Making media!

[Jacob]

Hey guys,

I was wondering how many of us have made our own zines/blogs/films/music/podcast?

A lot of times it feels like we do cultural analysis but one of the coolest ways to respond to the enormity of media messaging is just to make your own.

How do you folks make your own media, and what is it like for you as an experience?

[Catherwren]

I've wanted to make my own zines and films, but I either forget about it or just can't figure it out. Like how are you supposed to get people to subscribe to a zine? But I do write songs and put music to them. And I really enjoy that.

[Jacob]

Oh super!

Zines sort of have their own culture! So you might make a bunch of copies and then go to tabletop zine sales. Swapping also happens a lot among zinesters. So it might be less a case of people subscribing (I don't really know anyone who has a subscription process) and more a case of selling/sharing individual copies. Also some places have zine distros, or zine libraries, who might take multiple copies of your zines off your hands if they like them.

I have to say the best way I have ever got round to making a zine is to do a zine-in-a-day with a group of friends. I've done it a couple of times where you pick a theme, gather a few people and just spend the day doodling, discussing and writing until everyone has at least one page each. You compile the pages (you might need to have or know someone who has a scanner) and then print a bunch of copies based on how much cash your group can gather. You then split the copies between you so everyone has a memento and a bunch of zines you can share/sell.

[KierC]

I was about to make a post on making media and figured I would revive this thread!

I practice multimedia art therapy and I’ve found that making things like paintings, sculptures, and pieces of furniture has been a really bountiful experience in terms of not only discovering more about how I feel about my identity, my history, my body, etc., but also figuring out how to communicate those feelings.

Sculpting is my favorite because it’s like “mandated messiness,” but if I’m not able to make a physical mess or make physical artwork, I like to make games on Twine and share them with my friends. There’s an incredible book called Video Games for Humans that compiles a bunch of Twine games by queer creators — highly recommend if anyone is interested making your own game or even learning to code more!