New Weird Order
Sizing Up the State of the Webzine Nation 

August 4, 1999

Baltimore City Paper 
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Webzine99, held on July 24 in San Franciscoıs SOMARTS Cultural Center, may have
had little in common with much larger Woodstock ı99, held that same weekend.
The two events did, however, share one odd similarity: Both ended in flames. 

Youıve probably already heard of Woodstockıs anarchic climax. Webzine99ıs fiery
end, though not as grand, is still worth reporting. 

It happened around midnight, about two hours from festivalıs scheduled close.
The moderated discussions on Webzine publishing were finished and participants
were mingling in a kind of post-conference party. It was then that panelist
Mark Pauline, the founder of Survival Research Laboratories, a band of
freestyling engineers who build menacing yet purposeless machines, snuck out to
a nearby parking lot and fired up a cooler-sized military pulse-jet engine to
entertain the crowd. "One hundred and fifty decibels of fun!" Pauline promised. 

The noisy device squealed for a time, and then, as part of the grand finale,
erupted in flames. The fire was quickly doused with water; although the tempers
of SOMARTS management were not so easily extinguished. They had earlier
instructed the Webzine staff not to set off any pyrotechnics. The festivalıs
techno music was cut and everyone was directed out. The exiled zinesters
wandered off to a nearby rave, or to local watering holes. 

Unsanctioned fireworks was about the only thing that Webzine99 shared with
Woodstock Œ99, however. Whereas the gargantuan music fest pedaled $4 sodas and
$17 bags of ice under the once-sacred pretexts of peace and harmony, the
zinefest was all about finding new ways of breaking free from commerce-driven
corporate culture. This is not to say it was entirely successful. It was
underattended (only about 550 people showed); Only about half a dozen zines
bothered to set up booths; and Web publishing tutorials went largely unnoticed.
But what it lacked in size, Webzine99 made up for in talent and real
countercultural import (not to mention free pizza). The event brought together
an amazing collection of folks eager to inject imagination back into an
increasingly commercialized World Wide Web. 

Whatıs a Webzine? If youıre a bit fuzzy on the concept, youıre not alone. The
field has yet to define itself. One might assume that Webzines are like print
zines shoveled online, accompanied by the same individual vision, mistrust of
authority, clever attitude, and ironic use of bad clip art. While many Webzines
do possess these qualities, the best have a fluidity unmatched by their print
brethren. 

And if Webzine99 proved anything, itıs that the electronic medium can be
stretched to encompass all sorts of new ideas. This was perhaps best understood
by attending the day-long series of panels. The participants ranged from the
Online Journalism Review, a tightly maintained watchdog site that hounds
new-media journalism outlets to adhere to the same level of integrity as their
more traditional counterparts, to the Brunching Shuttlecocks, whose joyfully
frivolous site is known for such gags as a quiz that asks you to discern the
names of Italian sports cars from those of impotence drugs (itıs harder than
youıd imagine). 

Bigrig Industryıs Rusty Blazenhoff recalled how her Webzine sold a box of
macaroni and cheese on the eBay online auction site for $32.89. Mark Simple of
Cardhouse told how contributor Godfrey Daniels called the manufacturer of an
obscure cough suppressant called 666 Cold Preparation to ask if the satanic
connotation of the title was deliberate; the resulting exchanges were written
up and posted on Cardhouse. This wasnıt the only flirtation with the devil the
panelists revealed: When Larry-bob of the San Francisco-centric gay-culture
zine Holytitclamps was asked if he ever had any trouble with religious
right-wing zealots, he replied, "Theyıre stupid. They donıt even know how to
spell Satan correctly²‹one angry e-mailer had actually warned him about the
evils of ³Satin.² 

One of the dayıs hot buttons was money‹how publishers can make a living from
their vision (few do) and, conversely, the perils of selling out. Mike
Wooldridge, whose Flash Mountain hosts photos of people baring their private
parts at amusement parks and other public spaces, took heat on the issue. The
emcee ribbed Wooldridge for running banner ads for pornographic sites. "There
are many people who pass around these photos on the Internet," he joked when
introducing Wooldridge to the audience, "but only one person has made a cottage
industry out of it." Later, when Wooldridge unveiled his newest project,
ThatKid, devoted to his as-of-yet unborn baby (complete with a "Roto-Tummy"
panoramic view of the motherıs extended stomach), the emcee sneered, "So youıre
making money off of your unborn fetus." 

Not everyone had such conflicted feelings about success. Later that night, an
energetic Chris Pirillo‹spotting the notebook in my hand and thus deducing my
association with some potential publicity-generating entity‹bounded up to
promote his fabulously successful e-mail computer software newsletter,
Lockergnome. The Des Moines, Iowa resident began writing Lockergnome in
college, but it grew into a full-time job. Now, heıs entirely supported by
banner ads. "I have a killer click-through rate," he boasted (referring to the
number of e-mail readers who click on the banner ad, which leads them to the
advertiserıs site). 

The reality for most zinesters there, however, is that they'll probably never
enjoy the opportunity to sell out, as it were. Phil Baird, who runs the Cult
Fiction site told me heıs made "maybe $2 in maybe three months" from banner
ads. However slim the prospects of riches, Webzines are at least more cost
effective than their hard-copy counterparts. Stuart Mangrum, who used to edit
the Twisted Times print zine and now contributes to Proust Said That, told me
Webzine start-up costs can be as little as the price of an Internet account,
whereas Mangrum used to spend $1,000-plus to print an issue of the Times.
Webzines are also more compact. They can be loaded onto a computer disk or
stashed away on a hard drive. The benefits of this were expounded upon by
Bigrig Industryıs Brody Culpepper. Office drones can work on their zines at
their desks, and no one would ever suspect them of slacking. "I try to waste as
much time at work and as lit- tie time at home as possible," Culpepper said
during the first panel. 

While the panels stimulated much spirited discussion about the mechanics of
running Webzines, the promotersı decision to devote hall space for booths
seemed rather pointless, given the nature of the products. The most successful
booth was that occupied by Alec Bennettıs Wrybread, a zine that received
considerable press awhile back from its Crack Cam (Bennett had set up a camera
to take shots at a street corner rife with crack dealers outside his home). For
his festival booth, Bennett and his friends assembled an ad-hoc moviemaking
van. In the back of this vehicle sat a video camera, a computer, and even a
small staging area. Anyone could hop in and, with the aid of a few props, make
a short movie that Bennett would then post to his site. 

What does this all mean? "A lot of this is repairing yourself," Cult Fictionıs
Baird told me about the Webzine phenomena. Many of these zinesters have day
jobs at design companies cranking out sites they donıt feel personally
connected to. How much interest can they possibly take in designing a Web site
for, say, a transmission shop? Baird works for such a company, where he can put
in as much 60 hours a week. Webzines are a way to reclaim the spirit that moved
them to create online in the first place. 

³The Webıs not like it was in 1995,² Baird said. "Itıs like you have a place in
your childhood that you used to play at, but then it gets bulldozed over and
shopping centers are put in its place." For Baird, todayıs giant commerce sites
are those shopping centers. And Webzines are the "tree houses" where he can
reclaim some of the original spirit of the Web. 

Berkeley, Calif.-based Web designer Wendy Thorpe, who runs Pottymouth, agreed.
"People in the [Web] business feel isolated," she said. "You find yourself
working on somebody elseıs concept every day." Many of these zines are
communities where the like-minded can gather and create. Itıs no surprise that
many zines here‹such as Cubby, Gothic.Net, and Pigdog Journal, the last of
which I occasionally contribute to‹are run by loose groups of like-minded
people. One has to wonder which comes first for Webzine publishers: the desire
for community or the desire to express an individual point of view. "I think it
was a combination of both that led us to start of Pottymouth," said Thorpe, who
started the zine with a group college pals. "We had things to say but we wanted
to say them with our friends." 

There is more at work here than c1iquishness, however. As one of the featured
speakers, acclaimed University of California information-studies associate
professor Phil Agre, observed, "When I read zines, I see people struggling to
get from under the endless media surveillance culture, a sign that we all wonıt
end up in a Nike commercial.² 

-Research Assistance: David Cassel 

‹Joab Jackson