MISCmedia for 3/31/00
Demo Days

THERE'S A BOX somewhere near the lower-right corner of this page. Click it and you get invited to take a demographic survey about this site.

Actually, I already know more than a few things about the sorts of folks who read this site and its associated print magazine:

• Gender. Almost 100 percent of our readers are either male or female. A few claim to be both, at least spiritually. At least one reader isn't sure.

• Education. Our readers generally know how to read and write, and engage both skills several times per week. Most of them also know how to drive a car, play a CD, and operate a dishwashing machine. About a third of them can program a VCR. At least 20 percent can even name the current President.

• Age. All of our readers are living in the Age of Information; but many of them wish they were living in another age. Ten percent wish they were living in the late Renaissance; two percent in Edo Japan.

• Income. Over 85 percent claim they must work at a job in order to earn money, not being independendly wealthy. Of these, only two people report making "enough." Nevertheless, a goodly number are wealthy enough to own a Seattle house!

• Purchasing habits. Our readers acquire their physical possessions by purchasing them, with certain exceptions (bartering a Squirtle card for a Charmeleon card; accepting a free drink from that not-excessively-ugly guy at the end of the bar).

• Computers. Most of our online readers have 'em; print readers may or may not.

• Lifestyles. The vast majority of our readers wear clothes daily. Most of our male readers regularly shave; many also bathe. Our female readers consistently use feminine-care products (even those female readers who have political issues with society's definitions of "femininity").

• Entertainment. Seventy percent enjoy being entertained; the other are sour grumps who still get some enjoyment from sneering at other people's idea of entertainment. Fifty percent consider themselves to be entertaining, even if their exes used to call them crashing bores.

• Food and drink. Most readers report enjoying a wide variety of both; except for one who only consumes Red Bull Energy Drink and Cheez-Its.

• Travel. Various readers have been to such various exotic climes as Britain, France, Japan, Ivory Coast, Costa Rica, Quebec, Jamaica, Manhattan, Los Angeles, Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, New Orleans, Ashland, Ritzville, Moclips, and even Rochester. One female reader sighs that she has "been to Paradise, but I've never been to me."

MONDAY: The savior of daily newspapers?

ELSEWHERE:

• Turns out I'm not the only one who dreams of old Safeway stores....
• Relive those 8-bit days of yore with old Atari commercials (found by Pop Culture Junk Mail)....

RECENT HIGHLIGHTS:

• Yet another all-time cool place in transition.
• Shorts about new-wave karaoke and other topics.
• Even Los Angeles worries about losing its civic identity.
• Business without the B.S. would still be business.
• Identity politics, target marketing-- what's the difference?
• Where America no longer shops.
• Learning to appreciate the worst comic in the papers.
• When the Muzak's over.
• It's an "X-treme" world.
• An attempt to re-think progressive politics.
• A few of the many, many things I don't know.
• The channel formerly known as The Nashville Network.
• The singluar joys of single-artist Net radio.
• A magazine "celebrates" the global-marketing monoculture.

ARCHIVES:

• 2001, 2000, 1999, 1998, 1997, 1996, 1995, and 1986-94 columns
• Reviews of literature & art, monfiction & culture criticism, movies & videos, and music & noise
• Longer articles and essays
• The origin and future of MISCmedia