Lads' Mags extinct? The only 'Zoo' you'll be seeing from now on...
- Published
RIP Zoo
This is a story about extinction.
A dodo- the pin-up bird for extinct animals
The death of lads' mags.
These bear-chested beauties pose for the camera at a zoo in the Netherlands
Sadly for Zoo, there's no institution (like a zoo ironically) to save their species.
On Tuesday the final issue of Zoo magazine was published.
Its front cover features the slogan "breast in peace" and features photos of women in underwear lowering a coffin covered in bras into the ground.
This is the only kind of zoo you will see from now on.
The only kind of zoo birds you'll be seeing from now on have wings
Lads' magazines FHM and Loaded are to join Zoo, a species of mag that may never again be glimpsed in the wild.
This little monochrome minx (aka a panda) poses for the camera. Zoos are trying to help pandas from becoming extinct
Their dusty spines will be relegated to basement archives, to be pored over by media professors.
A T-rex looks fierce for the camera. Look at those legs!
Nuts became "extinct" in April 2014.
Some people feel like this about their disappearance.
A tall blonde puckers up for the camera at London Zoo
These kind of magazines used to sell millions. Before broadband, mobile data, free news sites and free online porn.
Has everything Zoo and Nuts embodied been killed off with the end of the magazines?
Martin Daubney, who used to be the editor of Loaded, told Newsbeat: "Anybody who believes an entire state of mind or culture will vanish because the magazines have died, is deluded.
"Lad culture hasn't been eradicated by technology, it's merely been replaced by a new way of getting it. If you look at Lad Bible, Lad Bible has millions of followers. The sheer volume of young men who go to that shows us that lad culture has never been stronger. "
Bauer Media, which owns these magazines, said when it announced the closure: "Over time young men's media habits have continually moved towards mobile and social."
Vicky Pattison, who was Queen of the Jungle, also posed for Zoo
Some would say the closure of these magazines is a feminist victory.
Pressure group Lose The Lad Mags campaigned to get lads' mags off the shelves, arguing they "fuel attitudes and behaviours that underpin violence against women".
They said that stocking lads' mags "can constitute sexual harassment, external or sex discrimination under the Equality Act 2010".
In 2013 the Bishop of Derby, Rt Rev Alastair Redfern attacked Tesco for "degrading women" by selling lads' mags and called for them to be displayed away from everyday goods.
The Co-operative pulled copies of Nuts, Zoo and Front from their shelves in 2013 because they wouldn't deliver their magazines in sealed "modesty bags".
The following year, Loaded took the decision to ditch scantily clad women from its front cover.
Those who said the magazines should be banned because they feature topless women have been accused of double standards, external.
Some of the modesty covers
They argue the sexualisation of men in magazines continues and other publications promote unobtainable body shapes for men, especially women's lifestyle mags.
Some have said discussions like these miss the point. Young people are now just a couple of clicks away from nudity and sex, and for free. They just aren't willing to pay for it any more.
Daubney says: "Some of the media is far more dangerous [than lads' mags] as far as the extremities of pornography and misogyny online are concerned. They outstrip anything we saw in lads' mags in the UK.
"Even the harshest critics of the men's magazines will look back fondly upon them as a more innocent time."
For more stories like this one you can now download the BBC Newsbeat app straight to your device. For iPhone go here, external. For Android go here, external.