In my July 9 post, I covered an Economist piece that outlined how Americans are becoming more accepting of gay people, and how, as a result, more gays and lesbians are leaving the cities to settle into the suburbs and exburbs.
The Economist raised the question of whether gay life was therefore becoming boring. My conclusion: not boring, but different from the typical experience of gay city life.
In my view, the difference results from the mixing together of the two cultures – new and old. Each side adapts. I’d like to think that gays and lesbians embrace the slower pace, the farmer’s markets, the bake sales, while the sub- and exurbanites welcome the cosmopolitan influences – the cafes, flower stalls, art galleries and boutique shops.
In time, the two cultures knit together into one community. And this provides opportunities – for media and advertisers – to serve a new kind of LGBT culture that is growing, as we speak, outside of the big cities around the U.S.
InsideOut is a bi-monthly LGBT publication that does an outstanding j
ob of serving the LGBT community in the context of the suburban and exurban experience. Launched in March 2004 in New York’s Hudson Valley, the publication is thriving. We caught up with the staff of InsideOut to get their perspective.
Jon Garbo: We often hear of LGBT publications existing — and thriving — in a big-city setting. What approach did you take to launch your magazine in the suburbs and exburbs of New York, and what steps did you take to ensure that it would be a success? Some would say that launching an LGBT magazine in a rural rather than urban environment is a risky proposition.
InsideOut: One of the first things we did was present a high quality, intelligent publication that would break down stereotypes and build community. It needed to be intelligent, well-designed and with a variety of editorial subjects that would appeal to the LGBTQ community and allies. It also needed to be different. That difference ended up being our square format. It shows that we are thinking outside the box.
Jon Garbo: Who do you consider to be your main competition? Other LGBT publications, whether print or online? Would you consider any mainstream publications to be your competition, e.g. ones that focus on interior design, antiques, or progressive politics?
InsideOut: There aren’t any other publications in the area that speak to the LGBTQ community as directly as we do. So in terms of that particular market, we have an edge. We also aren’t the typical bar publication that we so often see, so our LGBTQ competition was practically non-existent. That’s of course because we are a regional publication, and focus on the Hudson Valley, so while national LGBTQ publications like Out or the Advocate would be considered competitive reads, they aren’t for us. We have a different niche, despite much of the same audience.
As for mainstream competition, InsideOut has grown over the years to represent voices that are, and should be, collaborative. We started out as an exclusive magazine, but we’ve evolved naturally beyond that to a magazine that’s broader, but that hasn’t left its past behind. This is not a segregated magazine; we don’t look at the world like that. The only people we exclude are the people who think that way. The thing that’s working for us is that we’re combining a regional magazine with an attitude that is engaging and attractive to gay people and progressive thinkers alike, and it’s a big group, and it’s growing. We’re keeping our old readers and getting new ones. And our advertisers are growing. In that sense, you could say we have mainstream competition from other local publications like Chronogram or Berkshire Living, but none of them is doing quite what we’re doing. We’re part of a new paradigm for the way people live.
Jon Garbo: In what ways would you say the readership of a big-city LGBT publication is different from your readership?
InsideOut: We don’t think the readers are any different. We don’t look at it that way. The world is spread over geographical areas, whether that’s a city block or a specific geographic region. There isn’t a big difference between city and country views any more. In the world of broadband, the difference between city consciousness and city news and country consciousness and country news has changed dramatically. We couldn’t put out the magazine we put out today even five years ago.
Tune in tomorrow for Part 2 of our interview with InsideOut.
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