Shaun de Waal
It is, in my opinion, the best magazine in the country. Maybe I feel like that about SL magazine because about ten years ago I was involved in starting a magazine of South African “alternative” culture. It was short- lived.
But things have changed enormously in the last decade. Rulers aside, what what once thought of as alternative and thus non-viable commercially is now pretty much the mainstream of youth culture. If nothing else, it informs and underpins what is an ever- changing and sometimes mysterious field.
SL’s initials encode its beginnings. It was started in July 1994 by a university student called Kate Wilson. Thankfully, the name Student Life and its manifestation in pseudo- handwritten type are gone. If they don’t already, the simple initials will soon mean no more than themselves. As Wilson says, how many people worry about the fact that GQ stands for Gentleman’s Quarterly?
SL is exactly what a magazine based in white South African youth culture should be (we’ll get to the whiteness later). It is adventurous and energetic without being condescending or idiotic; it is genuinely intelligent and challenging, without posturing. Its writing is almost always vibrant, its images potent.
And, astonishingly, it is 100% South African. No imported stories about overseas celebs; very little grovelling at the altar of American (or newly fashionable British) culture. In a way that was all but impossible 10 years ago, or five years before that (remember Vula?), South African culture is a good business proposition. It is now reaching a youth audience seen as “aspirational” in marketing terms.
The magazine looks fantastic, too. Designed by Robert Cilliers, its look changes through its pages, sometimes skirting incoherence in Raygun fashion. Vital and often edgy, it gives the content an extra kick.
Inevitably, the editorial of the magazine has occasionally offended conservative advertisers. Features on sex had SL taken off some advertising schedules. But the magazine survives; it goes, indeed, from strength to strength. Now SL is engaged with YFMin producing the country’s first major black youth culture magazine, to be named Y.
As Wilson told me via e-mail, the old Student Life was “produced by two people (no art director) working out of a subterranean cell in the southern suburbs [of Cape Town]. Summary: it was destined to mutate.”
When did it become SL?
“We relaunched and semi-repositioned (sans research) in August last year – with a great cover of Arno Carstens [of the Springbok Nude Girls] wearing a blue (Truworths) slip-dress.”
What is your circulation?
“Our what? Look, I’m just the editor. I think it’s around 25 000, but I’ll have to get back to you.”
I wondered about SL’s readership. Wilson replied:”Our target market is (sigh) 16 to 24 on paper: though I prefer to think of it as 18 to 34 with a mean age of around 24 (it’s a mean age). We all reckon there’s a slight male bias, which is amazing considering the reading habits of the average South African 24-year-old male (beer labels, rave flyers, the occasional back page of the sports section). But most of these male readers read their girlfriend’s copy.”
Is it largely white?”It’s not really about being white, it’s about being based in Cape Town, in a majority white organisation, where readers need to have disposable income (and a privileged background) in order for them to afford the RAV4s and Hugo Boss products our clients want to sell them.
“It’s a niche informed not so much by who they are, but who clients would like them to be. And they’d like them to be privileged, educated and avid consumers of everything from surfboards to software. We target the people clients want to reach – and they want to reach their pockets. Fortunately, we get to rock the boats now and then and throw in black writers, radical content, a totally non-Eurocentric angle – actually we do that most of the time.”
Are you really 23?
“I turned 24 on June 21.”
Wilson pays tribute to her co-workers, quoting from a book about Microsoft’s dedicated employees, who apparently “`thrive under pressure, love their work more than others love theirs, believe themselves to be by far the best in their profession – and above all – are all extremely young’ … It’s interesting because everything applies except the bit about our ages.”
She names names and ages, including contributing editor Chris Roper and the editor of the Mu’te music section, Malu van Leeuwen, both in their 30s:”They’re what I want to be when I turn 30.”
That’s aspirational for you.