Essay/Term paper: Mad magazine: its success

Essay, term paper, research paper:  Social Issues

MAD Magazine: Its Success


MAD Magazine is a counter culture publication that was founded in the
1960's by William M. Gaines. The magazine satirizes everything from popular
television and entertainment, to important political issues and government
leaders. Despite the fact that MAD contains no advertisements, it has flourished
for more than three decades and is still widely read today.
In today's media advertisement has become a necessary part of the
business, Ads fill the pages of newspapers, magazines, even comic books. In this
clip journal project, I am attempting to determine why MAD Magazine has survived
over the years without the aid of advertisement.
I have come up with three main factors that could explain MAD's success.
The first factor that has made Mad's survival over the years possible is
it's foundations. Its creation was during the sixties, when counter culture was
at its peak, a time when rebelling against "the system" and not "selling out"
were the ideals of popular culture. The fact that the magazine held within its
covers no advertisements catered to the ideal of not selling out, which drew a
faithful audience.
The second factor is tradition. As is true with most MAD readers of my
generation, My first encounter with the magazine was when I was a kid, going
through some old things of my father's in the attic. I came across an old issue
of MAD and became interested in it although I only understood a few of the
satires that it contained. It is a fact that most young people who read the
magazine have parents who have read or still read it.
The final factor is that MAD often contains lurid subject matter, which
attracts a lot of younger readers. This would attribute to it's current success,
along with a television show that was created for the FOX Network that was based
on MAD.
The success of MAD, I believe, makes it one of the most extraordinary
publications of today's media.