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Culture War Roundup for the week of June 16, 2025

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No, The Economist’s readership has a substantial number of students and juniors, plus interested normal people who like to imagine themselves as the kind of person who reads it, many of whom don’t have a lot of money. It’s largely the magazine for the back office. FT Weekend’s readership is likely wealthier, because it’s mainly older print readers of the paper who have some money (students and juniors on the app aren’t going to care to read it).

Tatler’s readership is bifurcated between that sub-group of rich Arabs and Asians (they have a big audience in Hong Kong, Singapore and the Gulf) who enjoy the Anglo aesthetic, are often involved with polo, ride, have country houses in England, that sort of thing, and the residual English upper and upper-middle classes, some of whom have money and some of whom don’t. That niche means Tatler’s ads are more targeted, although there is still plenty of Patek and Lori Piana. Bien pensant PMCs might read that awful Air Mail or even worse Monocle, which also have all the Rolex and Porsche ads.

I mostly think of the Economist as 'that magazine which is read by my friends who think that running a country would be easy if you could make everyone take an economics course'. It's Oxford's PPE degree between glossy covers - that particular arrogance engendered by a very wide purview and not-quite-deep-enough subject knowledge.