Before blogs were metrics, before “content strategy,” before anyone asked what time of day performs best for vulnerability, there were zines.
Zines were never optimized. They were folded wrong. Stapled crookedly. Spelled badly on purpose or by accident. They showed up late, inconsistently, and without explanation. And somehow, they still mattered.
Not because they were loud. Because they were honest.
Zines taught early blogs almost everything they knew about how to exist. Blogs took those lessons, scaled them, monetized them, and then—somewhere along the way—forgot why they worked in the first place.
This isn’t nostalgia. It’s a field report.
Zines taught blogs that voice matters more than polish
Zines assumed a reader who could keep up. They didn’t explain every reference. They didn’t flatten their tone to be broadly palatable. They trusted that if you found the thing, you were probably supposed to be there.
Blogs of the early ‘00s and 2010s carried that same energy. A clear voice. A point of view. Writing that sounded like someone thinking out loud, not someone performing expertise. You didn’t land on a blog because it ranked well—you landed because it felt like a human had opened a window and left it unlocked.
Modern blogging still talks about “finding your voice” and authenticity, but it often means sanding it down until it fits a brand template. Zines never did that. They knew voice wasn’t a marketing asset. That was the whole point.
Zines taught blogs that process is content
Zines are messy by design. They include half-formed ideas, crossed-out sentences, awkward transitions. You can see the thinking happening on the page.
Early blogs did this too. Posts didn’t arrive fully formed. People wrote mid-project, mid-confusion, mid-argument-with-themselves. Readers weren’t just consuming conclusions—they were witnessing process.
Somewhere along the way, blogs decided everything had to arrive polished, actionable, and resolved. Process got hidden behind “lessons learned.” Uncertainty was edited out. Draft thinking was replaced with authoritative voice.
Zines never pretended to have it all figured out. That’s why they felt alive.
Zines taught blogs that community isn’t a comment section
Zines weren’t interactive in the way platforms define interaction now. You couldn’t “like” a zine. You couldn’t retweet it. But you could write a letter. Trade issues. Reference someone else’s work in your own pages. Pass it along until it falls apart.
That kind of community was slow and decentralized. It relied on care, not engagement metrics.
Early blogs understood this. Blogrolls mattered. Linking was a form of respect. Conversations happened across sites, not inside one fenced-off comment box.
Modern blogs often outsource community to platforms they don’t control and then wonder why it feels brittle. Zines built community without algorithms because they weren’t trying to own their audience. They were trying to talk to peers.
Zines taught blogs that independence is a feature, not a flaw
Zines were free from permission. No gatekeepers. No approval cycles. No advertisers to appease. If you wanted to say something, you made a thing and put it out into the world.
Blogs inherited that freedom—at first.
Then came platforms, monetization pressure, SEO rules, brand deals, and the slow shift from “I have something to say” to “Will this perform?” Independence became a liability. Writing started bending toward what could be measured.
Zines were never scalable, and that was the point. They existed on a human scale. Blogs forgot that not everything worth making needs to grow.
What blogs forgot
Blogs forgot that not every post needs to teach, sell, or convert.
They forgot that inconsistency can be a signal of real life, not failure.
They forgot that writing doesn’t have to be useful to be meaningful.
They forgot that trust is built through specificity, not reach.
Most of all, blogs forgot that the internet didn’t start as a marketplace. It started as a conversation.
Zines were never trying to win. They were trying to connect.
What’s worth remembering now
You don’t need to abandon blogging to reclaim what zines offer. You just need to stop pretending the rules are natural laws.
Write something that doesn’t scale.
Post something unfinished.
Link generously.
Care less about cadence and more about clarity.
Assume your reader is smart.
Zines didn’t teach blogs how to succeed. They taught them how to matter.
And that lesson is still sitting there, folded up, waiting to be picked back up—creases and all.
Closing
This isn’t the part where we wrap things up neatly. It’s the part where you’re handed a map and told to wander.
Zines are still circulating—in libraries, distro tables, mail swaps, and online archives. If you’re curious where this lineage actually lives now, these are good places to start looking.
→ Find zines that are still being made, traded, and circulated
→ Support independent publishers and small press creators
→ Read slower, stranger, more human publishing
Share your zine resources in the comments below!
AXO (she/her) is a multidisciplinary creator, editor, and builder of feminist media ecosystems based in Toronto. She is the founder of She Zine Mag, Side Project Distro, BBLGM Club, and several other projects under the AXO&Co umbrella — each rooted in DIY culture, creative rebellion, and community care. Her work explores the intersection of craft, technology, and consciousness, with an emphasis on handmade ethics, neurodivergent creativity, and the politics of making. She is an advocate for accessible creativity and the power of small-scale cultural production to spark social change. Her practice merges punk, print, and digital media while refusing to separate the emotional from the practical. Above all, her work invites others to build creative lives that are thoughtful, defiant, and deeply handmade.
