Prepare yourself for the shocking tale of how one tabloid deceived its readers for weeks, seemingly without remorse. I’m not talking about how the weekly gossip rags regularly print spurious rumors about Jessica Simpson’s undying love for Nick Lachey or Suri’s skincare regimen. OK! magazine broke a promise, and no amount of adorable Jolie-Pitt kid photos will ever make it up to me.
Picture it: November 2010. While doing Midweek Madness, a fellow staffer notes OK! has started printing on its cover, “SATISFACTION GUARANTEED OR YOUR MONEY BACK.” (Click to enlarge) This seems like a risky business plan, since in our professional opinion, the mag deserves a “F” just about every week.
There’s an order form in the back of the magazine that declares, “We’re so sure you’ve enjoyed this week’s fantastic issue of OK! that if you haven’t we’ll give you your money back!” All customers have to do is mail their receipt, along with a 15-word explanation of why the issue wasn’t satisfying, to an address in Florida. Though I’ve been burned by OK!‘s cover lies before, I decide to take up their offer.
This proves more challenging than you’d think. Jezebel has been cataloguing the incoherent celebrity drivel contained within the pages of OK! for several years, and it’s hard to distill all that vexation into 15 words. Eventually, I settled on, “You print lies. And I dislike the use of hot pink in your design scheme.”
I purchased my own copy and use my home address, lest it be deemed a “fraudulent submission” by the brain trust operating OK!. After mailing an envelope out on November 11, I begin waiting for the glorious day when OK! will address my grievances. According to the fine print, it will take “approximately 6-8 weeks after receipt and verification,” to receive a check for the $3.99 OK! essentially robbed me of with its egregious claims about Kim Kardashian’s romance with Kanye West and attempts to pass off Bachelor ads as gossip.
Day after day, I camp out next to my mailbox, eventually drawing ridicule from the neighborhood children — and still no check. Now it’s been 13 weeks, and I fear my dream of using the $3.99 to drown my pain in an ice cream sundae that would elicit an epic shaming from the nutritionist in the “What I Ate Today” column will never be realized.
So, we’re through, OK!. Your gossip never made me happy, and from now on when I need to know “Who Wore It Better?” I’ll turn to Star, Life & Style, Us, In Touch, People, or possibly E!’s Fashion Police. They may not tell me the truth either, but at least they never promised to keep me satisfied in the first place.
Earlier: This Week In Tabloids: John Mayer’s White Supremicist Dick Strikes Again