The Urban Playboy Comes Out to Play

With magazine sales lagging worldwide, British lad mags are turning upscale in an attempt to capture an increasingly elusive audience. Arena has defined what it calls the “urban playboy,” who is apparently a step above the horndogs of the 90′s, according to the Telegraph:

A decade ago, when the lads’ mag market was at its peak, the emphasis was on getting laid, getting drunk and getting away with it. Loaded, the downmarket title often cited as the lodestar for 1990s lad culture, was pitched at “men who ought to know better”. But that was in the days when its mix of bikini-clad women and tales of boorish behaviour was selling nearly four times as many copies as it does now.

Nowadays, by the looks of the current crop of men’s magazines like Esquire and GQ (which have always been a bit more upscale), and Arena and FHM (which are beginning to skew more aspirational), it’s the urban playboy who roams the streets of Britain’s cities, preferring style over sex, investment banks over strip clubs. Of course, next to clever articles about political maneuvering and the latest geek gadgets, you’ll still find suggestive photos of barely-legal actresses.

We wonder, by the way, if the urban playboy is much different than the metrosexual of two years ago. Perhaps a little richer, more gadget-crazed and politically-aware, but otherwise just as self-aggrandizing.

Telegraph: The lad vanishes as urban playboy rides into town