Unaccelerated culture

Radar, the NYC-based magazine following in the footprints of defunct publications like Spy, Sassy and Talk, had its funding cut off this week due to waning advertiser interest. The decision of Radar’s second investor – in its three years and five issues of existence – to back out of the concept has generated enough media industry chatter that a new source of money may well be imminent. But while the stakes are higher, and the concept is glossier, it may parallel the sorry saga of Toronto periodical Shift – which went through three corporate benefactors, culminating in a disastrous expansion stateside, before getting salvaged by a local publisher that had no qualms about putting the mag out of its misery. This was reported as unfortunate because an entire generation – the one that was branded as "X" – supposedly had all of its hopes embedded in the egos of the Shift editorial staff. Radar was launched (and relaunched) on the basis that people currently orbiting their 30s craved a counterpoint to Vanity Fair, but perhaps meta-ridicule of celebrity obsession isn’t much of a growth industry, in the same way a monthly fixated on dot-com hucksters would’ve tanked five years ago. So, what does that say about the cultural sensibilities nurtured during the 1990s? Looking back in terms of Toronto, it was a place that young locals yearned to escape from, rather than attempt to settle into, making an already harsh climate seem even more brutal. Things are transforming, but there’s still an entire chunk of the GTA population whose age group is most prominently represented in the federal election by Belinda Stronach – someone completely oblivious to the cynicism that steered her peers. Maybe there’s no sustainable market for the Generation X worldview, after all. Could it be that future attempts at perpetuating ’90s nostalgia will be shunned by the demographic it’s geared to? Well, they said that about the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s, right?