Let’s pretend for a second that magazines matter anymore – just act like you’ve been warped back ten or twenty years and try to wrap your brain around how printed media is still relevant. Once you’ve achieved that level of cognitive dissonance with the world around you, consider the fact that Rolling Stone, a music magazine that used to be massively influential, is about to release a cover that (and I don’t think this is up for debate) glorifies the Boston marathon bomber, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, with a Dylan-esque, rock starrish, hazed and sepia toned photo.
The magazine argues that it did the same with Manson back in the sixties, and received equal levels of outrage then, but I’m not sure what the fuck they’re thinking using that defense because, by all accounts, Manson did turn into a bizarrely cultish figure, with legions of adoring fans that still wear his face on their t-shirts. Was that Rolling Stone’s fault? No, probably not, but having a full cover photo of him on one of the most influential magazines for counter culture at the time sure the fuck didn’t help.
Today, Rolling Stone has decided to make a pitiful attempt to be relevant by putting a despicable terrorist’s photo on their cover. Let’s not pussyfoot around this; they’re only doing this to start a controversy and try to get their name back into popular lexicon, because their star has long since faded and the magazine is a shell of what it once was. While I tend to enjoy many of the well-written articles (almost always severely liberally-biased) that can be found in the magazine, I just can’t sit back and accept this level of wanton debasement of my personal values. I won’t support this.
It’s true that many magazines choose to put despicable figures on their covers. Time, USA Today, and any number of other news-based magazines often times put murderers, despots, and terrorists on their covers. However, I hope the difference here is pretty evident. Rolling Stone covers have become synonymous with cultural idol-ism. To make the cover of Rolling Stone has always been a milestone for musicians and actors alike, proving their worth by the magazine’s decision to place them in grand fashion for the world to see. Rarely does Rolling Stone ever decide to stray from this, and when they do it is usually based on politicians or political cartoons. And now, the likes of Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, Nine Inch Nails, and Nirvana are joined by the disheveled visage of a man that murdered innocent people in an act of brutal terrorism.
The decision to put a terrorist on their cover, with a photoshop job usually reserved for pictures of poets or social leaders, just stinks of the worst sort of sensationalism (edit: A reader noted that this pic, if indeed altered, was not photoshopped by Rolling Stone but appeared elsewhere). And Rolling Stone, despite the time we’ve shared together, and despite those formative years I spent reading your magazine cover to cover, I’m never supporting you again. I’m not doing it as a condemnation of your morals, but rather as a confirmation of my own. You’ve lost a fan.
I urge anyone else out there that still pays heed to this magazine to give them the middle finger they deserve. Sink into obscurity, Rolling Stone. My cover to cover time with you is done.
