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The bunnyhead logo has become almost as recognisable as the golden arches of McDonald’s. With the first publication of Playboy in 1953, the lad mag quickly gained popularity - predominantly with males aged 18 to 80.
In the 1960s the Playboy club bunnies were called “the most envied girls in America”; and staunch feminist icon, Gloria Steinem famously went undercover, posing as a bunny in an effort to expose Hefner’s twisted world in her famous Show magazine article, “A Bunny’s tale”.
For years to come, bachelorette and dress-up parties would be plagued by women wearing skimpy pink costumes and floppy bunny ears, while naked spreads helped elevate the careers of countless young starlets like Pamela Anderson.
And, as anti-Hefner as I am, I can't help but wonder what a world would be like without this sexist rag. Can we finally reclaim the term "bunny"? Will it ever again be as innocent as nature intended it to be? Will I be able to look at a smoking jacket again without seeing wrinkly old Hefner with his two favourite bunnies in tow?
I'm not sure such a world can ever exist, but luckily, the mag as we know it will soon be no more.
The Independent recently reported that with naked images being so readily available online, the nude epoch of Playboy has come to an end. Their chief content officer, Cory Jones, notes that with each and every sex act imaginable being just click away, Playboy’s naked images have become almost passé. So, have naked mags become obsolete?
Most definitely - I’m honestly quite surprised they lasted this long.
This has led to a content strategy shift as Playboy will now only be featuring women as naked as you see them in most other publications, according to Jezebel.
Which, let’s face it, is still pretty naked…
In 2013, Playboy already decided to make their site a Safe For Work (SFW) environment, in an attempt to draw readers to their “great content” instead of just heading to the site for pictures of nude women.
Jezebel notes that Playboy did this in an attempt to be more like Maxim and GQ, instead of being lumped in with the likes of Penthouse, and other X-rated mags. Also, to gain more female readership. Opting to feature women’s issues, Buzzfeed-like listicles, articles on college sexual harassment and topical issues such as Gamergate, Playboy has been desperately scrambling to reel more women in.
But, seriously, what is Playboy without full on nudity? Nothing. Another dying publication. No one is going to read Playboy for its "great content" or women's issues. It's always been a nudie magazine straight men use to get their rocks off to. There's not much more to it than that.
Here are just a few Twitter reactions to this news:
#Playboy isn't going to publish pictures of #naked women because www has ruined everything http://t.co/3Tz5INPesS … pic.twitter.com/X23kQkbsl6
— stoipa (@stoipa) October 13, 2015
I will miss them,have to admit it :) But commercially probably right decision-#Playboy 'to drop' naked women images http://t.co/bhcxSx07mZ
— Andrej Matisak (@matisaksk) October 13, 2015
End of an (nude) era. #playboy pic.twitter.com/Ydvnbj5PDC
— Nova-J Nilsson (@NovaJNilsson) October 13, 2015
