Latest / Stuff Mom Never Told You / The Feminism (and Fandom) of Zines

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

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