FOLIO: The Magazine for Magazine Management, May 1, 1995
Read any magazine aimed at an ethnic/religious group-Jews, Italians, whoever-and the tone is rarely less than fawning. Unfortunately, that also drives away readers under 50. Yolk, a bimonthly aimed at Gen-X Asians, takes the opposite approach. In its first two issues, the magazine addressed a pair of topics that are considered taboo in and out of its core readers’ communities: eating dogs and the size of Asian penises. “The younger generation of Asian people deals with stereotypes and assumptions all the time,” said Larry Tazuma, Yolk’s editor. “It is detrimental to their self-esteem, and we hope to demystify those issues by exploring them.”
Yolk’s sense of cheeky irreverence never shows up in more conservative Asian publications, and helps account for the large non-Asian readership (as high as 30 percent, according to Tazuma). Advertisers seem to be responding favorably: the first issue contained only two pages of paid ads, the second issue had 10, and that number is due to double for the third. Circulation has jumped from 25,000 to 45,000 with a sell-through of 62 percent.
Operating on private funds, the magazine’s partners intend to find a devoted audience by adorning covers with celebrities like Margaret Cho and Russell Wong; serious topics are tackled inside. An upcoming issue, for example, will include a story on Asian prisoners.
Yolk speaks to young Asians in a way that is anything but demure: “I want people to look at our magazine as being slightly off the wall and willing to take on the issues that other people won’t touch.”