XY Magazine returns for now
I walked out to the mailbox today and was in shock when I opened it. I thought I was timewarped to the 1990’s when I was 16 years old and was at the bookstore and sneaked away from my family to look through the pages of a XY Magazine. Back then it was a great magazine that helped us deal with being gay and coming out. It also brought happiness to us by seeing the pics of the hotties and read stories about them instead of seeing the girls and girl talk you read in most teen magazines.
Although, It has been maybe a year or at least several months since I received an XY Magazine in the mail with a letter attached to it asking for a donation. I think I paid for a subscription to support the magazine as I do many gay magazines (advocate, OUT, Instinct, etc.). You can add Men’s Health, GQ, and Details to the list if you think those are gay.
The problem is that most gay teens in the year 2008 do not know about XY.com or XY Magazine. If you type in gay teen personals into Google you will get an AOL site that comes up first. Then if you type in gay teens in google you get Chadz Boys (chadzboys.com) which offers support and may be a good resource online. ChadzBoys is ranked 324,716 in Alexa above XY which is ranked 352,041.
XY Magazine used to be so popular that you could type in the keyword “XY” or “Gay Teen” and get it to come up in AOL. You know the old software version of AOL that used to bog down your computers that is all but extinct now (just like most magazines and newspapers).
The XY site online says in the title it has been around since 1996 and that is not true. This magazine has been around longer than the AOL Keyword days and we know that was way before 1992. I would just drop the been around since from the title of the site because the youth could care less how long something has been around. They want something that is around now… not a fallen hero.
The fact that About.com (owned by the New York Times), Wikipedia.org, and Student.com own the results in Google for the term “gay teen” that is very sad. It is sad because these are mostly corporate owned companies and not owned by the gay community. Wikipedia is an exception but it should be on page two or so on this term since its a freaking encyclopedia and is NOT a resource for gay teens who are searching for help or comfort online.
The website over at XY.com ask most to be a member before stepping inside then you go inside for non-members and barely see five articles. I mean what kind of resource is this. As for personals, this site is not too bad and its free but cannot compare to myspace or facebook where you get to know quite a bit about anyone before meeting them.
You have to give XY Magazine props because they were able to get themselves seen in bookstores at a time of gays not being accepted. Especially with covers you would see on girl’s teen magazines but aimed at boys and that is just something that does not happen much. So I give credit to Peter Ian Cummings for a job well done back in the day. I just think here in 2008 that XY.com and Gay.com have both lost their ways and lost their focus.
I have been an investor in Planet Out which owns Gay.com and Out Magazine. Jim Cramer a year or two ago talked about Planet Out stock and said they need to make their content free. Well they sort of did but their site is so hard to navigate that it would not even matter. They also set up some blogs and you would think they would be making more money now but I cannot even tell you what their stock price is… my investment was lost from what I can tell or their ticker was changed – I will have to look into that more!
Gay.com should have made chat easier and personals free. Gay.com is not a niche site it is a very popular site that should all be free with advertisements. They could have incorporated the ads on the chat with a better, improved chat but nothing has been improved on that site in several years. I was in Paris and no one was using Gay.com chat they were all using Manhunt and GayRomeo.com.
So those of you asking What Happened to XY Magazine? or Why isn’t anyone on Gay.com personals anymore. It is because the gays youth have went over to the corporate-owned sites such as About.com and Myspace. If you want them then re-invent yourself. Take notes from Madonna bitches because she knows how to reinvent herself!
UPDATE: I have to give XY Magazine credit for their article on gay teen killing in Iraq. These kids were 14 years old and killed so cruely and I am so glad that XY Magazine brought this to light. Iraq and Iran are killing off the most beautiful souls that exist in that tragedy of a place.
I don’t remember XY but I did meet my first girlfriend on gay.com, and a couple of years ago I thought I’d look at the personals and found that they require membership now. How ridiculous, indeed! Most of the lesbians I know use Okcupid now, which is good in that you can choose a sexuality and keep men from showing up in searches if you prefer, but it’s still a general site. Frustrating.
I agree! All XY has done for the past decade is complain about their problems and ask for money and donations. I had not suscribed for more than 5 years, and all of a sudden I had a magazine from XY and a note asking me to donate. Yuck! And the only worthwhile part were 5 photos of the attractive cover model. Otherwise- just a waste of paper and my time. Inside was just full of rambling “poor me, and give me $”. NOOOOOOO TIME!!!!
haha i have no i dea butt like i have alwayz known i was gay like seriously umm likei hate fucking mi mom cuz we use all the peanut butter twat up lolz yummy but now i know 4 sure im gay i love guys i amd not a gay virgin im happily to say im not a virgin and i lo st it to mi gay boi and mi mommy love u guyz but mi mommy is yucky so i fuck man now uhhhhhhhhh i just love them skronyu mascular dicks uhh uhhh u8hhh babu come closer hell ya fuck harder nd harder
“XY” was a beacon of hope to me when I first started college. Having come out to myself my senior year of high school and making an escape to Santa Barbara to go to college, I thought I’d be starting life anew. And while it was exciting to be there, there weren’t nearly as many out gay people as I’d hoped.
You cannot deride it for its irregular circulation when it has been plagued with advertising difficulties due to its alleged “illicit” nature. As the editor once pointed out, you would see the same types of shirtless or playfully suggestive photos in a teen mag like “TigerBeat”, but because this one is for young, gay men, it automatically makes anyone who reads it a chickenhawk.
Can you see how skewed this perspective is?
I am amazed and happy that “XY” has made it to 2008. It was and is the only magazine of its kind, which says a lot about gay media outlets, but also about the times. As life becomes more about being online and the internet has been a lifeline for many isolated gay teens, it would make sense to see “XY” or something like it progress to an online magazine/resource.
Props to Peter Ian Cummings for making it this far through some much stress and strife.
xy magazine gave me an outlet and helped me become who i am (a proud fierce drag queen) and a advocate for troubled gay teens, i remember reading the very first issue of xy,i was 15 at the time. ahhh the memories lol.but i cant see paying almost 10 bucks for a magazine anymore since there are other outlets
Well – I got a copy for the first time on a college break trip to California and loved it. Came back to the UK and immediately subscribed and ordered a full set of back issues (at the end of 2006), having e-mailed to check there was no problem shipping to the UK. Payment duly taken from my credit card – then nothing. Feb 2007 I used the enquiry form to say “where’s the stuff” and got a short note back saying “we are having some problems with the back issues, but they are on the way”. Send another query in April 2007 – no reply – same in July.
To date nothing has ever arrived, and I stopped getting responses from them in April 2007.
$700 down the drain! Well – I’ve done my bit for keeping them going.
Not an experience to inspire faith and confidence.
No back issues – and no magazine ever arrived
XY is a great magazine however most teens find it extremely hard to go out and buy a hard copy of the magazine (as its akward and can be really expensive) this then just means that teens can access only the magazine that are online and then most teens are cbf to read all that. But on that note there is a really cool website called http://www.spreemagazine.com which has fantastic design, is completely free and uses videos and interactive elements to get their message across and really entertain you! Its the best gay teen magazine on the net.
I read Gay Teen’s comment and found it to be SO true. I started a website 15 years ago that dealt with EVERYTHING including gay teens and the hits I had on the teen page were double of the adult section. The page was SO popular that it was accepted into GayEurope.com and soon gay people from all over the world were coming to visit, which ticked off the local hierarchy and soon I was arrested and the site died as I went through all sorts of trials and tortures in jail as if it was Nazi Germany.
I went to see if gaymonterey.com was still available but some straight corporations had taken it over but they left one open and my goal is to resurrect the website since I now live 1000 miles away from that place and make it bigger and better than ever. The great thing was that even though it was a local website it attracted emails from all over the world from teens who were frustrated and suicidal and I would be up almost every night until the sun came up answering and helping people and convincing them that suicide was NOT the answer. I LOVED that job and it was so rewarding when I found out that I had saved 8 people from suicide. The local district attorney just exclaimed “Why would you SAVE them when they are going to have a life of misery and torture and eventually be murdered anyway!” Is that SICK or what?
My website above is all about 2012 and Ascension. Quite the different tack but I REALLY want to bring back gaymonterey. That would ROCK~!
Peace y’all,
I AM
Dartagnon (AskTheDragon.org)
What a shame…xy magazine helped me through so many rough times when i was 16. Im now 27 years old and high school is long over with but to know that xy is having trouble printing up issues makes me pretty sad. Ian Cummings always had something good to say and at that time in my life it was really all i had to feel free about who i was. XY THE NEW GENERATION NEEDS YOU.
MATTHEW
FUK xy magazine, i ordered an issue about 3 years ago, never recieved it even after many many e-mails asking for my magazine or my MONEY, neither, shame on xy, and i’m glad it failed, you don’t BURN your customers
well my experience has been like many others not so hot but it was fun to get the hot guys even though the mag wasnt run smoothly enough. I think the problem was it was just peter Ian cummings and he didnt have the man power to keep up with supply and demend and yeah a lot of customers were burned