Life, 1920-09-09 · page 4 of 44
Life — September 9, 1920 — page 4: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page satirizes Life magazine's own subscription drive. The cherub with a megaphone represents the magazine's relentless marketing campaign urging readers to subscribe. The text humorously acknowledges that Life has been aggressively promoting subscriptions ("that uncontrollable desire to ask people to subscribe"), admitting their tactics are manipulative—they've repeated the pitch so often that readers begin believing it themselves. The satire is self-directed: Life openly confesses to employing "sinisters purpose" flattery while pretending their circulation competition is legitimate. The "Special Offer" section below converts the satire into an actual subscription pitch—the joke being that even while mocking their own hard-sell tactics, they immediately deploy them anyway. It's meta-advertising: selling subscriptions by ironically admitting how aggressively they sell subscriptions.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Copyright Life Pub. Co It still persists—that uncontrollable desire to ask people to subscribe that we mentioned last week. Don’t mind. We'll get over it. Nobody knows better than we do that it is a great mistake for us to obey that uncontrol- lable impulse. It’s against all of our principles. But we are only human and have been led astray by the meretricious B. O. They have been whispering in our ears that Lire was never better—that they hear about it every- where. We know they are trying to flatter us from sinister purpose. But they have said it so often that we begin to believe it ourselves— even if they did say it. Besides, think of what’s coming: Another great pictorial con- test, with prizes amounting to one thousand dollars; special numbers, new contributors, colored covers—anyone of which you might miss if you don’t send a dollar (see coupon below—Mr. Cooper’s coupon), and become one of those highly intellectual people who read Lire regularly. Enclosed find One Dollar (Canadian $1.20, Foreign $1.40). Send Lire for three months (twelve issues) to }} ‘ Have You Seen 4 Par Bow: 3 The new number of Miniature ae Lire? If not, send a negotiable two-cent stamp, with your name oO ly t bscribers; no subscriptions and address, and a free copy pen only to new subscribers; 1 : renewed at this rate. will be forwarded, LIFE, 17 West 31st Street, New York. One Year, $5.00. (Canadian, $5.80; Foreign, $6.60. ) 146 Special Offer comicbooks.com