Surviving 30 years in the media space as an indie publication is a remarkable achievement under any circumstance, and it's even more noteworthy given the disruption that has taken place with the arrival of the Internet and the ensuing print crisis that we have all heard too much about. The good news is that the reports of print's death have been greatly exaggerated, as you can tell by our glamorous new look and the iconic brands that have come on board for the celebration. Here we are, still kicking it hard; our hippie, punk and DIY roots firmly in place and oddly in keeping with the shifting zeitgeist and its hodgepodge of aesthetics and sensibilities that match up so well with the Paper perspective year after year.
While it is tempting to look back with pride at the 308 issues, the groundbreaking covers, the amazing people I've met, the fantastic parties... I won't linger on the past.
Paper has always been about celebrating the future while paying homage to legendary talents. Before the words "influencer" or "emerging" had gained currency, we were writing about tomorrow today, preferring the up-and-comers with cultural cred -- what we called "the cutting edge" before the phrase was turned into marketing speak -- to the mass market successes. Bursting out of New York City's downtown community of the '80s, now heralded as a golden age of creative ferment, we used our instincts to nudge the culture in the direction we thought it should go. And given our track record, I am proud to say we got it right most of the time.
We watched and participated in many of the cool indie movements we loved, and we enjoyed the success of people we championed, many of them the OGs featured in this issue -- the ones who broke the mold, the pioneers who blazed idiosyncratic paths that others gladly followed. We can proudly point and say we were there at the birth of hip-hop, skate culture and indie films. We watched fashion go pop and the rarefied art world explode into mainstream entertainment. So when today Jay-Z dances with Marina Abramovic while downtown's peculiar mix of fashion, art and entertainment luminaries look on, it all somehow makes sense. The multitiered, cross-referential, mixed-media mise en scène is part of our DNA, which we have been living and documenting since 1984.
Now, represented by our two cover stars -- the scream queen rocker Courtney Love and freaky rap-pop princess Brooke Candy -- we salute the Original Gangsters while looking ahead to what we are calling the NGs (New Gangsters), who are knocking at the door. We welcome them all into the world of Paper.