"Be A Zinester" Response

I like how Anne Elizabeth Moore began "Be A Zinester" by connecting zines to the timeless issue of being in control of your own voice. This is one of the most exciting aspects of zines and is probably over-looked by people who can't find any value in them.
It really surprised me that in the early fanzine scene the ratio between men and women was generally equal. Moore equates their position outside of academia and the "traditional, masculine world of professional publishing" with their democratic nature, as it allowed women, and other silenced and/or marginalized groups, the freedom to express their own voices. Her elaboration of Riot Grrrl zines illustrates the importance of this ability, as the work of Nomy Lamm that she mentions is definitely still taboo today. Although she does not explain the details of the mainstream press distorting the Riot Grrrl message, nor the ensuing media blackout, it says a lot about the power of independent publishing for these zines to have garnered so much attention (despite it being, most likely, negative/anti-feminist backlash) from the mainstream media.
It is also surprising that most dictionaries do not contain the word "zine," and how greatly they are misunderstood in mainstream culture. They do not define zines, as the real history is the zines themselves, Moore relays to us at the close of her article. The importance of this being that the struggle for an authentic, independent voice is not a thing of the past, as even the rebellious writers of Riot Grrrl zines, after the scene ended, were placed into boxes, as Moore puts it, by mainstream media misinformation/revisionism. Moore's call to the reader to explore, analyze and construct a history of zines for her/himself seems to be rooted in a nostalgia for zine ethos, and seems to present a daunting challenge to those of us coming after this time period to revive this age of truly democratic expression--that we should be zinesters.

(Again, to those who see no value in this kind of stuff...weak. "Don't be so lame" is what I would say. "You just don't get it.")

-Richard