Three Magazines

Grabbed three magazines at a kiosk because I had an hour between things. NEON, BEEF!, ZEIT Campus. They’re apparently how you understand who you’re becoming.

NEON is what freshmen read. Bright, clever, talking about sex and friendship like they’re profound. The writers are never bad, which is the problem—it’s recycled the same stuff for a decade with different names. There’s a piece by Antonia Friemel about young guys so deep in pornography they’ve tanked actual relationships. I know people exactly like that. The whole magazine’s a confidence trick: makes you feel special for an hour, then you forget it.

BEEF! is pure meat worship. Steaks, burgers, potatoes fried in every way possible. The writing gets sexual about the excess, which I respect—no apology, just appetite. Raik Holst and Mike Hofstätter photographed spring potatoes with human names (Leyla, Annabelle, Cilena) served with squid and sardines and blood sausage. That actually changed something about how I think about food. Then they ruin it by copying tabloid style for a piece about eating dogs in China—sensationalism instead of reporting.

ZEIT Campus is what you read after NEON. More trustworthy, more institutional. Oskar Piegsa and Leonie Seiferth wrote something about admitting you don’t know what you can do, which felt like permission in a world where everyone’s faking confidence. But then there’s a 23-year-old student named Laura who paid a hypnotist a hundred euros for exam stress help. It didn’t work. Her conclusion: walking with music is better. Which sure, but also vodka, sex, and Nutella in that order would’ve been cheaper.

Each magazine sells you a different version of yourself that week. NEON through flattery, BEEF! through honesty, ZEIT Campus through permission to be confused. I’m not sure which one I actually believe, which is probably why all three keep getting published.