Just my opinion - O.K? (OK!)

Member Name: cswann

Product:	OK!
Date:	13/11/00 (29 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Colourful, easy and unchallenging to read

Disadvantages: Unchallenging to read

I am not a regular reader of OK, or Hello magazine, either, and I never will be a regular reader of either. I'm not a gossip freak, in real life, or in connection with the stars. But OK is a really popular magazine with my work colleagues, and I thought I'd better check out a copy - just to see what I was missing out on.
I was pleasantly surprised, as I discovered there is more to it than just the celebrity photoshoots and snippets. The middle section is a pretty good for TV listings, and there are guides to recent music releases, the cinema etc. It's, well Ok? I wasn't totally convinced that the writers in this area know their stuff, exactly - a piece on Taj Mahal's CD releases, talks about him as if he is a band ("their 1967 eight-track album...").
Still, I can ignore little slips like that - the magazine's strength is definitely the celebrity interviews and news. If you like that kind of thing, it's fine.
Personally, I got tired of seeing a photo of Liz Hurley on every other page, though, and some of the people featured hardly seem to merit such attention (but I suppose someone must be interested in the minor soap stars, minor royalty and minor teenbands). I guess it's hard to fill so many pages (almost 200) every week.
The photos and the stories are mostly very complimentary, almost fawning, in fact - although I was refreshed to see some not-too-nice remarks about Pamela Anderson!
The OK page style is distinctive, black background, large photos, bold headings in a white box - wordy headings which often tell you as much as you need to know about the story! Some of the advertisements even copy this style, in an effort to make you read them.
It doesn't take long to read a copy of OK, as most of the text is based on the pictures, which in turn take up most of the space. I actually quite enjoyed taking a look at it, reading the 'secrets' that the stars want us to know about it.
All very forgettable and it passes the time if you're in a waiting room.
As I say, I won't bother again, but that's only because it's really not my scene. OK is OK - it's popular so it must be OK at doing what it does - basically inflating celebrities' egos.

Summary: