You click on an article about growing tomatoes in an apartment. Boom — the whole page turns into a White Lotus banner. You scroll past reality videos, nail fungus and loneliness ads, and forget why you clicked in the first place. You’re not reading — you’re being interrupted.
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Disclaimer: Apropos Magazine received access or a review copy. As always, we share our own impressions — unfiltered.
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Welcome to the modern media experience.
It’s a fair question. When did we stop caring that an article should also feel good? When did the editorial floor — or maybe just an overenthusiastic SEO manager — decide that design and readability mattered less than click rates and “viewability”?
And it’s not just one ad. It’s a collage-like inferno of flashing banners, algorithm-driven recommendations, sponsored articles disguised as editorial content and… what’s that? A popup for a webinar on pension savings in the middle of your review of a new rap album?
The worst part? It’s almost worse if you pay.
“You can just subscribe,” someone says. Sure — but why should I pay for an article that, in the end, mostly looks like paid content for MAX, a wine bar or a dating platform for people with IBS?
It’s not just about money
It’s about trust. About giving your readers the feeling that you actually wanted to tell them something — and not just trap them in an advertising snare with breaking-news bars and a clickbait backdrop. It’s about respect for the format. And for the reader.
And here comes the embarrassing confession: I had to build my own platform to remember what it could feel like.
Apropos Magazine doesn’t have a ceiling on ambition. But it doesn’t have ads either. Not yet. And if they do arrive, we promise you’ll get a warning. And that we’ll never advertise foot fungus in a piece about literature. That has to be a start.
EuroPerson, Jydevenue, PoliTikTokken…
Yes, we make fun of them. But it’s not just them. It’s the whole landscape where opinion and marketing melt together into one long, generic stream. And if you’re sitting there thinking, “well, your reviews are just opinions too” — then yes. But they’re our opinions. Not written by an affiliate partner in Cologne.
So what now?
That’s just how it is.
But maybe it could be different. Maybe there could be media where the design is calm, where the writer has room to breathe, and where you, as a reader, feel a little less like a target audience — and a little more like a person being spoken to.
At least that’s what we’re trying to do here.
