Reading Material of Choice
For 'Weird Little Nebishes'

'To open these magazines is to walk into a teenage boy's room: the air scented with dirty socks and the contents of wadded-up Kleenex; the walls decorated with pictures of swimsuit models and he-man athletes and sports cars; the desk barely visible under piles of video-game cartridges, action figures and forgotten junk food; and all of it colored by the boy's glee in knowing it exasperates Mom. In fact, that phantom mom (or equivalent mother figure) is just about the only palpable female presence in these magazines...What sort of man reads FHM? Apparently the sort who fetishizes his own head gear and hasn't charm or confidence enought to negotiate the tricky rituals of breakfast for two; the sort who gets a licentious thrill from not having to ask permission to stare at his TV all weekend. In short, a weird little nebish.'
--from Atlantic Monthly editor Jon Zobenica's piece in the current issue of the magazine, about the post-literate charms of "laddie" mags Maxim, Stuff and FHM.