George Orwell's 1984 famously envisioned the future as a "boot stamping on a human face—forever." The first issue of the new, Sony-run magazine Sony Style aims to depict the future as a utopia where technology helps everyone, but instead portends a dystopian nightmare in which the tentacles of a giant corporation reach into the lives of every man, woman, and child. Corporate synergy is certainly nothing new, and neither are corporate-run vanity publications, but Sony Style takes corporate synergy to a disturbing new level. Although it looks like a magazine, features outside advertising, and at least carries on the pretense of being something other than a corporate tool, Sony Style is little more than the published equivalent of a late-night infomercial. Covering the world of artists signed to Sony-affiliated record labels, films made and distributed by Sony, and entertainment made using Sony technology, Sony Style is as devoid of personality as the many Sony-produced machines advertised on its pages. Erasing boundaries that are already blurry in many publications, Sony Style features content that looks like advertising and advertising that looks like content. Sony Style's cover story, for example, on "hyper-talented" actor-dancer-singer Jennifer Lopez (guess her record label) is written with so little personality and such rah-rah boosterism that it could easily double as a press release. Costing a ridiculous $5.95, Sony Style is worthless as a magazine and disturbing as an illustration of the corporate world's enthusiasm for trying to pass off advertising as a worthwhile entity in and of itself.