
A couple weeks after Maxim announced that its first woman editor-in-chief Kate Lanphear was leaving, WWD reports that Lanphear is being replaced by Glenn OâBrien, who is a man.
OâBrienâs title will be editor-at-large, not editor-in-chief, which was apparently his call: âI canât take that kind of pressure.â
OâBrien also called menâs magazines âmore juvenile now,â though what ânowâ is being compared to is unclear. Perhaps he means when you look at the glory days of the â60s and â70s, when Playboy wasnât struggling for readers and still had naked women in it. But if thatâs his argument, it seems somewhat weak; Maximâs competitors GQ and Esquire are publishing some of their best work in ages, and Lanphearâs hiring (from T magazine) was seen as a clear move to class up the magazine to compete with them.
What OâBrienâs likely less-than-subtly referring to is the news he recently made headlines for: in August, he dramatically parted ways with GQ when they replaced him as their âStyle Guyâ with Mark Anthony Green, after 15 years writing that column, which he also started.
â...I find the notion that this is a ârebrandingâ of the Style Guy offensive,â he told Four Pins, later suggesting that the magazine cut him to save money. âI created the Style Guy, not GQ. It existed before I went to GQ. It had a long run in Details. I published a book under that title. Itâs not something that existed before. Itâs not like âmanaging editorâ or âfilm criticâ Their proprietary attitude toward what Iâve done is not only insulting, but really unoriginal. They could have at least called their replacement the âStyle Intern.ââ He went on:
To have had a brilliant success for fifteen years with something I created and then to try to make it appear like suddenly I wasnât modern enough or they needed to go younger is completely dishonest. In fact it is entirely about going cheaper. Look at the top contributors over the last several years. Look at the editors theyâve lost. Theyâre all gone. Blame it on poor editorial judgment, or corporate mismanagement, or the failure to transition to digital, or the ridiculous moves of their television division, but donât blame me. I would have been happy to just go quietly away from such a vulgar operation, but I am offended at being made a scapegoat for their spectacular incompetence. Gentlemen? I donât think so.
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Despite his concern about the sad state of affairs at GQ, OâBrien doesnât appear to be particularly concerned about increasing readership for Maxim, even given Lanphearâs short tenure there. As WWD notes:
When asked about Lanphearâs quick exit and the pressure the editor had on her shoulders to remake the magazine, OâBrien offered: âI donât think thereâs a gun to my head in terms of getting results.â
Contact the author at dries@jezebel.com.
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