Lately, the end of the world has been on my mind. It may have a little bit to do with reading Mayan prophecies regarding catastrophic dimensional shifts… could be that cinematic flop “2012” is now on DVD… or could be that I recently read an article on the New York Times about how fashion bloggers are now scoring front-row seats at fashion shows and, quite literarily, fighting Anna Wintour for armrest space.

As news of yet another publication that will not live to see 2010 manages to bite me in the ass before I can even sip my morning coffee, I have come crashing face-first with a truth I’ve known all along but can no longer fight, flee, deny or ignore.

Fashion magazines are dead.

Every day I see out-of-work writers and editors juggle unsteady (and often unpaid) freelance work and keep tabs on scattered former colleagues for months.

“It will get better”, they tell each other over discount cappuccinos.

But, no. It will not get better.

Hoping to find all of us tapped out of denial, I have reached the end of my own grace period for “marketplace evaluation”. That’s right, I set myself an improbable and completely arbitrary timeline in which to analyze economic recovery, interpret market projections, make sense of unemployment statistics, study real estate and currency fluctuations, closely follow bailout paybacks, and even try to finally learn what the hell “gross national product” is. You know, so I could plan my next big move.

Yeah, huge waste of time.

The death of print media was not brought on by the Wall Street bust of 2008. It was only mercifully precipitated by it wake.

Writers have the best chance for survival here. If you happen to be one, you’re in luck. “Content is king”, they say. You’ll just have to get used to the idea that the time of company-paid creative collaboration is long gone. You may never again have an editor to run things by, a publisher to answer to, a co-worker to share ideas with, or time to really research and polish a piece. You may go for weekdays without any human contact. And you’ll probably work in your pajamas and not likely bathe.

Of course, the inane pre-pubescent blogger sitting next to Anna Wintour will still, undoubtedly, beat you. He’s got youth, snark, quickness and absolute unaccountability on his side.

But how about the other pieces of the puzzle? The editors. The copyeditors. The art department. The stylist. The photographers.

Are they extinct?

Is getting an instant shot of a Marc Jacobs dress the minute it sashays down the runway along with a short blurb on your first impressions of it more valuable than a thoughtful assessment of the collection and its context?

And what will happen with fashion photography as an art form?

Will Anna Wintour tweet? Will Annie Leibovitz upload her pictures for a blog “slide show”?

Does a picture like this do justice to her work or even justify the costs of putting a photoshoot together?

So while all this may mean good news for the opinionated and web-savvy… however  amateurish, however untrained…it is also a tragedy for those who spent years, maybe a lifetime, polishing a craft, or building a career by viewing, dissecting and contextualizing fashion in its full scope.

Yes, I know. There have been countless articles and blog entries (ironic?) mourning the death of journalism and print media, pondering the implications of its passing and pointing an accusing finger at their slayers: the internet, the cost of paper, its failed vision, inability to adapt, unsustainable economic models, bloated conglomerates, Craigslist, the public’s insatiable need for free and instant information, its own self-indulgence and arrogance…

But who cares? I can say it again.

I have a blog now.