3 ms·

What I love about zines specifically is that they are easy to make. Anyone can easily print one via copy machine on a very low budget, allowing a broader audie

by naet 4y ago

What I love about zines specifically is that they are easy to make. Anyone can easily print one via copy machine on a very low budget, allowing a broader audience of people to author something unique compared to other publishing media. The barrier is incredibly low, but also just high enough that most people don't end up doing it unless they have some content they are passionate about printing.

teddyh 4y ago
Easy enough to be possible without being just a click of a button away, yes, at a time when people mostly associated any printed material as having taken a large effort to produce.
pessimizer 4y ago
When zines were popular, they were difficult to make and individually mailed to people, and there wasn't a ubiquitous web or a facebook/blogger/whatever. I guess "difficult to make" is relative, but back then it was relative to publishing a newsstand magazine, not relative to a few clicks on wordpress dot org. "Zines" these days are hipster retro kitch, down to fake artfully misaligned/kerned typewriter fonts (or comic book font for a faux-cometbus look.) That being said, this site is attractive and fun.
- Finnucane 4y ago
  Zines were not difficult. All you needed was an x-acto knife and a glue stick, and a 24-hr Kinko's.
  - wincy 4y ago
    Zines are one of these words that just was never in my vocabulary until maybe six months ago. I had to Google what people were talking about. They’re just cheap magazines right?
    - trynewideas 4y ago
      self-published print works, one or more copies handmade, the rest duplicated cheaply. arguably a modern successor of 18th-century pamphleting. usually folded and staple-bound, if bound at all. low barrier to entry made them popular with marginalized groups; easily mailed, they were also the nexus of some early fan communities, especially for Star Trek, comics, music, and film. some early web publishing was heavily zine inspired; boingboing was a zine for almost a decade before becoming a blog maybe a more digestible history of zines in the internet era: https://thehistoryoftheweb.com/postscript/alt-zines-and-memories-of-a-media-transition/ https://thehistoryoftheweb.com/postscript/alt-zines-and-memo...

by naet 4y ago

teddyh 4y ago

Easy enough to be possible without being just a click of a button away, yes, at a time when people mostly associated any printed material as having taken a large effort to produce.

pessimizer 4y ago

When zines were popular, they were difficult to make and individually mailed to people, and there wasn't a ubiquitous web or a facebook/blogger/whatever. I guess "difficult to make" is relative, but back then it was relative to publishing a newsstand magazine, not relative to a few clicks on wordpress dot org. "Zines" these days are hipster retro kitch, down to fake artfully misaligned/kerned typewriter fonts (or comic book font for a faux-cometbus look.) That being said, this site is attractive and fun.

Finnucane 4y ago
Zines were not difficult. All you needed was an x-acto knife and a glue stick, and a 24-hr Kinko's.
- wincy 4y ago
  Zines are one of these words that just was never in my vocabulary until maybe six months ago. I had to Google what people were talking about. They’re just cheap magazines right?
  - trynewideas 4y ago
    self-published print works, one or more copies handmade, the rest duplicated cheaply. arguably a modern successor of 18th-century pamphleting. usually folded and staple-bound, if bound at all. low barrier to entry made them popular with marginalized groups; easily mailed, they were also the nexus of some early fan communities, especially for Star Trek, comics, music, and film. some early web publishing was heavily zine inspired; boingboing was a zine for almost a decade before becoming a blog maybe a more digestible history of zines in the internet era: https://thehistoryoftheweb.com/postscript/alt-zines-and-memories-of-a-media-transition/ https://thehistoryoftheweb.com/postscript/alt-zines-and-memo...