THE EGOIST LIFESTYLE Gender, community, and the "new generation" of post-communist Bulgaria

In 1996, some seven years after the fall of communism, Egoist emerged as the undisputed leader in the genre of lifestyle magazines in Bulgaria. It negotiated local gender discourses with the import of Western consumer culture. Most significantly, the magazine transformed its target demographic into a socially recognizable "new generation" tasked with steering the direction of the postcommunist transition. This paper explores the formation, gender dynamics, and political significance of this "new generation." It demonstrates how by organizing the "new generation"aesthetically, culturally, and politically-around gendered practices of production and consumption, Egoist harmonized the advent of homo economicus with the available sex/gender system. Thus, the magazine helped create the affective conditions for the emergence of a society with little aspiration or capacity to produce an alternative socio-political order that could avoid the pitfalls of imported market ideologies.