doesn’t love you back. And yet, the memory remains. Those first loves haunt us, in the best way. They remind us of a slower kind of media, where intention beat immediacy, and permanence mattered more than virality.

But here’s the twist: print isn’t dead. It’s just grown more rare, and more radiant. Titles like Sassy, Interview, The Face, they’re coming back, some reborn, others reincarnated. Independent magazines are thriving in niches, proving what we've always known: that when everything is digital, real becomes revolutionary.

The Big Question

So let me ask you, what was your first magazine love? What title cracked your brain open and said, Welcome, we’ve been expecting you?

Was it a comic book that made you feel less alone? A fashion bible that taught you beauty had no single shape? A science mag that showed you the universe had corners you hadn’t imagined?

Don’t just remember it. Study it. Revisit it. Understand what it gave you, because in doing so, you’ll understand not just who you were, but who you became.

Why It Still Matters

In defending magazines, I’m not romanticizing the past, I’m defending the value of editorial discernment. Of human taste. Of care. We’re fighting for the idea that not everything should be frictionless, instant, and disposable. That some things are worth collecting, curating, and revisiting.

Print trained us for attention in a world that now punishes it. It taught us to seek, not just to skim. To think, not just react. And that education isn’t over.

Every time someone launches a new indie mag, subscribes to a zine, or dog-ears a page, they’re joining a lineage of lovers. Of lifers. Of people who believe that some things, beautiful things, meaningful things, shouldn’t be left to the mercy of the scroll.

The Last Word

Magazines seduced us early, and thank God they did. They taught us to care, to question, to dream. And now, it’s our turn to return the favor. To preserve them. Support them. Make them.

The presses may slow, but the passion doesn’t fade. Because once you’ve been loved by a magazine, you never quite settle for anything less