Pass the tote bag: Why young readers are now willing to pay for old-guard news
Nearly every day during the routine clatter and bustle of her subway commute earlier this year, Shand Thomas began to notice more of her fellow riders shouldering The New Yorker magazine’s beige and black-emblazoned tote.
Then she began to see people walking around with the literary magazine’s shoulder bag – a promotion offered only to subscribers. And when a number of her friends began to complain that it would take six to eight weeks to get their hands on one of these canvas accessories, she knew it was a thing.
“I thought their frustration at the wait for a free bag was funny,” says Ms. Thomas, a 24-year-old freelance writer and editor in Brooklyn. So she wrote a piece of satire gently poking fun at this unlikely New York fashion trend.
Behind her wit, however, her piece hinted at something more than an ironic canvas cachet. As her 20-something friends were clamoring for what she called “the white whale of beige accessories,” they were also signing up for new subscriptions
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