On a friend's flickr post I saw a link to
San Francisco Zine Fest. I have been thinking about zines for a while now. I wonder if zines still matter. Part of me think that zines are nostalgia or an anachronism for the most part. I get the feeling that the time for zines are past.
I am not usually someone who thinks that the internet has killed print media. I think that that it has changed the place in the world for some print media. Newspapers seem to be the most displaced. I think it has to do with the timeliness of the information. Newspapers seem old by the end of the day.
I feel that zines have been displaced by Blogs and Websites. When I was reading and writing zines (yes it was much more reading than writing) back in the early 1990's it felt like zines were the only way to get these messages out. There was no other way for people making zines to be published to the world.
Zines were a whole world of people expressing themselves that you have to look for. People had to put effort into finding zines they liked. It was not something like TV which is there no matter what you do. Zines seemed to be about finding voices like your own is a world that was filled with people who are not like you.
With blogs I guess I am not sure why people still make zines. I think it is much easier to connect with people who are not right around you. With the effort and money it takes to make a zine, is it really worth it. Are the people who wrote the good zines writing good blogs now?
When I went to the Seattle Central Library they had zines in the Teen area. Seeing these zines made me think about doing a zine. The problem is I am not sure how a zine would be different that just a mash-up of my blog and
my flickr account. Could I make a zine that is worth reading? I am not sure what I would make a zine about.
Tell, do zines still matter?
Labels: blog, flickr, flickrpost, media, newspaper, zine
