Lad magazines and infinite monkeys

I was in a magazine store the other day and found yet another “lad” magazine that’s recently been launched — Ramp. As is typical, there’s some icelandic blonde on the cover, but I didn’t recognize her. I flipped to the feature profile of her to discover that their cover profile was of … the woman who handed out the statues at the last Emmy Awards.

Clearly, there are now so many lunk mags out there now competing — Stuff, Gear, Maxim, FHM, Loaded — that they are facing an intriguing new problem: A worldwide shortage of celebrity babes. They’ve exhausted the B-list of starlets, and have long ago moved onto the C-, D-, E- and F-lists. At this rate the editors will wind up wandering the streets of L.A., randomly accosting women with the requisite T&A quotient, in a desperate attempt to find someone, anyone, to put on the cover.

According to a recent story about Ramp:

Every book will also contain a “Girls Of …” section, highlighting three to four beautiful women in a specific category. The launch issue premiered with “Ball Busters: The killer babes of pro paintball.”


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I'm Clive Thompson, the author of Smarter Than You Think: How Technology is Changing Our Minds for the Better (Penguin Press). You can order the book now at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Powells, Indiebound, or through your local bookstore! I'm also a contributing writer for the New York Times Magazine and a columnist for Wired magazine. Email is here or ping me via the antiquated form of AOL IM (pomeranian99).

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