Not In My Zip Code

Last month marked the premier of 02138 Magazine. The publication is about as subtle as a falling brick. It prattles like a man suffering from a mid-life crisis who wishes he were still in college. Yet no college experience today, not even that of fair Harvard, can possibly extend to an entire lifestyle, as the magazine suggests.

02138 is the self-billed chronicler of “The World of Harvard,” but this is all metaphysics.

The magazine claims to promulgate a distinctly “Harvard sensibility.” What that is supposed to mean is left unsaid. But, judging from its inky pages, it apparently involves Z-listed students who bought their way into college, high-end wines and overpriced gadgets in a desperate spread entitled, “Passions,” and beautiful people. None of these things are my Harvard.

I’ve been anticipating 02138’s debut. Last February, I was interviewed for a summer gig with the magazine by a cute woman and a cuter man. Both Harvard alumni, they were young and made me feel at ease. The woman told me how awesome it was that I wrote for The Crimson—she’d never finished her comp.

I got the job. But 02138 couldn’t tell me what I would be doing, except to say it would involve a lot of research. I also got the impression that their view of Harvard was closer to what they thought readers wanted it to be than what they had experienced. In the end, I didn’t take it.

I’m glad I trusted my gut. 02138 is a desperate magazine. It strains to paint Harvard as a clan of glam. The magazine’s cover features the gorgeous Rashida Jones ’97, the daughter of famous music producer Quincy Jones and “Mod Squad” actress Peggy Lipton. Jones is an actress-modelloungewear designer. “She’s Harvard. So Are You.” the cover coos.

The magazine is also embarrassing. One bit, entitled “Identity Theft,” carps at organizations that have employed the Harvard name to elevate themselves: “The Harvard of dog-training schools;” “The Harvard of Pilates Teacher Training Programs.” The irony was apparently lost on 02138. Such self-adoration, particularly when feigned as irritation, is in ignorance of a staple Harvard trait: good taste.

The real trouble with 02138 is that it doesn’t understand what makes Harvard great. It embraces jewels and jetsetters; it rejects the eccentric, the nerdy, and the badly dressed. In 02138, the frumpy physics concentrator who doesn’t know a Manolo Blahnik from a Birkenstock is tossed aside in favor of the Hermes-toting development admit from Greenwich. It celebrates those who parasite upon the Harvard name instead of those who contribute to it.

The founder of 02138 says that as Harvard graduates, we share “cultural DNA.” I’m sorry, what? I’ll stick with my version of Harvard—my own cultural DNA—for the time being.



Lucy M. Caldwell ’09, a Crimson editorial editor, is a history and science concentrator in Adams House.