From The Publisher
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31 August 2011
Posted in
Articles
Revisiting an Old Favorite?
SMOKE SIGNALS MAGAZINE - September - October 2011
Many years ago, when the print version of Smoke Signals was the main method of communication between smoking fetishists (can you believe it!?), our annual reader survey was one of the highlights of the year. We took a lot of care in crafting the questions each year; and we took pride not just in the number of mailed responses we received each year (often close to 50% of all subscribers!) but also in the fact that people cared enough to send us interesting, detailed answers to the questions. It also was nice to hear so much positive feedback to the issue which reported the results each year.
As we lament regularly, times have changed. We don't think that most people these days would have the patience or the time to fill out a smoking fetish survey like they did 10-15 years ago. Even more importantly, we don't think they have the "need" to do something like that; quite frankly, we believe the reason we had as many as half our subscribers answer the survey was that it was just about the only way for most people to "interact in depth" with other members of the just-emerging smoking fetish community. These days, there are so many other places for people to interact, that the idea of a print survey seems almost as quaint as the idea that people used to save dog-eared photos of women smoking.
But that brings us to the point of this month's musings. We think that the community would benefit from a "mini-survey" of sorts. We're not talking about a survey asking when you developed a smoking fetish, or whether you have a partner who smokes, or anything else that we used to ask in the old surveys. We're talking about a survey that asks where you spend your smoking fetish time; if you spend it on websites, what you're doing on those sites; what's most important to you when it comes to the sites you visit; and how much (if any) money you spend on smoking fetish material.
It's obvious that information would help us greatly - and help other producers in the community - when it comes to delivering the types of sites and material you'd like to see. But we think it would also be of interest to lots of people out there. You already know, for the most part, when "people" developed a smoking fetish and whether it's likely that their parents smoked and how they handle telling a significant other and whether they like younger or older smokers --- all the stuff we used to ask. But do you know whether most people prefer to watch streaming video, or downloads they've saved to their computers, or DVDs they've had for years? Whether they're constantly searching for new material or rely on their old favorites? Prefer "smoking models" or amateurs who post video to the web on their own?
We think this would be an interesting "survey for the 2010s" - let us know what you think. Please just take a second to respond to this article - or to email us at
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- and we'll see whether this is just a weird thought we had on our own, or an idea that other people can get behind as well.
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01 July 2011
Posted in
Articles
A Little of This, A Little of That
SMOKE SIGNALS MAGAZINE - July - August 2011
We're sure we don't have to call attention to the work that Vesperae does for us (and you) in every issue of Smoke Signals. But if you don't usually scroll down to check out her column, we urge you to do so this month. Her column focuses on the machinations and gyrations that most of us went through, to gather smoking fetish video before the advent of "real" smoking video and the internet. If you're from that era as we are, you'll certainly feel some nostalgia as you recognize many of the stories that Vesperae tells. Perhaps even more importantly, if you're too young to remember taping hours and hours of TV in hopes of gathering a few seconds of nice smoking --- you may gain a small measure of appreciation for how difficult it used to be for many people to satisfy their smoking fetish..
After Vesperae submitted her column, we exchanged a few emails about it - and a realization (of sorts) started to dawn. Regular readers of this column know that we've been trying for years to understand why so many people, particularly younger members of our community, believe that any material they find online is in the "public domain" and fair game for anyone to take and use anyway they'd like. (That's absolutely not true, by the way - legally or morally.)
But what we realized was that most people who are in their teens, 20s and even their early 30s --- never had to scavange tiny bits of movies or TV shows, never had to cut out cigarette ads from magazines, never had to find a way to pay for and receive a smoking fetish videotape in the mail without anyone ever knowing. Whenever they felt the urge, they just got online, and everything they could ever want was there for a mouse click. No muss, no fuss --- and, we believe, much less of an appreciation for what people had to go through in the very recent past ---meaning less of an appreciation for the rights of the people who created this incredible material that was so unimaginable to most of us, just 15-20 years ago.
But as we've said several times before, we're not fighting that fight anymore (except to defend our own copyrighted material). It's more of an interesting mental exercise to figure out why people's values and beliefs are so different. And this seems like at least one possiblity. In any event, we think you'll enjoy Vesperae's piece, either as a blast from the past or as a "wow, you guys really had to do that?" moment.
A few other pieces of lint from our pockets:
- We've alluded to this before, but things are happening quickly. Our servers are now operating on a new platform; combined with higher quality video from Tony P. and our R/X videographers, there's been what we believe is a huge improvement in the video quality at Smoke Signals Online. We'll have a new "outside" of the site (what's known as a "tour") shortly, to show off the difference; but if you check our our weekly sample clips (available at our the Smoke Signals preview site, among other places) we think you'll get an idea of how things are improving. And, of course, we'd really encourage you to sign up for a month to see the difference between what we used to be - and what we are now.
- If you're like us, little things (like seeing a movie with people smoking in a restaurant, for example) trigger lots of "I can't believe that's gone forever" moments. We had another one this past week, while making plans for one of our regular trips from Southern California back to Las Vegas. For years, we always looked forward to arriving back in Vegas, where people were still treated like adults and allowed to smoke in public. But it's now been several years since Las Vegas and Nevada jumped on the anti-smoking bandwagon. And what we realized - was that when we're getting ready to head over there, we no longer even think "can't wait for all the great sightings!" - even in Sin City, an atmosphere where smoking was prevalent is now one of those things that's gone forever.
- And that brings us to our final thought, which in some ways takes everything we've written about this month and ties it all together. We had one final "revelation" about the generational differences in our community and how quickly things can change. 15-20 years ago, in the early days of the net - smoking fetishists went out into the world to watch women smoke, and then got online to share and discuss their sightings. These days, there really aren't many sightings in "real life." So people get don't get online to discuss women's smoking anymore; they get online to watch it. We're not sure anyone could have predicted that, just a decade ago.
Enjoy the July-August issue; and please, check out the improvements at Smoke Signals Online. You won't be sorry.
