WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.299 Welcome back to the Deep Dive. We are doing something 00:00:02.299 --> 00:00:04.179 a little different today because we are looking 00:00:04.179 --> 00:00:08.660 at a brand that is arguably one of the most confusing 00:00:08.660 --> 00:00:11.720 paradoxical entities in American history. Absolutely. 00:00:11.900 --> 00:00:13.880 I mean, you can walk into a mall in Dubai and 00:00:13.880 --> 00:00:16.140 buy a T -shirt with this logo on it. You can. 00:00:16.399 --> 00:00:18.719 You can see it painted on the tail of a U .S. 00:00:18.719 --> 00:00:21.820 Navy aircraft. It's everywhere. It is. It's a 00:00:21.820 --> 00:00:23.699 symbol that represents, you know, the sexual 00:00:23.699 --> 00:00:26.239 revolution, the girl next door, and this whole 00:00:26.239 --> 00:00:31.190 idea of... democratizing nudity and yet and this 00:00:31.190 --> 00:00:33.030 is the crazy part when you look at the source 00:00:33.030 --> 00:00:36.329 material we have today this same entity is responsible 00:00:36.329 --> 00:00:39.570 for serializing ray bradbury's fahrenheit 451 00:00:39.570 --> 00:00:42.789 which is just wild it published vladimir nabokov 00:00:42.789 --> 00:00:45.070 margaret atwood kurt vonnegut i mean the list 00:00:45.070 --> 00:00:47.369 is staggering it was the platform where a future 00:00:47.369 --> 00:00:49.850 u .s president admitted to having lust in his 00:00:49.850 --> 00:00:51.969 heart and where martin luther king jr gave one 00:00:51.969 --> 00:00:54.390 of the longest most in -depth interviews of his 00:00:54.390 --> 00:00:57.770 entire career So we are talking, obviously, about 00:00:57.770 --> 00:00:59.750 Playboy. But I want to be clear right off the 00:00:59.750 --> 00:01:02.570 bat. This isn't a retrospective on, you know, 00:01:02.570 --> 00:01:04.409 the glory days of the mansion. Hello, not at 00:01:04.409 --> 00:01:06.569 all. The sources we've pulled together paint 00:01:06.569 --> 00:01:09.549 a much, much grittier picture. We're going to 00:01:09.549 --> 00:01:11.409 look at how a kitchen table startup became a 00:01:11.409 --> 00:01:15.090 global empire, for sure. But we also really need 00:01:15.090 --> 00:01:18.090 to unpack the serious literary weight it carried, 00:01:18.230 --> 00:01:20.829 the very dark realities for the women who worked 00:01:20.829 --> 00:01:23.650 there, and the absolute nosedive the business 00:01:23.650 --> 00:01:26.670 took in the digital age. It's a fascinating case 00:01:26.670 --> 00:01:29.469 study because it sits right on this cultural 00:01:29.469 --> 00:01:32.409 fault line. The magazine sold fantasy leisure, 00:01:32.670 --> 00:01:35.170 sophistication, sexual freedom. The good life. 00:01:35.349 --> 00:01:38.349 Exactly. But the reality behind the scenes was 00:01:38.349 --> 00:01:41.329 often a grind of litigation, corporate maneuvering, 00:01:41.329 --> 00:01:44.090 and a constant struggle to keep up with the very 00:01:44.090 --> 00:01:46.459 revolution it helped start. You know, it's the 00:01:46.459 --> 00:01:48.959 business story that interests me the most, honestly. 00:01:49.299 --> 00:01:51.019 Because when you think of Playboy, you think 00:01:51.019 --> 00:01:53.579 of the mansion, the grotto, the silk pajamas. 00:01:53.859 --> 00:01:56.180 The whole Hefner persona. You think of Hugh Hefner 00:01:56.180 --> 00:01:59.079 as this titan of industry. But looking at the 00:01:59.079 --> 00:02:02.540 origin documents, the start was incredibly scrappy. 00:02:02.599 --> 00:02:04.700 It wasn't some media mogul launching an empire. 00:02:04.920 --> 00:02:07.510 This was a guy who was flat broke. It was so 00:02:07.510 --> 00:02:09.810 precarious. I mean, if you look at Hefner's resume 00:02:09.810 --> 00:02:12.490 in 1949, he's a psychology graduate from the 00:02:12.490 --> 00:02:14.969 University of Illinois. Okay. And he's kind of 00:02:14.969 --> 00:02:17.050 drifting a bit. He ends up working in Chicago 00:02:17.050 --> 00:02:20.030 as a copywriter for Esquire, which was, you know, 00:02:20.050 --> 00:02:22.469 the premier men's magazine at the time. Great, 00:02:22.490 --> 00:02:24.909 the gold standard. But the job that really gave 00:02:24.909 --> 00:02:27.590 him the toolkit for Playboy is the one that always 00:02:27.590 --> 00:02:30.550 makes people laugh. You're talking about children's 00:02:30.550 --> 00:02:33.090 activities. I am. I looked this up because I 00:02:33.090 --> 00:02:35.960 genuinely didn't believe it at first. The founder 00:02:35.960 --> 00:02:38.979 of the world's most famous erotic magazine cut 00:02:38.979 --> 00:02:42.259 his teeth working in circulation for a children's 00:02:42.259 --> 00:02:44.460 magazine. It sounds like a joke, but it actually 00:02:44.460 --> 00:02:47.199 makes perfect sense. It does, right. That's where 00:02:47.199 --> 00:02:48.840 he learned the mechanics of the subscription 00:02:48.840 --> 00:02:51.400 model. Precisely. He wasn't there for the content. 00:02:51.479 --> 00:02:53.460 He was there learning the direct mail business. 00:02:53.659 --> 00:02:55.860 He figured out how to get people to subscribe 00:02:55.860 --> 00:02:58.919 and, more importantly, how to get them to renew. 00:02:59.219 --> 00:03:02.620 So he took the business logic of this wholesome 00:03:02.620 --> 00:03:06.560 children's publication. And just applied it to 00:03:06.560 --> 00:03:09.500 the adult market. Completely. And by the spring 00:03:09.500 --> 00:03:12.379 of 1953, he had the whole concept mapped out. 00:03:12.460 --> 00:03:15.199 But here's the first major hurdle that almost 00:03:15.199 --> 00:03:17.620 killed the company before it even started. The 00:03:17.620 --> 00:03:20.979 name. The name. Right. In the early drafts, it 00:03:20.979 --> 00:03:23.199 wasn't Playboy. He was completely obsessed with 00:03:23.199 --> 00:03:26.979 calling it Stag Party. He was. He had even formed 00:03:26.979 --> 00:03:30.020 the corporation as HMH Publishing and was like. 00:03:30.280 --> 00:03:32.740 Ready to go to print with Stag Party. What happened? 00:03:32.939 --> 00:03:35.419 Well, there was an existing men's adventure magazine 00:03:35.419 --> 00:03:38.400 called Simply Stag. Uh -oh. And it was published 00:03:38.400 --> 00:03:40.960 by a guy named Martin Goodman who, and this is 00:03:40.960 --> 00:03:43.379 a great fun fact, was also the publisher behind 00:03:43.379 --> 00:03:46.300 what would eventually become Marvel Comics. No 00:03:46.300 --> 00:03:48.280 way. So you have the future Marvel guy threatening 00:03:48.280 --> 00:03:50.759 to sue the future Playboy guy. Basically, yeah. 00:03:51.020 --> 00:03:53.379 Yeah. Goodman's lawyers sent a cease and desist 00:03:53.379 --> 00:03:55.740 letter saying, essentially, if you use the word 00:03:55.740 --> 00:03:58.300 stag, we will sue you into oblivion for trademark 00:03:58.300 --> 00:04:00.780 infringement. And Hefner couldn't fight that. 00:04:00.879 --> 00:04:04.360 No chance. In the 1950s, trademark law for publication 00:04:04.360 --> 00:04:06.939 titles was getting really strict. He knew he 00:04:06.939 --> 00:04:08.780 couldn't win a legal battle against a funded 00:04:08.780 --> 00:04:11.960 publisher. He had zero money for lawyers. So 00:04:11.960 --> 00:04:14.110 he has to pivot. And this is where the story 00:04:14.110 --> 00:04:16.790 gets almost cinematic. He gathers his inner circle, 00:04:16.910 --> 00:04:19.430 his wife Millie, and his friend Ilden Sellers. 00:04:19.430 --> 00:04:21.110 Right, and they just start throwing names at 00:04:21.110 --> 00:04:23.670 the wall. I saw the list of rejected names in 00:04:23.670 --> 00:04:26.350 the notes, and they are. They're very telling. 00:04:26.350 --> 00:04:28.649 They're fantastic cultural artifacts, aren't 00:04:28.649 --> 00:04:30.779 they? They're considered top hat. Which feels 00:04:30.779 --> 00:04:34.519 very Fred Astaire. A bit dated, even for 1953. 00:04:35.079 --> 00:04:37.319 Very old -fashioned. Then there was Gentleman. 00:04:37.500 --> 00:04:40.279 Which is just boring. So boring. Then they got 00:04:40.279 --> 00:04:43.779 weird with Sater and Pan. Sater is a bold choice. 00:04:44.000 --> 00:04:46.259 I mean, naming your magazine after a mythological 00:04:46.259 --> 00:04:49.019 half -goat creature known for drunken debauchery, 00:04:49.160 --> 00:04:51.439 it's a little on the nose, isn't it? A little 00:04:51.439 --> 00:04:54.079 bit. It was too intellectual, maybe. Too focused 00:04:54.079 --> 00:04:57.019 on just the sexual appetite without any of the 00:04:57.019 --> 00:04:59.040 sophistication they were going for. They wanted 00:04:59.040 --> 00:05:01.240 something that... It implied, you know, urbanity. 00:05:01.360 --> 00:05:03.360 So who came up with Playboy? It was actually 00:05:03.360 --> 00:05:06.000 Eldon Sellers. There was a defunct automobile 00:05:06.000 --> 00:05:08.899 company called the Playboy Motor Car Corporation. 00:05:09.519 --> 00:05:11.899 And Sellers' mother had actually worked for them 00:05:11.899 --> 00:05:14.060 for a short time. He just liked the ring of it. 00:05:14.180 --> 00:05:17.079 It's amazing how much that one word changed the 00:05:17.079 --> 00:05:20.649 lexicon. Because before that, a playboy was kind 00:05:20.649 --> 00:05:22.730 of a derogatory term, wasn't it? Oh, totally. 00:05:22.829 --> 00:05:25.069 It meant a rich wastrel, someone who just inherited 00:05:25.069 --> 00:05:27.290 money and didn't work. Good for nothing. Exactly. 00:05:27.370 --> 00:05:30.470 It was a slur for idle rich men. And what Hefner 00:05:30.470 --> 00:05:34.209 did, which was genius, was he reappropriated 00:05:34.209 --> 00:05:37.410 it. He turned the playboy into an aspirational 00:05:37.410 --> 00:05:39.850 figure. A man who worked hard but played harder. 00:05:40.050 --> 00:05:42.769 Right. A man who appreciated jazz and good wine 00:05:42.769 --> 00:05:45.889 and, of course, women. He turned a negative term 00:05:45.889 --> 00:05:48.449 into an entire lifestyle brand. But to build 00:05:48.449 --> 00:05:51.009 that brand, he needed capital. And this is the 00:05:51.009 --> 00:05:52.889 part of the story that just blows my mind every 00:05:52.889 --> 00:05:56.009 single time I read it. The financing. There was 00:05:56.009 --> 00:05:58.680 no venture capital. No bank loan. Nothing. He 00:05:58.680 --> 00:06:01.240 scraped together just over $8 ,000. That was 00:06:01.240 --> 00:06:03.779 it. He sold his furniture. He borrowed from everyone 00:06:03.779 --> 00:06:06.100 he knew. But the most significant chunk of that 00:06:06.100 --> 00:06:09.240 money, $1 ,000, came from his mother. His mother. 00:06:09.300 --> 00:06:12.959 A woman of that era, presumably a somewhat conservative 00:06:12.959 --> 00:06:17.040 Midwestern woman. Handing her son $1 ,000, which 00:06:17.040 --> 00:06:19.939 is about $11 ,000 in today's money, to start 00:06:19.939 --> 00:06:22.370 a girly magazine. The irony is just incredible. 00:06:22.629 --> 00:06:25.069 But Hefner always said his mother didn't believe 00:06:25.069 --> 00:06:28.149 in the magazine. She believed in him. Wow. It 00:06:28.149 --> 00:06:31.129 was a maternal investment in his potential, not 00:06:31.129 --> 00:06:34.769 the product. But that money, that thousand bucks, 00:06:35.029 --> 00:06:39.089 allowed him to print the very first issue, December 00:06:39.089 --> 00:06:42.709 1953. Produced on his kitchen table in Hyde Park, 00:06:42.810 --> 00:06:46.199 Chicago. Literally. on the kitchen table. And 00:06:46.199 --> 00:06:48.540 the most famous detail about that first issue, 00:06:48.639 --> 00:06:50.540 the thing everyone knows, is that it doesn't 00:06:50.540 --> 00:06:52.639 have a day on the cover. That's right. It just 00:06:52.639 --> 00:06:55.939 says Vol 1, no one, no December. And that's because 00:06:55.939 --> 00:06:58.279 Hefner was genuinely terrified there wouldn't 00:06:58.279 --> 00:07:00.740 be a second issue. He was hedging his bets. Completely. 00:07:00.879 --> 00:07:03.139 He wanted to be able to keep it on the newsstands 00:07:03.139 --> 00:07:05.300 in January or February if it didn't sell out 00:07:05.300 --> 00:07:07.939 right away. He needed it to be evergreen because 00:07:07.939 --> 00:07:10.160 he was operating on such a razor -thin margin. 00:07:10.459 --> 00:07:12.300 But it didn't sit on the shelves. It flew off 00:07:12.300 --> 00:07:15.319 them. Yeah. And we have to address the elephant 00:07:15.319 --> 00:07:17.639 in the room, or I guess the blonde in the room. 00:07:17.699 --> 00:07:19.800 The reason it sold wasn't the graphic design. 00:07:20.000 --> 00:07:22.500 No. It was Marilyn Monroe. It was Marilyn. But 00:07:22.500 --> 00:07:25.480 the backstory of that centerfold is a real lesson 00:07:25.480 --> 00:07:27.720 in the economics of exploitation. Because this 00:07:27.720 --> 00:07:30.459 wasn't a Playboy photo shoot. Not at all. Hefner 00:07:30.459 --> 00:07:33.459 couldn't afford to hire Marilyn Monroe. By 53, 00:07:33.720 --> 00:07:36.399 she was already a huge star. So how did he get 00:07:36.399 --> 00:07:39.170 the photo? He bought the rights to a calendar 00:07:39.170 --> 00:07:41.410 image. It was a nude study she had done years 00:07:41.410 --> 00:07:43.629 earlier when she was a struggling actress named 00:07:43.629 --> 00:07:46.910 Norma Jean, posed on some red velvet. So he just 00:07:46.910 --> 00:07:49.550 bought it from a third party. He paid a calendar 00:07:49.550 --> 00:07:52.589 company about $500 for the rights to publish 00:07:52.589 --> 00:07:55.089 it. And Marilyn, how much did she get from this? 00:07:55.209 --> 00:07:58.560 From Playboy, zero. Nothing. From the original 00:07:58.560 --> 00:08:01.379 photo session years before, she'd been paid about 00:08:01.379 --> 00:08:04.680 $50. $50. So you have the launch of this multi 00:08:04.680 --> 00:08:07.139 -million dollar empire built squarely on the 00:08:07.139 --> 00:08:09.579 back of a woman's image for which she received 00:08:09.579 --> 00:08:12.620 effectively nothing. It established a dynamic 00:08:12.620 --> 00:08:14.759 that would really haunt the brand for decades. 00:08:14.980 --> 00:08:17.819 Which is what? Immense profit derived from female 00:08:17.819 --> 00:08:20.500 bodies, often with the women themselves seeing 00:08:20.500 --> 00:08:23.019 just a tiny fraction of the value they created. 00:08:23.279 --> 00:08:26.339 Despite the questionable ethics of it, the business 00:08:26.339 --> 00:08:31.720 tactic worked. The first issue sold 53 ,991 copies. 00:08:32.000 --> 00:08:35.059 For a kitchen table startup, that is a grand 00:08:35.059 --> 00:08:38.120 slam home run. An absolute sensation. It was. 00:08:38.200 --> 00:08:40.990 And it proved the concept. There was a massive 00:08:40.990 --> 00:08:43.730 market for a magazine that combined erotica with 00:08:43.730 --> 00:08:46.409 a respectable package. But now that he had an 00:08:46.409 --> 00:08:49.289 audience, he needed the logo. He needed something 00:08:49.289 --> 00:08:51.590 to stick on the cover that said, this is us. 00:08:51.830 --> 00:08:54.309 Enter the rabbit. The rabbit. I've always found 00:08:54.309 --> 00:08:56.590 the choice of a rabbit so interesting because, 00:08:56.690 --> 00:08:59.029 okay, sure, breeding like rabbits, we get the 00:08:59.029 --> 00:09:01.009 joke. Right, the obvious part. But Hefner had 00:09:01.009 --> 00:09:04.009 a much more specific. almost philosophical reason 00:09:04.009 --> 00:09:06.210 for choosing it, didn't he? He did. He gave this 00:09:06.210 --> 00:09:08.870 very telling interview to the Italian journalist 00:09:08.870 --> 00:09:12.409 Oriana Falaci, where he completely deconstructed 00:09:12.409 --> 00:09:14.690 the rabbit. He said he chose it for the humorous 00:09:14.690 --> 00:09:16.990 sexual connotation, obviously. Of course. He 00:09:16.990 --> 00:09:20.230 described rabbits as fresh, shy, vivacious jumping. 00:09:20.350 --> 00:09:22.889 But the key was what he was contrasting it against. 00:09:23.090 --> 00:09:25.730 Right. He was positioning it against the femme 00:09:25.730 --> 00:09:28.899 fatale. Right. That was so popular in the noir 00:09:28.899 --> 00:09:32.059 films of the 40s. Exactly. Hefner apparently 00:09:32.059 --> 00:09:35.320 hated the femme fatale, the mysterious, dangerous 00:09:35.320 --> 00:09:38.440 woman in lace and garters. He called that look 00:09:38.440 --> 00:09:41.519 mentally filthy. Wow. OK. He wanted the playboy 00:09:41.519 --> 00:09:44.340 woman to be the girl next door. He said she should 00:09:44.340 --> 00:09:47.679 be naked, washed with soap and water and happy. 00:09:47.779 --> 00:09:51.399 Which is a very sanitized. very suburban view 00:09:51.399 --> 00:09:54.360 of sexuality it is it completely domesticated 00:09:54.360 --> 00:09:56.779 sex it took it out of the shadowy brothel or 00:09:56.779 --> 00:09:58.600 the dark alley and put it right in your living 00:09:58.600 --> 00:10:01.559 room and the rabbit which was designed by art 00:10:01.559 --> 00:10:04.419 paul captured that perfectly it was playful not 00:10:04.419 --> 00:10:06.980 predatory and art paul sketched that logo in 00:10:06.980 --> 00:10:09.460 minutes by the way i heard that It was meant 00:10:09.460 --> 00:10:11.779 to be a throwaway end note for the second issue, 00:10:11.940 --> 00:10:13.799 but they realized pretty quickly it had this 00:10:13.799 --> 00:10:16.519 incredible graphic power. It's one of the few 00:10:16.519 --> 00:10:19.159 logos in the world that is recognizable just 00:10:19.159 --> 00:10:21.440 by its silhouette. You don't even need the letters. 00:10:21.659 --> 00:10:24.460 For sure. And speaking of the logo, we have to 00:10:24.460 --> 00:10:26.679 debunk a myth that I heard constantly in high 00:10:26.679 --> 00:10:29.039 school. The stars. Oh, the stars on the cover. 00:10:29.179 --> 00:10:32.059 Yes. Everyone knew that the number of stars on 00:10:32.059 --> 00:10:35.220 the letter P on the cover rated the centerfold. 00:10:35.360 --> 00:10:38.139 Or the more leered version. was how many times 00:10:38.139 --> 00:10:40.820 Hefner had slept with her. Like, five stars meant 00:10:40.820 --> 00:10:43.399 he really liked her. That is the ultimate urban 00:10:43.399 --> 00:10:47.240 legend. And it really speaks to how much men 00:10:47.240 --> 00:10:49.659 wanted to believe they had some inside track 00:10:49.659 --> 00:10:51.960 on Hefner's private life. So what was the reality? 00:10:52.259 --> 00:10:55.960 The reality is remarkably boring. The stars, 00:10:56.139 --> 00:11:00.100 which appeared from about 1955 to 1979, were 00:11:00.100 --> 00:11:03.059 purely for distribution logistics. No way. Yeah, 00:11:03.139 --> 00:11:06.159 they just indicated... Which advertising region 00:11:06.159 --> 00:11:08.299 the magazine was for domestic, international, 00:11:08.779 --> 00:11:11.279 military, things like that. It was a code for 00:11:11.279 --> 00:11:14.360 the guys driving the delivery trucks, not a rating 00:11:14.360 --> 00:11:16.259 system for the women. That's amazing. We create 00:11:16.259 --> 00:11:19.440 these huge misologies around brands. And the 00:11:19.440 --> 00:11:22.840 truth is just paperwork. It usually is. But let's 00:11:22.840 --> 00:11:24.100 pivot now to the other side of the magazine. 00:11:24.220 --> 00:11:26.539 The whole I read it for the articles joke. Because 00:11:26.539 --> 00:11:28.620 when you look at the source material, there is 00:11:28.620 --> 00:11:31.799 a massive list of literary heavyweights. This 00:11:31.799 --> 00:11:33.860 wasn't just filler content between the pictorials. 00:11:33.860 --> 00:11:35.919 No, and this was Hefner's strategy from the very 00:11:35.919 --> 00:11:38.139 beginning to avoid censorship. If he wrapped 00:11:38.139 --> 00:11:40.399 the nudity in high art, he could argue in court 00:11:40.399 --> 00:11:43.019 that the magazine had redeeming social value. 00:11:43.240 --> 00:11:46.039 A legal shield. But the quality of the work went 00:11:46.039 --> 00:11:49.870 so far beyond what was legally necessary. I mean, 00:11:49.889 --> 00:11:52.370 in 1954, just the second year of publication, 00:11:52.769 --> 00:11:56.450 they serialized Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451. 00:11:56.649 --> 00:12:00.029 Which is just so incredibly ironic. Oh, so. You 00:12:00.029 --> 00:12:01.789 have a story about burning books and the suppression 00:12:01.789 --> 00:12:04.710 of ideas running in a magazine that was constantly 00:12:04.710 --> 00:12:07.029 being banned and hidden under mattresses. The 00:12:07.029 --> 00:12:09.950 irony was likely very intentional. Bradbury was 00:12:09.950 --> 00:12:12.730 a legitimate sci -fi icon at the time. But just 00:12:12.730 --> 00:12:14.649 look at the rest of the roster. It's insane. 00:12:14.830 --> 00:12:18.330 Vladimir Nabokov, Margaret Atwood, Saul Bellow. 00:12:18.830 --> 00:12:22.809 Kurt Vonnegut, Haruki Murakami, Roald Dahl. These 00:12:22.809 --> 00:12:24.950 are Nobel Prize winners and literary giants. 00:12:25.750 --> 00:12:28.090 Why were they publishing in Playboy? Two reasons. 00:12:28.389 --> 00:12:30.710 One, the pay was the best in the industry. They 00:12:30.710 --> 00:12:32.970 paid double, sometimes triple, what The Atlantic 00:12:32.970 --> 00:12:35.090 or The New Yorker paid. Money talks. It does. 00:12:35.250 --> 00:12:37.830 And two, Playboy didn't edit them heavily. It 00:12:37.830 --> 00:12:40.029 gave them an incredible amount of creative freedom. 00:12:40.090 --> 00:12:41.690 They could write what they wanted to write. And 00:12:41.690 --> 00:12:43.429 then you have the interviews. The Playboy interview 00:12:43.429 --> 00:12:46.820 became its own genre. It did. It was long -form 00:12:46.820 --> 00:12:49.899 journalism at its absolute best. You have Alex 00:12:49.899 --> 00:12:52.620 Haley, the author of Roots, interviewing Martin 00:12:52.620 --> 00:12:56.019 Luther King Jr. in 1965. That interview is still 00:12:56.019 --> 00:12:59.200 cited by historians today. Because King had the 00:12:59.200 --> 00:13:01.580 space, you know, thousands of words, to really 00:13:01.580 --> 00:13:04.460 expound on his philosophy of nonviolence in a 00:13:04.460 --> 00:13:07.000 way that television soundbites just didn't allow. 00:13:07.320 --> 00:13:09.039 But they also accorded a lot of controversy. 00:13:09.259 --> 00:13:11.000 I mean, Haley also interviewed George Lincoln 00:13:11.000 --> 00:13:13.120 Rockwell. the head of the American Nazi Party. 00:13:13.220 --> 00:13:15.419 And that was a terrifying interview. But the 00:13:15.419 --> 00:13:17.759 editorial stance was that sunlight is the best 00:13:17.759 --> 00:13:20.539 disinfectant. They let him speak so people could 00:13:20.539 --> 00:13:23.179 see the hatred clearly for what it was. I want 00:13:23.179 --> 00:13:25.259 to talk about the Jimmy Carter interview in 1976 00:13:25.259 --> 00:13:27.340 because I think it's hard for modern listeners 00:13:27.340 --> 00:13:30.240 to understand how huge of a deal this was. It 00:13:30.240 --> 00:13:32.720 was seismic. Just completely seismic. You have 00:13:32.720 --> 00:13:35.379 Jimmy Carter, a peanut farmer from Georgia, running 00:13:35.379 --> 00:13:37.820 as a devout, born -again Christian. The moral 00:13:37.820 --> 00:13:40.580 majority is rallying behind him. Exactly. And 00:13:40.580 --> 00:13:42.759 then he sits down with Playboy, which to that 00:13:42.759 --> 00:13:45.460 same voting glock was the absolute symbol of 00:13:45.460 --> 00:13:48.220 moral decay. And he drops the famous line. The 00:13:48.220 --> 00:13:51.299 line that almost cost him the election. I've 00:13:51.299 --> 00:13:54.139 committed adultery in my heart many times. He 00:13:54.139 --> 00:13:55.840 was trying to explain a theological concept, 00:13:55.940 --> 00:13:57.860 right? He was trying to explain the Christian 00:13:57.860 --> 00:14:00.759 concept of sin, that the thought is as bad as 00:14:00.759 --> 00:14:03.539 the action. But the media just ran with Carter 00:14:03.539 --> 00:14:06.419 admits to adultery. Wow. It showed the immense 00:14:06.419 --> 00:14:09.740 cultural power Playboy held at the time. A presidential 00:14:09.740 --> 00:14:12.340 candidate felt he had to talk to that demographic 00:14:12.340 --> 00:14:14.740 to win. And then there's the John Lennon interview. 00:14:14.940 --> 00:14:17.720 Yeah. This one. This one gives me chills. It 00:14:17.720 --> 00:14:20.139 is a haunting artifact. It was conducted with 00:14:20.139 --> 00:14:23.120 John and Yoko, this really long, in -depth conversation. 00:14:23.519 --> 00:14:27.299 It hit newsstands in January 1981. Right. But 00:14:27.299 --> 00:14:29.980 John was murdered on December 8th, 1980, so the 00:14:29.980 --> 00:14:32.399 magazine hits the stands just weeks after his 00:14:32.399 --> 00:14:33.980 death. So people are reading his words after 00:14:33.980 --> 00:14:36.039 he's gone. And in the interview, he's talking 00:14:36.039 --> 00:14:38.340 about the future, about being a father, about 00:14:38.340 --> 00:14:40.580 his plans for new music. It became this accidental 00:14:40.580 --> 00:14:43.639 last will and testament. It really does cement 00:14:43.639 --> 00:14:46.460 the idea that... Playboy was, for better or worse, 00:14:46.600 --> 00:14:50.039 documenting the culture in real time. But, and 00:14:50.039 --> 00:14:52.159 this is a really big but, we cannot talk about 00:14:52.159 --> 00:14:53.620 this brand without looking at the dark side. 00:14:53.759 --> 00:14:56.179 Not at all. Because while Hefner was in his office 00:14:56.179 --> 00:14:58.419 writing about the playboy philosophy of freedom 00:14:58.419 --> 00:15:01.679 and civil rights, the actual machinery of the 00:15:01.679 --> 00:15:04.179 company was grinding people up. This is where 00:15:04.179 --> 00:15:06.659 the deep dive has to get uncomfortable. We have 00:15:06.659 --> 00:15:08.360 to look at the lived experience of the women. 00:15:08.440 --> 00:15:11.639 The fantasy was fun and freedom. The reality 00:15:11.639 --> 00:15:14.779 was often control and exploitation. And the person 00:15:14.779 --> 00:15:17.940 who blew the lid off this first. was Gloria Steinem. 00:15:18.000 --> 00:15:22.320 In 1963, A Bunny's Tale. It's an incredible piece 00:15:22.320 --> 00:15:25.539 of journalism. Yes. Steinem went undercover as 00:15:25.539 --> 00:15:28.159 Marie Catherine Ox at the New York Playboy Club. 00:15:28.379 --> 00:15:31.200 And her diary from that time is just brutal. 00:15:31.299 --> 00:15:34.259 It completely dismantles the glamour. She details 00:15:34.259 --> 00:15:37.059 the bunny Bible. The rule book. The book every 00:15:37.059 --> 00:15:39.159 bunny had to memorize. What kind of rules are 00:15:39.159 --> 00:15:40.779 we talking about here? It's not just be polite, 00:15:40.960 --> 00:15:43.679 I assume. Oh, no. It was this intense, strict 00:15:43.679 --> 00:15:46.600 policing of their bodies. There were mandatory 00:15:46.600 --> 00:15:48.620 weigh -ins. If you gained a few pounds, you could 00:15:48.620 --> 00:15:51.139 be suspended without pay. Seriously. There were 00:15:51.139 --> 00:15:53.419 rules about hair, makeup, fingernails that required 00:15:53.419 --> 00:15:56.159 hours of unpaid labor every day just to maintain. 00:15:56.460 --> 00:15:58.980 And then there was the demerit system. Demerits? 00:15:58.980 --> 00:16:01.460 Like in grade school? Worse, because these demerits 00:16:01.460 --> 00:16:04.139 cost you money. You could be fined for a messy 00:16:04.139 --> 00:16:07.480 locker, for... failing to smile, or for having 00:16:07.480 --> 00:16:10.320 scruffy shoes. So they're docking your pay for 00:16:10.320 --> 00:16:13.039 not smiling enough. Right. And Steinem calculated 00:16:13.039 --> 00:16:15.700 that after buying the required accessories, the 00:16:15.700 --> 00:16:18.059 multiple pairs of tights, the special shoes, 00:16:18.320 --> 00:16:21.419 and paying for upkeep and fines, many bunnies 00:16:21.419 --> 00:16:23.960 were making less than minimum wage. And the interactions 00:16:23.960 --> 00:16:26.460 with customers. That wasn't exactly safe either. 00:16:26.700 --> 00:16:30.090 No. Steinem described this culture of constant, 00:16:30.210 --> 00:16:33.070 low -grade sexual harassment. Customers touching 00:16:33.070 --> 00:16:35.750 their tails, which were attached to very sensitive 00:16:35.750 --> 00:16:37.929 parts of their bodies. Making lewd comments, 00:16:38.169 --> 00:16:40.710 heavy breathing. All of it. And while the club 00:16:40.710 --> 00:16:42.710 had an official look -but -don't -touch rule, 00:16:42.990 --> 00:16:45.110 Steinem noted that the management didn't always 00:16:45.110 --> 00:16:47.610 back the women up, especially if the customer 00:16:47.610 --> 00:16:50.610 was a keyholder, a VIP member. She also noted 00:16:50.610 --> 00:16:52.919 a racial element. which is so important because 00:16:52.919 --> 00:16:55.820 Playboy prided itself on supporting civil rights. 00:16:56.019 --> 00:16:58.019 That's the core contradiction again, isn't it? 00:16:58.059 --> 00:17:00.580 Hefner supported civil rights publicly, wrote 00:17:00.580 --> 00:17:03.139 checks to civil rights organizations. But in 00:17:03.139 --> 00:17:06.079 the clubs? In the clubs, Steinem noted that black 00:17:06.079 --> 00:17:08.579 bunnies were often referred to as chocolate bunnies 00:17:08.579 --> 00:17:11.279 and were frequently relegated to less visible 00:17:11.279 --> 00:17:14.559 or lower tipping sections of the club. The progressive 00:17:14.559 --> 00:17:16.720 philosophy didn't always trickle down to the 00:17:16.720 --> 00:17:19.230 hiring practices on the floor. So that was the 00:17:19.230 --> 00:17:21.609 clubs. Yeah. A very controlled, exploitative 00:17:21.609 --> 00:17:24.089 environment. But then there is the mansion, the 00:17:24.089 --> 00:17:27.029 Playboy Mansion West in Los Angeles. The lore 00:17:27.029 --> 00:17:29.910 is that it was this paradise on Earth. Fantasyland. 00:17:30.130 --> 00:17:32.369 But we have accounts here, specifically from 00:17:32.369 --> 00:17:35.109 Jennifer Saganor, that paint it as an absolute 00:17:35.109 --> 00:17:38.710 nightmare. Jennifer Saganor's story is just devastating. 00:17:38.849 --> 00:17:41.369 She wrote a book called Playground, a childhood 00:17:41.369 --> 00:17:44.809 lost inside the Playboy Mansion. How did she 00:17:44.809 --> 00:17:47.730 end up living there? Her father was Mark Saganor, 00:17:47.829 --> 00:17:50.549 who was known as Dr. Feelgood. He was Hefner's 00:17:50.549 --> 00:17:52.589 personal physician and one of his best friends. 00:17:52.650 --> 00:17:54.990 So Jennifer literally grew up at the mansion. 00:17:55.190 --> 00:17:57.509 A child living in an adult theme park. And that 00:17:57.509 --> 00:18:00.430 is the absolute core of her trauma. She describes 00:18:00.430 --> 00:18:03.930 being exposed to overt adult sexuality way before 00:18:03.930 --> 00:18:06.710 she had the cognitive or emotional tools to process 00:18:06.710 --> 00:18:09.730 it. There's one specific incident she recounts 00:18:09.730 --> 00:18:12.750 that I think just summarizes the horror of her 00:18:12.750 --> 00:18:15.329 situation. The tunnel. Yeah. She was six years 00:18:15.329 --> 00:18:17.569 old. She found a secret tunnel on the grounds. 00:18:17.769 --> 00:18:20.849 A tunnel that connected the main house to the 00:18:20.849 --> 00:18:23.309 grotto area. And she crawled through it. She 00:18:23.309 --> 00:18:26.569 did. And she ended up at a window looking directly 00:18:26.569 --> 00:18:30.490 into a jacuzzi. And at six years old, she witnessed 00:18:30.490 --> 00:18:33.329 the comedian John Belushi engaging in sex acts. 00:18:33.529 --> 00:18:36.329 Oh, God. She wrote in her book, I am no longer 00:18:36.329 --> 00:18:38.990 six. I have grown to full maturity in a matter 00:18:38.990 --> 00:18:41.930 of seconds. It just shows the total absolute 00:18:41.930 --> 00:18:44.569 lack of boundaries. The mansion was designed 00:18:44.569 --> 00:18:47.069 for the pleasure of adult men with zero regard 00:18:47.069 --> 00:18:49.150 for the collateral damage to the people living 00:18:49.150 --> 00:18:50.990 in the margins. And it wasn't just the children 00:18:50.990 --> 00:18:53.210 in the margins. The girlfriends, the women who 00:18:53.210 --> 00:18:55.509 were ostensibly the queens of this castle, have 00:18:55.509 --> 00:18:59.519 spoken out too. Sandra Theodore, who dated Hefner 00:18:59.519 --> 00:19:01.819 in the late 70s. Sandra Theodore's allegations 00:19:01.819 --> 00:19:04.460 in the Secrets of Playboy documentary are incredibly 00:19:04.460 --> 00:19:07.059 serious. She describes a dynamic of coercive 00:19:07.059 --> 00:19:08.740 control. What does that mean in this context? 00:19:09.079 --> 00:19:11.940 She alleges that the group sex sessions, which 00:19:11.940 --> 00:19:14.480 were presented to the public as these fun parties, 00:19:14.819 --> 00:19:16.980 were actually mandatory for the girlfriends. 00:19:17.259 --> 00:19:19.619 If you didn't participate, you were out. You'd 00:19:19.619 --> 00:19:21.359 lose your place in the house, your allowance, 00:19:21.539 --> 00:19:23.460 everything. And she also brought up the drugs. 00:19:24.039 --> 00:19:26.579 That is the most legally significant allegation. 00:19:26.599 --> 00:19:30.119 She claims she was used as a drug mule. She says 00:19:30.119 --> 00:19:32.660 Hefner would send her to pick up cocaine because 00:19:32.660 --> 00:19:34.779 she was young and looked innocent so the police 00:19:34.779 --> 00:19:37.440 wouldn't suspect her. Now, to be fair to the 00:19:37.440 --> 00:19:40.660 journalistic record, Playboy and some of Hefner's 00:19:40.660 --> 00:19:43.140 defenders have pushed back hard on this. They 00:19:43.140 --> 00:19:45.319 have. They point out that Theodore stayed friends 00:19:45.319 --> 00:19:48.460 with Hefner for decades and even took money from 00:19:48.460 --> 00:19:50.900 him later in life to pay for a divorce lawyer. 00:19:51.099 --> 00:19:54.220 Which is true. But as many experts on abuse will 00:19:54.220 --> 00:19:56.720 tell you that is a very common dynamic in abusive 00:19:56.720 --> 00:19:59.200 relationships. Financial dependence and trauma 00:19:59.200 --> 00:20:01.640 bonding can keep people connected to their abusers 00:20:01.640 --> 00:20:04.740 long after the relationship ends. It doesn't 00:20:04.740 --> 00:20:07.119 necessarily invalidate her testimony about what 00:20:07.119 --> 00:20:09.559 happened behind closed doors. It just really 00:20:09.559 --> 00:20:12.160 complicates the entire legacy. You can't just 00:20:12.160 --> 00:20:14.200 look at the shiny logo and the literary awards 00:20:14.200 --> 00:20:16.099 and ignore the machinery underneath. You have 00:20:16.099 --> 00:20:19.119 to hold both realities at once. Speaking of machinery 00:20:19.119 --> 00:20:22.509 though we need to take a weird detour into technology. 00:20:22.970 --> 00:20:26.250 Because there is a very strange direct connection 00:20:26.250 --> 00:20:29.490 between Playboy and the reason we can all see 00:20:29.490 --> 00:20:32.190 images on the internet today. The Lena. This 00:20:32.190 --> 00:20:34.269 is a staple of computer science history. It's 00:20:34.269 --> 00:20:37.230 a famous story. So who is Lena? Lena Soderbergh. 00:20:37.230 --> 00:20:41.289 She was the Miss November 1972 centerfold. And 00:20:41.289 --> 00:20:44.269 in the summer of 1973, researchers at the University 00:20:44.269 --> 00:20:46.809 of Southern California were working on image 00:20:46.809 --> 00:20:49.329 compression. So basically trying to figure out 00:20:49.329 --> 00:20:52.089 how to turn a photo into digital data efficiently. 00:20:52.410 --> 00:20:54.970 Exactly. This is the research that eventually 00:20:54.970 --> 00:20:58.109 led to the JPEG standard we all use today. And 00:20:58.109 --> 00:21:00.089 they just happened to have a Playboy lying around 00:21:00.089 --> 00:21:02.910 the lab. They did. They needed a high -quality, 00:21:02.990 --> 00:21:06.130 glossy image to scan for their tests. One of 00:21:06.130 --> 00:21:08.390 them ran out to his car, grabbed his copy, and 00:21:08.390 --> 00:21:10.349 they tore off the top third of the centerfold. 00:21:10.529 --> 00:21:13.369 So it's just her face, shoulder, and hat. Right. 00:21:13.549 --> 00:21:16.390 And they fed it into the scanner. But why did 00:21:16.390 --> 00:21:19.769 that specific image become the standard? Was 00:21:19.769 --> 00:21:21.549 it just, you know, a bunch of engineers being 00:21:21.549 --> 00:21:23.849 boys? That was probably part of it for sure. 00:21:24.029 --> 00:21:26.509 But technically, the image was perfect for what 00:21:26.509 --> 00:21:29.109 they needed. It had a great mix of details. You 00:21:29.109 --> 00:21:32.190 had the flat, out of focus background, the sharp 00:21:32.190 --> 00:21:35.009 lines of the hat, and then the really complex 00:21:35.009 --> 00:21:37.869 texture of human skin and hair. So it covered 00:21:37.869 --> 00:21:39.670 a wide range of frequencies. Exactly. It was 00:21:39.670 --> 00:21:42.289 the perfect image to stress test a compression 00:21:42.289 --> 00:21:45.500 algorithm. The thinking was, if you could make 00:21:45.500 --> 00:21:47.619 Lena look good, you could make anything look 00:21:47.619 --> 00:21:50.960 good. So for 40 years, every time an engineer 00:21:50.960 --> 00:21:53.779 tested a new image codec, they were looking at 00:21:53.779 --> 00:21:56.920 a cropped Playboy centerfold. It became an inside 00:21:56.920 --> 00:21:59.440 joke, a handshake in the industry. It's very 00:21:59.440 --> 00:22:01.500 controversial now, obviously, because it basically 00:22:01.500 --> 00:22:03.859 cemented a male gaze right into the foundational 00:22:03.859 --> 00:22:06.019 code of computer science. But you can't write 00:22:06.019 --> 00:22:07.519 the history of the Internet without mentioning 00:22:07.519 --> 00:22:10.019 it. You can't. Speaking of the government and 00:22:10.019 --> 00:22:12.970 Playboy. We have to talk about the Braille lawsuit 00:22:12.970 --> 00:22:16.650 because this sounds like a joke at first, but 00:22:16.650 --> 00:22:19.410 it was a very serious First Amendment battle. 00:22:19.759 --> 00:22:22.980 It absolutely was. Since 1970, the Library of 00:22:22.980 --> 00:22:25.059 Congress had been producing a Braille edition 00:22:25.059 --> 00:22:28.259 of Playboy. Wait, really? What was in it? No 00:22:28.259 --> 00:22:30.920 pictures, obviously, just the articles, the fiction, 00:22:31.059 --> 00:22:33.759 the interviews. And it was very popular. But 00:22:33.759 --> 00:22:36.960 in 1985, the Reagan administration and some conservative 00:22:36.960 --> 00:22:39.400 members of Congress moved to cut the funding 00:22:39.400 --> 00:22:41.440 for it. Their argument being they didn't want 00:22:41.440 --> 00:22:44.980 tax dollars paying for smut. Exactly. But Playboy, 00:22:45.059 --> 00:22:48.140 along with the ACLU and other groups, sued. And 00:22:48.140 --> 00:22:50.089 the argument wasn't about. pornography, it was 00:22:50.089 --> 00:22:53.089 about equal access. How so? They argued that 00:22:53.089 --> 00:22:55.670 denying blind people access to the same magazines 00:22:55.670 --> 00:22:58.289 that sighted people could read was a form of 00:22:58.289 --> 00:23:00.609 discrimination and a violation of free speech. 00:23:00.930 --> 00:23:04.009 And they won. They won. A federal judge ruled 00:23:04.009 --> 00:23:05.630 that the government couldn't pick and choose 00:23:05.630 --> 00:23:07.730 what blind people were allowed to read based 00:23:07.730 --> 00:23:10.450 on its own moral judgment of the content. It 00:23:10.450 --> 00:23:12.109 was a massive victory for the First Amendment 00:23:12.109 --> 00:23:14.349 funded by Prayboy. The contradictions of this 00:23:14.349 --> 00:23:16.710 brand are just endless. They really are. So we 00:23:16.710 --> 00:23:19.750 have the peaks. The legal victories, the cultural 00:23:19.750 --> 00:23:22.809 dominance, the literary credentials. But now 00:23:22.809 --> 00:23:25.490 we have to talk about the slide, the decline. 00:23:25.809 --> 00:23:27.750 Because if you look at the circulation numbers, 00:23:27.930 --> 00:23:30.369 it is an absolute horror show for any publisher. 00:23:30.569 --> 00:23:34.309 It's a classic bell curve. A huge fast rise and 00:23:34.309 --> 00:23:38.309 then a long, painful fall. At its peak in 1972, 00:23:38.990 --> 00:23:42.589 Playboy sold over 7 million copies in issue. 00:23:42.829 --> 00:23:45.660 Seven. Just think about that reach. There were 00:23:45.660 --> 00:23:47.779 only about 200 million people in the U .S. at 00:23:47.779 --> 00:23:50.519 the time. A massive percentage of the adult male 00:23:50.519 --> 00:23:52.819 population was buying this magazine every single 00:23:52.819 --> 00:23:55.220 month. It was a monoculture. And then what happened? 00:23:55.380 --> 00:23:57.660 Then came the competition. First you had Penthouse 00:23:57.660 --> 00:24:00.180 and Hustler, which pushed the envelope way further. 00:24:00.480 --> 00:24:02.700 They made Playboy look tame, almost quaint by 00:24:02.700 --> 00:24:04.799 comparison. And then in the 90s. Then in the 00:24:04.799 --> 00:24:07.779 90s you had the lad mags like Maxim. They captured 00:24:07.779 --> 00:24:10.019 the younger generation with beer jokes and women 00:24:10.019 --> 00:24:12.180 in bikinis rather than sophisticated interviews 00:24:12.180 --> 00:24:14.299 and jazz reviews. But the asteroid that really 00:24:14.299 --> 00:24:16.259 wiped out the dinosaurs was the internet. Without 00:24:16.259 --> 00:24:19.980 a doubt. Pornhub. All the tube sites. Why would 00:24:19.980 --> 00:24:22.700 you pay $7 for a static image of a naked woman 00:24:22.700 --> 00:24:25.559 when you can watch high -definition video of 00:24:25.559 --> 00:24:29.000 literally anything you can imagine for free instantaneously? 00:24:29.180 --> 00:24:32.640 The core value proposition of a centerfold just... 00:24:33.450 --> 00:24:35.470 evaporated overnight. Completely. And the numbers 00:24:35.470 --> 00:24:37.890 show it. By 2015, circulation was down to 800 00:24:37.890 --> 00:24:42.029 ,000. By 2017, it was 400 ,000. That is a 95 00:24:42.029 --> 00:24:44.890 % drop from its peak. And in the middle of that 00:24:44.890 --> 00:24:47.369 free fall, the leadership made a decision that 00:24:47.369 --> 00:24:50.509 I still find absolutely baffling. The no nudity 00:24:50.509 --> 00:24:52.609 experiment of 2016. It's just what were they 00:24:52.609 --> 00:24:54.789 thinking? This was the brainchild of the CEO 00:24:54.789 --> 00:24:57.309 at the time, Scott Flanders. And his logic on 00:24:57.309 --> 00:25:00.029 paper kind of makes sense. He argued. The internet 00:25:00.029 --> 00:25:02.289 has won the porn war. We can't compete on nudity 00:25:02.289 --> 00:25:04.630 anymore, so let's compete on lifestyle. He wanted 00:25:04.630 --> 00:25:07.230 Playboy to be the next Vanity Fair or GQ. He 00:25:07.230 --> 00:25:09.349 wanted to make it safe for work. So they removed 00:25:09.349 --> 00:25:11.970 the nudity. For a year. For a year. They took 00:25:11.970 --> 00:25:13.529 the one thing that defined the brand and threw 00:25:13.529 --> 00:25:15.809 it out. It feels like Coca -Cola removing the 00:25:15.809 --> 00:25:18.609 sugar. It was New Coke all over again. A total 00:25:18.609 --> 00:25:21.130 disaster. The old subscribers hated it because... 00:25:21.390 --> 00:25:23.430 Well, it's Playboy without the main attraction. 00:25:23.730 --> 00:25:25.750 And the new advertisers they were hoping for? 00:25:25.869 --> 00:25:28.890 The Rolexes and Mercedes of the world. They still 00:25:28.890 --> 00:25:30.710 didn't want to buy ads because the brand was 00:25:30.710 --> 00:25:32.930 still Playboy. It had too much baggage. It failed 00:25:32.930 --> 00:25:35.150 on both fronts. So they had to reverse it. Cooper 00:25:35.150 --> 00:25:38.049 Hefner, Hugh's son, took over as chief creative 00:25:38.049 --> 00:25:41.349 officer in 2017 and immediately brought the nudity 00:25:41.349 --> 00:25:43.569 back with the tweet, hashtag naked as normal. 00:25:43.970 --> 00:25:46.849 But the damage was done. The print magazine was 00:25:46.849 --> 00:25:50.450 a zombie. And finally, in 2020, it died. Spring 00:25:50.450 --> 00:25:53.730 2020 was the last regular printed issue. They 00:25:53.730 --> 00:25:56.430 blamed COVID -19 and supply chain issues, which 00:25:56.430 --> 00:25:59.130 was, you know, a convenient excuse. But really, 00:25:59.309 --> 00:26:01.049 the business model had been dead for a decade. 00:26:01.309 --> 00:26:03.970 But the company didn't die. And this is the modern 00:26:03.970 --> 00:26:05.809 twist that's so fascinating. Playboy's public 00:26:05.809 --> 00:26:08.470 again. Yes, the PLBY group. They went public 00:26:08.470 --> 00:26:11.569 in 2021 via a SPAC merger. We should probably 00:26:11.569 --> 00:26:13.529 explain that quickly. A SPAC is a special purpose 00:26:13.529 --> 00:26:16.220 acquisition company. Right. It's basically a 00:26:16.220 --> 00:26:20.180 shell company that is already public, which buys 00:26:20.180 --> 00:26:22.839 a private company to take it public without doing 00:26:22.839 --> 00:26:25.339 all the paperwork of a traditional IPO. It's 00:26:25.339 --> 00:26:27.680 a shortcut to Wall Street. It is. And investors 00:26:27.680 --> 00:26:30.920 jumped on it initially. But the new Playboy isn't 00:26:30.920 --> 00:26:33.019 a media company anymore. It's a consumer products 00:26:33.019 --> 00:26:35.180 company. They're selling the rabbit. That's all 00:26:35.180 --> 00:26:37.759 that's left. They're licensing the logo for streetwear 00:26:37.759 --> 00:26:39.920 in China, where the magazine itself is banned, 00:26:40.180 --> 00:26:43.059 ironically. They're launching Centerfold, which 00:26:43.059 --> 00:26:45.859 is basically their own competitor to OnlyFans. 00:26:45.960 --> 00:26:48.680 So they've come full circle. Yeah. From a magazine 00:26:48.680 --> 00:26:52.549 that tried to elevate erotica. to art, to a digital 00:26:52.549 --> 00:26:54.690 platform competing with user -generated content, 00:26:54.809 --> 00:26:57.410 and a logo on a hoodie. They're even moving the 00:26:57.410 --> 00:26:59.470 headquarters to Miami Beach. They're trying to 00:26:59.470 --> 00:27:02.569 rebrand as this high -end lifestyle brand. But 00:27:02.569 --> 00:27:05.930 the question remains, without the magazine, without 00:27:05.930 --> 00:27:09.569 the philosophy, without the articles, is it just 00:27:09.569 --> 00:27:11.829 a logo? That brings us to the end of this deep 00:27:11.829 --> 00:27:13.890 dive. We've gone from the kitchen table in Chicago 00:27:13.890 --> 00:27:17.170 to the global empire to the SPAC merger. We've 00:27:17.170 --> 00:27:19.109 looked at the literary genius and the alleged 00:27:19.109 --> 00:27:22.079 abuse. It is a story that really forces you to 00:27:22.079 --> 00:27:24.500 hold two opposing ideas in your head at the same 00:27:24.500 --> 00:27:27.400 time. Playboy was a liberating force that broke 00:27:27.400 --> 00:27:30.140 down puritanical censorship laws. And Playboy 00:27:30.140 --> 00:27:32.579 was an exploitative machine that treated women 00:27:32.579 --> 00:27:35.059 as commodities. Both of those things are true. 00:27:35.400 --> 00:27:36.920 Here's the thought I want to leave you with. 00:27:37.680 --> 00:27:40.660 Playboy became a giant by selling a specific 00:27:40.660 --> 00:27:44.680 secret. The girl next door. You had to buy the 00:27:44.680 --> 00:27:46.680 magazine to see her. She was behind a curtain. 00:27:47.420 --> 00:27:50.400 Today, that girl next door has her own Instagram, 00:27:50.680 --> 00:27:54.059 her own TikTok, her own OnlyFans, and she keeps 00:27:54.059 --> 00:27:57.480 80 % of the revenue. The fantasy has been completely 00:27:57.480 --> 00:28:00.160 democratized. The power has shifted. Completely. 00:28:00.359 --> 00:28:02.779 So in a world where the models now own the means 00:28:02.779 --> 00:28:05.279 of production, is there any room left for the 00:28:05.279 --> 00:28:07.640 middleman in the silk pajamas? Or is the rabbit 00:28:07.640 --> 00:28:09.559 finally just a relic? It's a completely different 00:28:09.559 --> 00:28:11.740 world. The rabbit has to learn some very new 00:28:11.740 --> 00:28:14.160 tricks or it goes extinct. Thanks for listening. 00:28:14.200 --> 00:28:16.319 We will catch you on the next Deep Dive.