Good afternoon, this time not from my mom’s hometown of Gangneung, South Korea, but my own. Which is also next to a big body of water and has good Korean food if you’re purely talking about the dingy hole in the wall off Superior Avenue: Cleveland, Ohio.

Today’s paid newsletter is back with all the goods: our lead story about a new men’s magazine from Nylon that is an alternative to the manosphere, some New York Times podcast tea and Substack’s insane growth numbers.

Let’s get to it.

xoxo,

Stephanie

The manosphere is currently dominating coverage in many men’s magazines, but I've wondered how the conversation on men and how they see themselves would be different if it came from a woman’s perspective. 

The relaunch of Nylon Guys after its last print issue nearly 10 years ago might be the closest thing we have to an answer. The inaugural issue featuring Sombr last month set the tone for what Nylon editor in chief Lauren McCarthy wants the brand to be — a men's style vertical celebrating the guys your it-girl friends were already talking about. The revived edition of Nylon Guys includes a quarterly digital cover and appears in print on select Nylon broadsheets. 

Nylon isn’t the only game in town doing a men’s style spin-off. On Monday, New York Magazine announced a standalone men's style print issue and hired GQ's former global fashion correspondent Sam Hine as their new senior men's style editor. (Full disclosure: I worked with Sam at GQ. He's a fantastic reporter and I know he's going to kill it at his new gig.)

There's clearly a market here, and Lauren and Nylon were smart enough to get ahead of it. I talked with her about why Nylon Guys feels urgent right now, how a legacy brand like Nylon can sustain launching a new spin-off magazine as the media industry keeps shrinking and what gives a guy that “it” factor to make it on the cover.