Is print the new vinyl? Meet the editors of Geezer

Geezer magazine co-founders Laura LeBleu and Paul von Zielbauer went live Saturday on Jonathan Small’s Small Talk podcast to talk about why we launched a print-only magazine to explore the Gen X (and early Boomer; and, yeah, also the late-late Millennial) aging experience.

Time-coded highlights:

01:08: Laura’s background: theater, ad copywriting, tech; Geezer is her first personal creative project in her 50s

02:09: Paul’s professional background: 11 years at The New York Times, including a Pulitzer nomination, then founded Roadmonkey, an “adventure philanthropy” company.

04:30: Why start a magazine called Geezer?

04:59: The “visceral rage” Laura felt when she got her first AARP subscription mailer, and how media generally approaches the aging experience in ways that are “patronizing and anodyne and not relevant to where I was personally.”

06:58: How Geezer’s co-founders began working together.

10:51: The many shades of “Geezer.”

11:24: How the magazine’s name, Geezer, format, came to Laura “in the shower.”

13:50: How personal experiences with ageism fueled the rise of Geezer.

15:55: The shower epiphany — why Geezer works as a large-format, 11x15 print-only magazine, and the recent rise of print-only periodicals for niche audiences. (Mountain Gazette, Ori, etc.). “It feels tribal.”

17:32: “We’re drowning in empty calories of digital content... none of it really sticks”