The haves and the have nuts

It might not be the biggest publishing phenomenon in Britain but Nuts magazine could well be the most significant from a sociological perspective. If you’ve not heard of it, the magazine was launched a little over two years ago and has a circulation of 300,000 copies every week. Not much admittedly but quite a lot for a weekly men’s magazine. But what’s really interesting about Nuts is that if magazines liked Loaded and FHM defined the interests, attitudes and sensibilities of New Lad culture in the nineties, Nuts has its finger on the pulse of the typical British bloke in the noughties. For one thing the title is totally enthusiastic and does nothing to make its readers anxious or insecure. It also steers well clear of anything that could be regarded as an opinion that could offend anyone. However the real genius of the magazine is very simple: it doesn’t put too many words on a page. Does this make Nuts a dumbed down read? Well yes, but that hardly matters. There’s a kind of fraternity in stupidity these days and the magazine has also found another formula that works ­ do what the successful tabloid newspapers do but get rid of the boring news.