when i boarded the plane and sat down at my seat, i spotted an endangered species: an inflight magazine. once upon a time there were thriving ecosystems in seatback pockets, but now on nearly every airline they have become barren wastelands containing only generic safety cards and maybe a credit card ad. covid was the last straw for many of the survivors, done in not only by the dramatic decrease in passengers but also the fact that they represented yet another potential transmission vector.

united's inflight magazine "hemispheres" seems to be the sole survivor. wondering how they could have possibly pulled it off, i opened it up and set my own (cerebral) hemispheres to work on the contents. my sample size expanded a bit on the next flight as well, which was still carrying the hopelessly-outdated december 2022 issue (yes, it's published monthly!). here are my ecological findings:

there is a small group of apparently fiercely loyal advertisers who have probably been running ads in hemispheres for well over a decade. i know this because i vividly recall seeing basically these same ads while horribly bored and thumbing through as a kid. one of them is this 4 page section entitled "THE BEST DOCTORS IN AMERICA", memorable because each page always featured a single stern, serious man posing confidently in a crisp suit astride a tasteful deep blue background. most of them have absurdly specific specialties or are plastic surgeons, and all are located in hip metropolitan areas. all of this i remember noticing as a kid, but what i didn't notice was the small text above "THE BEST DOCTORS IN AMERICA" which says "these doctors are among". maybe it actually wasn't always there and they had to add it after some lawsuit or complaint. then there was the text underneath that said they were "..selected by the nation's leading providers of information on top doctors". it is probably one of the most bizarre niche ads i've ever seen.

another interesting ad niche is "executive/professional matchmaking" services. there were ads for three separate ones and i don't think i've ever seen an ad for this kind of thing anywhere else. they were in close proximity to several ads for luxury condos "starting at $1.5 million", or an investment opportunity in a portfolio of "lucrative" real estate like the hotel that served as the model for the overlook hotel in the shining (minimum investment: $50,000). keep in mind this is the magazine that they put at every seat in the plane.

also advertised: an evening with dr. zahi hawass "the world's most famous archeologist" (archeology must be doing pretty poorly lately because i have not heard of him). for a price, he will reveal to attendees of his lecture tour the SECRETS of ancient egypt. finally, near the back of the magazine was a humble, poorly-designed ad for "PLASTIC INJECTION MOLDING" from a random company in michigan "seeking new projects".

i suppose then there's the actual "articles" to consider. maybe this is how they pulled it off, because most of them sound like ad copy or at the very least contain paid promotion. a short piece about a roadtrip goes suspiciously in-depth about the specific model of car used, for example. there is a whole section near the back that is just a grid of products that look like they belong on "shark tank". examples: "superfoods for dogs" and "portable blender". in the december issue it was called the holiday gift guide, in the january one, "new year, new you". i actually quite enjoyed that particular section because it reminded me of the dearly departed seatback skymall magazine, with its quirky selection of dubious (but amusing) domestic gadgetry served up by the likes of hammacher schlammer or however the heck it was spelled.

each issue seems to have two headline articles: "3 Perfect Days" done for some city, and then an interview with a B+ list celebrity. neither are blatantly advertisements. there's also always a "letter from the CEO of united" (which i'm sure he never actually writes) but those are pretty much ads for united. i was unable to read any significant portion of either of the "3 Perfect Days" articles because they were simply too nauseating. they were apparently written by different authors but never in a million years could you tell. the celebrity interview in the january issue was the guy who voiced the meerkat in the lion king. why would he possibly stoop so low as to appear in hemispheres? well, it appeared he was doing it to promote some new film project. advertising strikes again.

the only other takeaways from the articles: apparently "sober bars" are A Thing now, and there was also this incredible turn of phrase in one article: "...a forgotten but known genius." i suspect that the reason hemispheres is still around is that their ad sales team is the best in the business, and they have a willingness to turn pretty much the entire magazine into advertising. at least they still have the route map in the back with all the curvy lines connecting cities although even that part has been neutered. now you only curvy lines for the sparse international destinations, and they were very faint. i wonder what the atmosphere must be like working in the hemispheres office right now. they are nearly the last in their niche, waning industry. are they making enough money that they feel like they're off the chopping block, or does it feel like they have the sword of damocles looming over them?