All you need to be a magazine editor these days is a fancy phone and data

Once, about three previous lives ago, I was the editor of FHM, a consumer magazine aimed at men. Gender politics have certainly moved on since then, but a few former readers still have fond memories of our publication.

From time to time, I am asked whether we might ever relaunch the magazine. To this, my reply is an unequivocal, “No bru. We had an awesome time, but those days are gone.”

There are many reasons why we could never recapture and revive those halcyon days. Foremost among them is that today, every one of us is already managing a magazine on our phones.

That is how far media has come in the 10 years since we were putting together a monthly compendium of “sexy, funny, useful and relevant” content, as our editorial mix would have it in those days. 

Back then, data was heinously expensive, smartphones had limited effectiveness, and social media was still in its infancy. 

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The simple fact of these limitations meant it was not practical to try to access a lot of content on your device, be it a phone, a laptop, or even a high-powered desktop computer. Remember those?

So if you wanted to see footage of a man streaking through Randburg, read a blow-by-blow tale of a cross-country rally and boozing fiesta, get workout tips, and then perhaps peruse some tastefully posed glamour shots of a young Bonang Matheba… then the print version of FHM magazine was the place for you.

FHM had the content network to put this together, as well as the printing and distribution resources to get this mag to stockists across the country. We also functioned as talent scouts, constantly casting aspiring models, then running photo shoots of the most sexy and dynamic young ladies for our readers. 

I was recently asked to list some of the models we had photographed, and even a decade later, it reads like a who’s who of contemporary celebrity: Bonang Matheba, Boity, Lerato Kganyago, Khanyi Mbau, DJ Zinhle and a host of other future stars had some of their early exposure in our mag. 

Sales got up into the 150 000s at one stage, so we were able to offer significant market exposure for ambitious prospective celebs. 

In later days, as the women we photographed began to build social-media followings that rivalled our own, we would ironically refer to some of them as “media moguls”, with – good grief – 250 000 followers on Twitter!

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Now such statements are shorn of irony. The follower counts of local celebrities – now called influencers – are up in the millions, and the best of them are indeed controllers of significant media businesses. 

They charge tens of thousands of rands for a single post. Product endorsements on their IG accounts can cost hundreds of thousands. They are able to materially affect brand fortunes, and even sway popular opinion on the issues of the day.

They produce sexy personal glamour shoots all of their own, which rival and surpass anything we were able to produce at FHM. 

On the audience side, thanks to the advances of modern technology, each of us is now able to curate our own content streams. “Theoretically”, we could follow hundreds of celebrity glamour models and influencers on IG. 

We could season this with clips of parkour or pranks, or workout vids, or skateboarding wipe-outs; we could even follow Jungle Joe – the account of former Springbok Joe van Niekerk, now training like a beast and living in a jungle in Costa Rica. 

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In most cases, this content will come straight from the creators. Media is becoming completely disintermediated. There is no magazine, content provider or brand platform gathering it, curating it and packaging it for the consumer. 

The curator is you. 

The creator is Boity! Now proud overlord of an Instagram account with … lemme check quick … 4,9 million followers! 

So if you fondly miss FHM – or any media platform that you once slavishly followed – you may find that you have already created a facsimile of your fave media on your social media. Check your account! That is the content you signed up for. Literally!

Today, thanks to smaller data prices and bigger phones, we all get to be magazine editors!

If you are among the vast majority of readers who used to read FHM “for the stories” and the compelling writing, feel free to follow me on Twitter @hagenengler.

I’m writing just as much ridiculous nonsense as I always did.