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SMNTY Classics: The Feminism (and Fandom) of Zines · Stuff Mom Never Told You

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and Samantha. I come to stuff
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: I never told you production of iHeartRadio, and today we're
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: bringing back one that was a really fun, surprising one.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: I think for us in different ways. When we get
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: into July, I start thinking about a lot of nerd stuff.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: I have so many thoughts. Listeners is keeping me awake
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: at night? How many thoughts I have about nerd stuff?
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: Right now, We're going to have to do a huge
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: episode on it. We're working on something with Joe. But
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: I've just got a million thoughts turning around my head.
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: But we did this episode a while back on the
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: feminism of fanzines, of zines, and it was really interesting
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: because you and I had different experiences when it comes
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: to our memories around them. And then after we did
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: this episode, I remembered that I had there had been
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: more zines in my life than I recalled while we
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: were talking about this, and it was just it was
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: a fascinating one. And because I do as we move
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: closer to what I call Colon season, for me a
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: very nerdy time, I was just thinking about that and
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: some of the zines that I have had, and with
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: a lot of the flux going on, right now and
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: nerd them what the future is and also how it
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: can be this place where there is more representation, which
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: is something that we talked about in this episode.
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: You bought me a witch zine I did. I love it.
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: It's cute. I love this too. I love it too,
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: And as always, listeners, Yeah, if you have any zine
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: suggestions or memories, please let us know. But in the meantime,
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: please enjoy this classic episode. Hey, this is Annie and
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: Samantha and welcome to Steffan. I never told your production
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: of iHeartRadio, and I have to give you some behind
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: the scenes. I'm kind of laughing right now because we
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: have outlines that we work off of, right and I
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: admitted in a passed episode my s key isn't working
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: on my laptop, which is one of the most painful
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: keys to not be working right. And instead of fixing it,
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: I've put everything off lately because I've been so busy.
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: I have a lot of interesting workarounds, and I can
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: tell by this outline that I was very frustrated already.
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: That's so funny. I'm sorry, it just cracked me up.
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: I've found some ways around it, but it's not been
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: the easiest thing to do.
• 3:01
  Speaker 3: I will say in one of the outlines, you definitely
• 3:03
  Speaker 3: missmelled my name.
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: Because you start with And that's the other thing is
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: I said, my spell check isn't working, and I.
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: Was like, huh okay, yeah, you.
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: Could like see my descent into anger in this outline.
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: And another thing about this outline is it was originally
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: a Monday Mini. I do think it's going to be
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: a shorter one. But every time we say that, it
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: never works out. But we'll see. But I was researching
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: it and I think we could come back and revisit it, honestly.
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: So we're talking about zines. Originally I was specifically talking
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: about fanzine, So we are going to talk about zines
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: at large in this one. Do you have any experience
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: with zines, Samantha.
• 3:48
  Speaker 3: I will say I did not know what zines were
• 3:51
  Speaker 3: until I moved to Atlanta. I think that was around
• 3:53
  Speaker 3: two thousand and six, two thousand and seven, and I
• 3:57
  Speaker 3: always called it zines, which he was how little I
• 4:00
  Speaker 3: knew about it and trying to understand it because there
• 4:03
  Speaker 3: was a whole like atl collective group that gets together
• 4:07
  Speaker 3: and does them, and I was like, what is this?
• 4:10
  Speaker 3: It's really fascinating, and then it got really like trendy.
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: Yes, so I was very scared of it.
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and we're going to talk about that because they
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: are experiencing a boom right now. I didn't realize resurging.
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: Are you kidding? It's been fifteen years.
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: Well it's been longer than that, but they are experiencing
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: a resurgence. I don't have much experience with scenes. I
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: had one nerd one that I just kind of found
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: at a thrift store once, and I really liked that one.
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: It was like mostly Star Wars, what a bunch of
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: other stuff, and I just happened to find it. It was
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: really cool. And then Atlanta used to have dope girls zes.
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: Well see I get confused with Zene Andziin too, But
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: I'm going with scenes because magazine. I feel like that's
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: what it's got to be, right.
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: I think you're right. I just really could not grasp it.
• 5:00
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and nope, girls are still around, but yeah, but yes.
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: Right, yeah, I don't think they don't do the zine anymore,
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: or at least the last I heard they had retired it.
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: They might have bought it back, but they are still around, right. Yes,
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: it was very popular. But one of the reasons I
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: wanted to talk about this was I got this inkling
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: that something was up a couple of weeks ago, because
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: people started posting fan fiction that they'd written literal decades
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: ago and would say like, hey, I wrote this in
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: nineteen whatever, here it is, and I was just kind
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: of like, oh, that's interesting. I mean, yeah, I appreciate it.
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: And then, as you know, mar Jade, who is a
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: Star Wars character from Legends that I'm very very excited
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: to talk about on fictional women around the world, she
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: started popping up a lot more and I was like,
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: why are people talking about mar Jade? Not that they shouldn't,
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: but it's just kind of like, huh, I wonder if
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: there's a reason for this. It turns out there there is.
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: There is a movement that is primarily led by women
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: to digitize old fanzines, to preserve them, to save them
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: because otherwise they're just gonna be lost. And it's a
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: whole thing. It's really really interesting. I also am currently
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: reading one of the best Like I know I've said
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: it before, but there's some fan fiction you read and
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: you're like, yes, this could be published and be better
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: than half the stuff they're putting out, maybe even more
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: than that. And I'm reading one right now that's a
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: result of this, and it's so good. It's like reading
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: a book. It's all no good. But yeah, since we
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: have been on a tech kick lately, I'm always zoned
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: to talk about fan fiction, and this is happening right now.
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: We thought we would go over it fairly briefly, because honestly,
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: it was a much bigger topic than I thought it
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: was gonna be. Yeah, you can see the episodes we
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: did on fan fiction. You can also see the recent
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: ish many that we did that was called a love
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: letter to fan fiction, but was primarily about Arcave of
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: our own, which is one of the biggest fan fiction sites,
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: which is we're going to talk about in this conversation.
• 7:06
  Speaker 3: Right, Okay, so let's talk about this. What are zines
• 7:10
  Speaker 3: not Zien Smith, not science? I'm having to repeat this
• 7:13
  Speaker 3: to myself. Well, they encompass a lot of things, but
• 7:16
  Speaker 3: here are a couple of key things involved.
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: One is that they're.
• 7:19
  Speaker 3: Typically self published or published by an independent small publisher.
• 7:23
  Speaker 3: This has mainly been a way for marginalized folks to
• 7:25
  Speaker 3: exercise their voices more freely outside of mainstream media. So
• 7:30
  Speaker 3: as a part of that, they are usually not published
• 7:32
  Speaker 3: in large numbers and are for smaller communities and are
• 7:36
  Speaker 3: frequently very niche, and they aren't commercial. There's often a
• 7:40
  Speaker 3: lot of contributions and connections to the zine world, which
• 7:44
  Speaker 3: was what I saw in Atlanta.
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so a lot of people, you know, well if
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: you if I have Zene and you have Zene, will
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: work together and collaborate and conditions a lot.
• 7:52
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I remember that, Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, And I
• 7:57
  Speaker 4: always feel like I have to caveat things zines aren't commercial,
• 8:02
  Speaker 4: but I do think we have seen with the popularity,
• 8:05
  Speaker 4: magazines try to get in on that, as always happens
• 8:10
  Speaker 4: in capitalism.
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: So I think there could be an argument made that
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: some of them aren't commercial, but like at their heart,
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: at their core, they're not right commercial. Okay, So a
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: brief history depending on how you define zines, because I
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: even wrestled with this and I don't know too much
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: about them, but I was like, doesn't it go back
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: way further than this? But most people say they go
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: back to the nineteen thirties with science fiction zines, so
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: fans trying to like collaborate with short stories and share
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: their fandom with each other. The zine is short for fanzine.
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: That was the original use. And remember this was before
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: the internet and zines were away for fans to connect
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: with each other. It was sort of like, it's always
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: interesting these iterations of technology because I've heard people who
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: were like one generation before me talk about like old
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: message boards online, and that was like the precursor, and
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: then the precursor to that is zines, and so yeah,
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: it was kind of like a way to connect. These
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: fans would speculate with each other, they would share theories
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: about their favorite works, they would work together on arts
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: and stories, including fan fiction. Yes, but they were also
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: sometimes called per zines or personal zcenes, which I love,
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: and they were often handmade, right.
• 9:33
  Speaker 3: That's again this is what I know, Atlanta, And I
• 9:35
  Speaker 3: did not know that it had spanned so far back
• 9:38
  Speaker 3: because it was themed so niche and for again, the
• 9:42
  Speaker 3: ones that I saw in the early two thousands were
• 9:46
  Speaker 3: more about music and art. Yes, so it was a
• 9:50
  Speaker 3: little different and it was very hip culture.
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I'm old, stop it.
• 9:57
  Speaker 3: So yeah, zines saw a surge of growth in the
• 10:00
  Speaker 3: fifties and sixties against kind of like what I'm saying
• 10:03
  Speaker 3: with counterculture movements that were eager to support smaller, independent
• 10:07
  Speaker 3: publications and the underground press, and also saw it as
• 10:11
  Speaker 3: a way to connect with others with similar ideas, a
• 10:14
  Speaker 3: space for people to have a voice outside of mainstream media.
• 10:19
  Speaker 3: Mini designs from this time combined art and politics and
• 10:23
  Speaker 3: activism and writing in experimental and new and eclectic ways,
• 10:27
  Speaker 3: which that's carried on. That's how I knew it more
• 10:30
  Speaker 3: so than those fan zines, right.
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: I think you also just said zions, but we're leaving
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: it in because I think it's hilarious having a day.
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: Let's go yeah, okay, well, yeah, that's one of my
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: and we're going to talk about this more. But that's
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: one of the things people keep saying of why zines
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: are so unique is that you don't know what you're
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: gonna get in them already. They're like a really unique, random,
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: well not necessarily random, but just a lot of different
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: things that you can't really anticipate until you open it
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: up and look at it, right, and to your points,
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: Punk music zines really took off in the nineteen eighties,
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: often combining music and politics, and it offered something unique
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: because these znes really captured the whole esthetic and vibe
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: of a subculture. And the nineties is when feminist scenes
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: like Riot Girl really came onto the scene. And this
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: was a reaction to sexism within these punk music scenes
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: and within the writing of punk music, and it went
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: on to inspire so many other znes written by women
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: and girls about feminism, often in conjunction with something very specific,
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: which all coincided with third wave feminism. Quote about it
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: from the Sally Bingham Collection at Duke University's Rubinstein Library.
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: Feminist practice emphasizes the sharing of personal experience as a
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: community building tool, and zines prove to be the perfect
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: medium for reaching out to young women across the country
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: in order to form the revolution. Girl Style and Yeah,
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: forty thousand zines were being published by nineteen ninety three
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: in North America. I believe right. Yeah, So you might
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: be thinking, but wait, I've heard so much about the
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: death of print, and in terms of the environment, that
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: might be a good thing. But zines are still out
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: there and have recently seen some major growth, and much
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: of it is in the arena of intersectional feminism, led
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: by more women, queer folks, and people of color. However,
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: just like with most things, there is still work to
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: be done in terms of inclusivity. One of the big
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: criticisms of the nineties feminist zines was that they were
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: largely done and based around middle class white women, and
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: that is changing, especially with external pressure on the publishing world,
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: but major issues that were compounded by things like the
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: pandemic still remains. So like it was seeing this really
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: great growth in terms of inclusivity, and then the pandemic happens,
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: and also capitalism ruins everything, and some big magazines are
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: blurring the lines between magazine and zine, especially by copying
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: the aesthetic of things like riot girls try to appear
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: like they are that thing, when that's sort of the
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: opposite of what zines are about. And as part of
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: the whole thing behind the popularity of zines amongst women
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: and marginalized folks is that you can talk about feminism
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: or whatever really without an ad about plastic surgery or
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: something in your publication, which you know, if you want
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: it all for it. But the history of magazines when
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: it comes to selling women a very specific image of
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: how they shoed look is not good. So there's it
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: also gives creators the space to write about other things
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: than women's issues or race issues, which a lot of
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: the writers reported like I'm tired of being asked only
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: to write about this. I want to write about fun
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: things too, or like not that those can't be fun,
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: but like you know.
• 14:16
  Speaker 3: Right, and I know a lot of it was like
• 14:17
  Speaker 3: I love music of all kinds and they only asked
• 14:20
  Speaker 3: me to do the specific genre of music, and it's
• 14:22
  Speaker 3: not what I'm interested in, Like I've saw that, Like
• 14:25
  Speaker 3: they would talk about things like that again, like dope girls.
• 14:27
  Speaker 3: Their whole thing was like let's talk about weed and
• 14:30
  Speaker 3: kind of well, no that wasn't their whole thing, but
• 14:32
  Speaker 3: like bringing it in and like normalizing what that looks
• 14:34
  Speaker 3: like in a culture that is so uptight at that
• 14:38
  Speaker 3: point in time. But yeah, it's very interesting to see
• 14:41
  Speaker 3: all of that. And again, what I witnessed was people
• 14:45
  Speaker 3: taking space and creating their own art, and a lot
• 14:47
  Speaker 3: of the zines, not Signs, not of the zines that
• 14:51
  Speaker 3: I saw at that time interweaved their artwork in the story.
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: So it was really interesting to see.
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that's something else I've loved out recent fan fiction,
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: which we are going to get to, I promise, but
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: i'd love when they do that where they have like
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: art interspersed in the story, like I love them and
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: I'm really gonna rude the day if it is Zienes
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: and not Zene Samantha. But it was me. I promise,
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: it just makes sense to me.
• 15:19
  Speaker 3: I'm pretty sure, right, I think I was corrected when
• 15:21
  Speaker 3: I first said that.
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: You okay, well, we'll see. We could have just looked
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: it up, but we're too into it now. Here's a
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: quote from a Guardian article written by Ruth Jamison. If
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: modern feminism is multifaceted by nature, there now seems to
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: be an independently published magazine or zine for every one
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: of those faces. There's Sabbat, which explores modern witchcraft through
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: a feminist lens, Typical Girls, which sets out to show
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: there's no such thing, the women only Zene Girls Club,
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: female general interest mag Lira or Lyra, and Private Eye
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: meets Vogue, satirical glossy mush pit Riposts, the smart magazine
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: for women burnt Rote, which showcases the talent of South
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: Asian women, Galdam, the print version of the popular website
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: for women of color of the same name, and feminist
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: indie mags Lady Beard and fruit Lands are amplifying women's voices,
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: championing female writing, and challenging ideas about what a women's
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: magazine can be. These publications tap into a rich history
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: of female protest in print. Here's the quote within the article.
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: Obviously there are lots of women in the media, but
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: they rarely control every aspect of a magazine. It's even
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: rarer that they own it, says Phoebe Lindsay of Fruitlands. Historically,
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: women have taken control of the way they are not
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: represented by publishing on their own terms. Think of Spare
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: Rib and the Riot Girls zines of the nineties. By
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: having our own magazine, we can control and direct every
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: element of our message. The lack of diversity in the
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: media is unbelievably frustrating, says Galdam's opinion editor Heather Barnett.
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: Galdam are changing that by providing a platform where women
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: and non binary people of color can write about whatever
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: they like.
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so, the article continues.
• 17:03
  Speaker 3: The boom in independent magazine publishing has shown that print
• 17:07
  Speaker 3: is not dead.
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: Now.
• 17:08
  Speaker 3: Independent women's magazines are setting the standard for a more
• 17:11
  Speaker 3: progressive women's media. They are changing the face of women's
• 17:15
  Speaker 3: magazines and have their sights set on the media as
• 17:17
  Speaker 3: a whole. As Connery and Taylor says, quote, the number
• 17:20
  Speaker 3: of women who are running independent magazines is inspiring.
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: We're everywhere getting done.
• 17:26
  Speaker 3: It seems print is not only not dead, it has
• 17:29
  Speaker 3: also come back as a woman. Yes, I like that,
• 17:33
  Speaker 3: And here's a quote from Women's Media Center. Sus Meyers
• 17:36
  Speaker 3: is a graphic designer who, along with five other people,
• 17:39
  Speaker 3: organizes the NYC Feminist Zine Fest, the event that has
• 17:42
  Speaker 3: been happening since twenty eleven and offers a space to
• 17:45
  Speaker 3: first timers and old school zine makers to present their
• 17:48
  Speaker 3: work and exchange ideas. The event started with three hundred
• 17:51
  Speaker 3: dollars raised on GoFundMe and the purpose of quote promoting
• 17:54
  Speaker 3: the self published work of zine sters of all genders
• 17:58
  Speaker 3: as they explore a variety of feminist topics through print media.
• 18:02
  Speaker 3: The fact that zines are quote created without any mediating
• 18:06
  Speaker 3: influence from advertisers is an important aspect of the form.
• 18:10
  Speaker 3: Meyer said, a zine can be a lot of things,
• 18:13
  Speaker 3: and because of this, its precise definition can be wonderfully,
• 18:17
  Speaker 3: willfully difficult to pin down.
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: She added, Yes, and this is one of the things
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: I love doing this research is there's a lot of
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: collections or events like this for zines, and I would
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: love to go.
• 18:27
  Speaker 3: I'm pretty sure Lanta had a zene fest. I'm pretty
• 18:29
  Speaker 3: sure in the early two thousands they actually did, or
• 18:31
  Speaker 3: mid two thousands they did have a zine fest, which
• 18:34
  Speaker 3: also like what's happening cool?
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: Now you know? Now you know. Many zines are available
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: in digital form. Some argue that they were essentially pre
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: Internet versions of blogs. Others argue that the physical nature
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: is key to what makes a zine a zine, and
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: that's why one of the reasons why at least they're
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: experiencing a surge during the time social media, like people
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: want something kind of different where you can be random,
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: it's in your hands physical. But this brings us to
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: why my fan fiction sense was tingling, because the digital
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: bit is not necessarily about not offering a print option.
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: A lot of people are arguing it's about preserving for
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: future generations. So as discussed inner episode on Archive of
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: our Own or AO three, which is one of the largest,
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure the largest fan fiction platforms in existence,
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: we talked about how it's just one piece of the
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: nonprofit the organization of Transformative Works, and as part of
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: their mission to preserve older fan fiction largely published in fanzines,
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: they recently launched the fanzine scan hosting project in collaboration
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: with Zenedom and basically, the goal is to preserve these
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: physical fan fictions on their site. And I have seen
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: some of the results. Was what was happening. I was like, oh,
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: look at this, and a handful of my favorite authors
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: have sort of fallen off the map to participate in it.
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: That was another thing I saw where they'd be like,
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: I gotta go scan some what was what did they say,
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: Cody one zines, I'll be back, And I was like, what, okay?
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: But yeah, I've seen these fan fiction that are decades
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: old and they're so well written, and I'm just like, wow,
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: I understand why you were published. And I'm so glad
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: it was saved. I'm so glad I'm reading it right now.
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: And as mentioned before many times, most fan fiction is
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: created by women and other marginalized folks, which means that
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: those folks are largely spearheading this project.
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: Love to see it.
• 20:43
  Speaker 3: For years, Zingdom has been scanning and archiving this material,
• 20:47
  Speaker 3: but this new project came in part out of frustration
• 20:50
  Speaker 3: that AO three's technology didn't really allow for uploading scanned
• 20:54
  Speaker 3: at fanzines, which I was wondering.
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: I was like, can they do that?
• 20:58
  Speaker 3: Morgan Dawn, who was leading the project, describe the difficulty
• 21:02
  Speaker 3: of uploading the scans and that once uploaded, they can't
• 21:05
  Speaker 3: be edited and many errors are often introduced. Don was
• 21:10
  Speaker 3: trying to upload a novel link fanfic with this process
• 21:13
  Speaker 3: to AO three and twenty twelve, but got annoyed with it,
• 21:17
  Speaker 3: so just put up a Google Drive link to the pdf.
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: Sou's like something I would do, But it was.
• 21:21
  Speaker 3: Taken down because the link was not fan work, which
• 21:25
  Speaker 3: is weird, citizen.
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: It's a link to fanwork, it's not fan work actual
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: fan work. Yes, and I have experienced this whole hassle
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: of converting a PDF. I hear you, just sees you.
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: I hear you, Yes, I really do. This led to
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: a whole discussion about preserving fan history, a lot of
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: this history in zines, and how that fell to the
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: fans because the fans are the ones making these things.
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: Don started Zendom to take on this whole thing, uploading
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: and converting dot with permission I'm going to talk about
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: the more in a second, and only a handful of volunteers.
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: But because of that, it just wasn't working like Don wanted,
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: Like the volunteer in the scheduling and the organizing and
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: all this technology, it wasn't working. So Don reached out
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: to Open Doors. A part of the organization of Transformative
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: works with the mission, and their mission is by the way,
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: preserving quote those Spanish projects that might otherwise be lost
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: due to lack of time, interest, our resources on the
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: part of the current maintainer to join in. So Don
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: reached out to them. Mission seems like it fits right
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: in with what Zeemedom's trying to do. But because of
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: things that we talked about in that fan fiction episode
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: on IO three of crackdowns on Tumblr, the shutdown of
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: Yahoo groups where a lot of fanfic was hosted, this
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: process got really really delayed. So it wasn't until I
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: think twenty nineteen that they started working together. Another thing,
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: like Okay First AO three is also run by volunteers,
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: and one of the things we talked about in that
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: episode is that their technology is old, like it's not
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: super old, but it needs to be updated. But it's
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: just like gotten so out of control that they also
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: are struggling with that stuff. Another thing is the tech divide.
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: It's kind of been an issue because a lot of
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: fanzines were written by older people who might not be
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: the most tech savvy to scan and save their work.
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: And another thing, and this is what I found really
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: fascinating and I would love to expand on this, but
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: people often wrote under pen names and are hard to find.
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: So Don talked about like calling people and having these,
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: you know, maybe never finding them, or maybe finding out
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: that they had died, or maybe connecting with an old
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: relative who was so thrilled, like maybe they had lost
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: that relative who wrote it and was so thrilled to
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: have this kind of piece of like oh I didn't
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: know they wrote that or whatever. Because they can't upload
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: them without permission, they have to get the permission first.
• 24:00
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: So with this project, thousands of physical fanzines have been scanned.
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: Most yeah, we're found through Facebook groups are just reaching
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: out to the names they found in the zines. But
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: there are thousands and thousands and thousands more to go.
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: One volunteer has eight thousand Star Trek fanzines alone alone,
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: and I want to talk about this. I want to
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: do the bigger episode on this one day because it
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: was so interesting. But the Kirk Spock fan fiction archive
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: was one of the first to be imported to AO three,
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: and it was being run by a fan who'd taken
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: on the task of maintaining an archive of zines in
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: that arena. Notably, this fandom is also the source of
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: a lot of our more modern Spanish spaces and understanding,
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: including Slash and the ripple effects that that had, and
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: a lot of the women writing about why they were
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: writing Kirk AND's back is a romantic couple, and they
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: were talking about how they identified with Spock is not
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: belonging anywhere and getting all this like guff for the
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: It was just really interesting, really really interesting to see
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: the ripple effects of that. Open Doors is starting to
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: archive Zendom's links and is working with universities and other
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: institutions to make these scenes available online to the public,
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: which it hasn't previously been the case, Like some universities
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: have these collections, but you had to be a student
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: and go in person to see them. So that's a
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: piece of it too. From a twenty twenty two article
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: by Jay Costello. And this is a long quote, so
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: bear with me. It means not being forgotten, said Maggie Nowakowska,
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: the co editor of Geek Elders Speak, an anthology of
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: essays by older women in fandom. Now Akowska herself is
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: seventy three, and I hope I'm not put shuring your name.
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: One reason for preserving and celebrating that history is the
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: fact that so many of the franchise is key to
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: phantom history. Likes Star Trek and Star Wars have a
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: reputation of being for boys, whereas fanfic and fanzines have
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: traditionally been a space dominated by women. They don't think
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: we ever existed. They don't know that women did all
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: these things, says Nawakowska. Julie Baza, an Australian fanzine author
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: and publisher who volunteers with Open Doors, also emphasizes that
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: preservation isn't just about making sure the best fan fiction
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: is available to readers. It's about preserving the culture and
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: history that got us to where we are now. It's
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: really interesting to get an idea of the bigger picture,
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: she says, what tropes are being written about and why
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: at different times, how have things changed. For instance, fan
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: fiction has often been celebrated for its ability to give
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: writers and readers a chance to explore their gender and sexuality.
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: This terminology has changed with words like lemon denoting explicit
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: sexual content and even slash denoting male male relationships falling
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: out of favor, but knowing how and why they were
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: used as important in understanding how same sex relationships and
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: women's sexualities were even more police than they are today.
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: At the same time, preservation can also demonstrate the sheer
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: breadth of fanworks. Baza shared some scans with me, which
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: include a series of haiku inspired by eighties sci fi
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: movie Buckeru Bonzai. For instance, when you open up fanzine,
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: you'll see cartoons, you'll see essays, you'll see poetry, you'll
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: see snarky little comments, you'll see letters of comment said
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: now a Kawska, And that's a totally different experience than
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: just reading one story, which I love. They were kind
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: of talking about that in terms of, you know, like
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: if you go to fan fiction dot net, which is
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: what they're talking about with the slash. The reason we
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: say slash is because if you said, like Kirk and
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: Amper sans block. That's a friendship. If you say Kirk
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: slash block, that is a romantic relationship. But that's not
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: everybody uses fanfiction dot Net anymore, Like that's not how
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: it is necessarily on every site, although it is still
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: in my case that's what I usually see. But I
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: love that, and I love like this idea of when
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: you open a fanzine. It's not like when you click
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: a tag and you know what you're looking for and
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: you know what you're gonna get probably, but you could
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: get a series of Miker that's amazing.
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: That's amazing.
• 28:13
  Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, wow, you just brought me back it really,
• 28:17
  Speaker 3: like I forgot about this. Yeah, it's been so cool. Yeah,
• 28:22
  Speaker 3: it was cool. It's something that I'm like, I love it,
• 28:25
  Speaker 3: but I would never have the courage to do it
• 28:27
  Speaker 3: because I'm not artistic. I think I actually participating in
• 28:31
  Speaker 3: putting like a Stanza in one. I could be making
• 28:35
  Speaker 3: this up, but this seems familiar, like I'm having a time,
• 28:37
  Speaker 3: or maybe I was just around when people did that.
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: I don't remember.
• 28:41
  Speaker 3: I remember buying because I loved going to local readings,
• 28:45
  Speaker 3: like we have a lot of good writers in Atlanta.
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: We know this.
• 28:48
  Speaker 3: iHeart has been blessed with some of our writers recently
• 28:52
  Speaker 3: of fiction, including yourself, including There was a thing called
• 28:57
  Speaker 3: Write Club, and I don't know they're still going in
• 29:00
  Speaker 3: I believe our one of our producers, Mike Johns, was
• 29:02
  Speaker 3: a part of that. She was a big founding and
• 29:05
  Speaker 3: beginning of that, and I remember hearing her read uh there.
• 29:09
  Speaker 3: So shout out to one of the producers of iHeart
• 29:11
  Speaker 3: and Our Family rather who began this and seeing different
• 29:17
  Speaker 3: writers go up and give an essay and have a moment.
• 29:20
  Speaker 3: But in that same group, they did zine clubs and
• 29:23
  Speaker 3: I think they still do Actually, now that you say that,
• 29:27
  Speaker 3: I feel like it's been years since I attended one
• 29:29
  Speaker 3: of those, but I think they still do it. Yeah,
• 29:32
  Speaker 3: And I know Right Club is I think a national thing,
• 29:35
  Speaker 3: but it's the Right Club in Atlanta was started by them,
• 29:39
  Speaker 3: and I remember them selling independently published books and independent zines.
• 29:45
  Speaker 3: Like now that i'm thinking about it, and it's been
• 29:47
  Speaker 3: several years since I've attended one, they still do that,
• 29:51
  Speaker 3: and I love that aspect of it because it brings
• 29:54
  Speaker 3: a lot of personality to these writings and yeah.
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: Wow, you've really got me back. And as in fact,
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: I just had to look through.
• 30:02
  Speaker 3: Twitter because it's not part of your world, you don't know, which,
• 30:06
  Speaker 3: thank you very much for bringing it back.
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: Into my world.
• 30:10
  Speaker 3: There's one group called Queer Circle and I believe they're
• 30:13
  Speaker 3: based out of the UK that did a thing called Atazine,
• 30:18
  Speaker 3: which they did in December, which they brought over one
• 30:20
  Speaker 3: hundred zines submitted by different people from all over the world,
• 30:25
  Speaker 3: all of the world from the queer community. And I'm like, hell, yeah,
• 30:28
  Speaker 3: this stuff like that is so amazing and I forgot
• 30:31
  Speaker 3: the impact of things like this.
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, this was a really fun one to research
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: because I kind of knew about them, but I didn't
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: know too much. I'm so glad that this project is happening,
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: that these fanzines are getting preserved, because I there was
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: a lot of other Honestly, we talked about this before, Samantha.
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: Sometimes we just want to quote like entire articles because
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: it's like, Okay, yes, this is it. But a lot
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: of the older women they interviewed were like, yeah, oh,
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: I don't want to I don't want this to get
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: lost because I think other people will still enjoy it
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: and it's such a good marker of where the fandom
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: was then, so why should it get lost just because
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: you know the Internet wasn't around then, right, So I
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: don't know. It makes me very happy.
• 31:13
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it encompasses so many mediums to this that it's
• 31:16
  Speaker 3: a phenomenal thing and that being digitized would be an
• 31:19
  Speaker 3: amazing thing to preserve things. I would love to see
• 31:22
  Speaker 3: some of the nineteen thirties zines. I want to know
• 31:25
  Speaker 3: what those are. Someone give me a copy, because they're
• 31:29
  Speaker 3: also like aesthetically pleasing because for me, I love variety
• 31:33
  Speaker 3: and it doesn't need to be clean. I need, like
• 31:35
  Speaker 3: I love it's not chaos, but the variety within it
• 31:38
  Speaker 3: and the way they bring it together that I'm like, yeah,
• 31:40
  Speaker 3: this is fun. This is an amusing thing that you
• 31:43
  Speaker 3: can see and it's someone's take of whatever they're publishing
• 31:47
  Speaker 3: or whether they're trying to send out.
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: So yeah, huh yeah yeah. Well, I mean, like I said,
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: I have been enjoying the fan fiction. Everybody, thanks who
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: is doing that up looking it because I've been like
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: blown away, legitimately almost texted you and I was like, I'm
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: reading a fair fiction that is so much better than
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: so much of the official stuff out there, Like wow,
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: And it would have been lost, It would have been lost,
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: and that's just yeah, I don't, I don't want it.
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: I'm I don't. I'm very happy. Uh So if anybody
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: listening is participating in this or has any thoughts about this,
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: that would be great. Uh. But yeah, it is pretty
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: beautiful to bring like one topic and see all these
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: different takes on it, all these I don't know, it
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: is really cool. Pretty much anyone can make one. There
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: are tutorials online if you're interested. Uh, if you have
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: made one, oh my goodness, let us know, yes, yes,
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: And if you have any suggestions, because we did go
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: over some in that middle part, but there are a
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: lot right now and it's a lot is happening, and
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: especially in yeah, kind of the intersectional feminist realm of zine.
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: So send to those our way.
• 32:59
  Speaker 3: Yeah, maybe we can do that as a book club somehow.
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: That'd be cool. I think we could. I think we
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: could well. In the meantime, if you got any of
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: those suggestions or thoughts about this at all, you can
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: email us ATEFPIA mom Stuff at iHeartMedia dot com. You
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: can find us on Twitter at most Stuff podcast or
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: on Instagram a stuff I've Never told you. Thanks as
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: always to our super producer Christina.
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: Thank you, Christina, Yes, and.
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: Thanks to you for listening. Stuff on ever Told You
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: the Direction? From iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from my Heart Radio,
• 33:27
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• 33:28
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