SAPPHIC ANGST FEST
GEORGINA TURNER ON ZINE CULTURE AND THE AWARD-WINNING BERENA ZINE, SAPPHIC ANGST FEST
GEORGINA TURNER is a lecturer in Media at the University of Liverpool.
@intweed
“Freaks, geeks, nerds and losers – that’s who zines are made by.” These are the words of Stephen Duncombe, an author and professor of media and cultural studies – and he means it in a good way.
Zines – pronounced “zeens”; those handmade, often handwritten, little pamphlets about anything and everything – are a way for all kinds of marginalised people to have a voice, to state their truth, and to find others like them. A bit like the internet, maybe, but with more ownership and less data theft.
Zines are one of the ways in which queers have historically created and recreated our own culture: documenting, sharing (and arguing) to produce an authentic and participatory media culture that stands against the mainstream. Before I found DIVA – before I realised I was gay, in fact – a classmate made a zine about how great it was to be a lesbian. I can’t remember much about the content now, but I remember thinking in awe, “we can just do this?”