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"those who pass a vetting process and pay a $1,500 annual fee plus $500 up front – will have the opportunity to publish original content to the Rolling Stone website. This allows members to position themselves as thought leaders and share their expertise”
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2021/jan/23/rolling-stone-magazine-culture-council-publication
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2021/jan/23/rolling-stone-magazine-culture-council-publication
[This is a grossly bold new step, but replacing paid writers with marketers looking for clout from a magazine's brand name is not new. Forbes, for example, long brought in unpaid, unedited writers. I'll break character here and tell you a story about that.]
[I'm @ryanestrada and I live in Busan, South Korea. Years back, I got an e-mail from a guy saying he was a Forbes contributor who was visiting Seoul. He was wondering if I could come up to speak with him.]
[This was a tough decision for my wife and I. There was no notice, trains were booked solid, and I'd have to take 2 days off work, 14 hours of travel, and spend a few hundred dollars on the trip... but I thought being interviewed in Forbes could be career-changing.]
[but I did it. I crossed the country and showed up at his hotel at the appointed time. I called up and he asked me to wait in the lobby because he was still sleepy.
2 1/2 hours later, he came down and said he was hungry and asked where he should eat.]
2 1/2 hours later, he came down and said he was hungry and asked where he should eat.]
[I explained that I was from the other side of the country and did not know the neighborhood, so he pointed out a fast food gimbap place across the street and asked me to follow him. We sat down and he started asking me neighborhood travel advice.]
[I did my best, but again, did not live there. I handed him a collection of my books that I had brought for him. He responded "Oh! You make comics!" I quickly realized this man had no idea who I was or what I did.]
[I tried to get clues about what was happening, and talk about what I did, but he kept wanting to talk abut his own trip so I figured we'd need to wait for the interview to begin. He had other things he wanted to talk about and started asking me about where to get a massage.]
[I reminded him again that I was not from here, but just explained the only thing I knew about it... if he wanted a real massage to avoid parlors with a double barber pole, which at that time was a secret code to imply it was a brothel.]
[boy oh boy did he have a lot of followup questions to that. I had to explain that I did not know where one was or how to find one or what happened there, it was just trivia I knew. The woman he had brought with him but never introduced me to was very uncomfortable, as was I.]
[After 15 minutes of intense, uncomfortable questioning about massage, he finished his food, and said it was time to head back to the hotel. I was ready for the interview to begin. "Meals on me, you came all this way" he said and paid for my two dollar gimbap.]
[I followed him across the street, ready to begin the interview and find out what was going on... and he stopped, shook my hand, and said goodbye.
Apparently the massage-talk WAS the interview. And he was done with me.]
Apparently the massage-talk WAS the interview. And he was done with me.]
[Before he went in, I asked how he had come to contact me. He'd looked up who had the most Google+ followers in Korea, and it was me. I asked if he was going to write about my work. He said next time I released something to let him know. I did. I never heard from him again.]
[I later learned that at that time Forbes' website had an unpaid writing program like this where businessmen could borrow the brand name and get the clout to being able to, say, scam a dude into emptying their bank account to spent two days of travel to give massage advice.]
[So scams like this can hurt artists EVEN IF you're not the one writing for them because the whole purpose is to weaponize the brand name to gain exposure as something you are not. The end.]
[We now return to regularly schedule creep-quoting. If you want more weird stories like this one, follow me at my main account @ryanestrada]
[An explanation because some were confused by what actually happened here] https://twitter.com/ryanestrada/status/1353165923507556359
