Rant: Why I stopped dismissing zines as just artsy scrapbooking

I used to think zines were just for people who liked cutting up magazines and gluing stuff together. Then I stumbled on a zine from 1992 at a thrift store in Austin called "Punk Rock 101" that had a whole two-page spread on how to book your own show using payphones and flyers. That one piece of info was way more practical than anything I'd read online about DIY touring. It made me realize zines were capturing real, lived knowledge that gets lost in Internet posts. Has anyone else found a zine that changed how you see an entire scene or hobby?

2 comments

2 Comments

lily51125d ago

Flip it around and ask why we're romanticizing paper scraps from 30 years ago when the same info is literally free on the internet. I found that punk zine too and honestly the advice was outdated even back then - who uses payphones now? The whole "real lived knowledge" thing sounds nice but most zines are just people's badly written opinions with no fact checking. I've seen bike zines that tell you to use a shoelace on a chain which is super dangerous if you're actually riding, not just showing off. Social media and forums have way more up to date practical advice from tons of people, not just one person's random ramblings they photocopied at Kinkos.

xena_williams25d ago

Oh MAN, that punk zine sounds golden. I found a tiny zine about bike maintenance from some random alley cat racer that taught me how to fix a chain with a shoelace. It's crazy how much real world know-how is just sitting in those weird little handmade books.