Classic Reissue: A Brief History of People’s Sexiest Man Alive

Who gets to be sexy and why?

2024’s Sexiest Man Alive is John Krasinski. At least, that’s what People Magazine tells us. It was a decision met with a resounding “huh”, one that felt both inimitably People and several years too late. I wrote about the choice for Pajiba last week so I won’t go into it too much here, but it felt like a good opportunity to revisit a classic issue of Gossip Reading Club from the pre-Substack days and remind myself of how this illustrious title works.

A Brief History of People’s Sexiest Man Alive.

(I mean, sure, okay?)

The first edition of People was published on March 4th, 1974, with Mia Farrow on the cover as part of the promotional cycle for The Great Gatsby. The magazine was conceived as a less stuffy and more, well, people-oriented alternative to the likes of Time-Life. While the premier issue had a major celebrity as its face, the cover also centered decidedly serious topics such as the wives of M.I.A. Vietnam soldiers, the arrest of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, and the widow of Lee Harvey Oswald. Really, People of 1974 had far more in common with the weekly news magazines of its time than the People of 2021. Aside from the cover, the entire issue was in black and white, and words came before images in terms of importance. They weren’t quite as bombastic or obsessive in their adoration as the old era of fan magazines were. People’s ethos was still one of seriousness, albeit on a more intimate level.

Obviously, that formula changed over the years, and People’s shift towards a more celebrity-oriented focus, with a major emphasis on glossy and well-manicured narratives centering the rich and famous, turned them into one of the true publishing behemoths of the late-20^th century. In its footsteps followed many People wannabes, from Us Weekly to the TV series Entertainment Tonight to the entire E! Network to bloggers like Perez Hilton. By the mid-2000s, People’s circulation was estimated to be around 46 million adults. People had $997 million in advertising revenue in 2011, the highest advertising revenue of any American magazine. Even in a time of drastically reduced magazine circulation, People is a major boon in the stable of the Meredith Corporation.