Full Disclosure: This site is not about hip hop, blaming (as in "got a bad rap") or hitting (rapping fingers). I'm sorry if you are a violent rap artist looking to blame magazines and you've reached this blog in error. Please don't hurt me.
Now let's get a little serious.
The idea is that after you read a magazine, leave it in the subway for someone else to take it and read and pass it on to someone else.
So a little honesty here. I'm a huge pack rat. I subscribe to a lot of magazines (latest count around 15. Seriously). After reading them, I just save them because I'm afraid of throwing things out. As you can imagine, they're taking up too much space. My house looks like something a mass murderer who lives alone would have. I have to get rid of them, but I didn't want to give them to one person because that limits the effectiveness of the mags. I want to get the full value of the mag, which is the maximum amount of readers. So I leave different mags laying around the subway for people to take and read for themselves. I enjoy the randomness of it. I don't really know the path of the magazines after I leave them. It leaves room for imagination. The subway is a great place because people have time to kill and they're stuck there.
I hope others will do this as well.
This isn't for any cause in particular. It's just a way for people to share and not be wasteful.
The first mag I left was a BusinessWeek from 2 and a half months prior. I put it on a seat and sat down at a safe distance to see what happened. It only took 6 minutes for a man to take it and read it. Only 6 minutes! He even left with it when he got off at his stop. It was an exhilarating feeling to think I gave this person tools that he can use in this lousy economic time.
Now it's your turn to give your mags to others.
Here are some suggestions. There's no "system" so do what you want.
1. You can use a magazine, newspaper, or book.
2. Try to keep the mags fairly current (last 12 months?) and it good condition. The trains are full of trash and people will just ignore it if looks like trash.
3. Delete your name and address from the mag, whether by running over it with a sharpie or pen or by cutting your name out. This halts any problems of identity theft that may arise.
4. Write on the cover in big letters READ ME and READ AND PASS. Do it many times to attract attention to it.
Don't forget writing rapmagazines.blogspot.com/ on the cover to help this community grow.
5. Leave it in a subway. (Duh.)
6. Afterwards, feel free to post the mag name, date, and train you left it in the comments. (No pressure)
You can also email me your anecdotes at RapMagazines@Gmail.Com.
A note to people who find mags, please post some info about the mags.
Mag name, date, location, date, time, etc.
No pressure of course, just curious to see where this is going.
I'll come out with more more news and anecdotes later.
Please send me comments and suggestions. I'm open to advice.
Hope to hear from you soon!
