Sorry if this question is ageist. But why do older fen (50 yrs+) against newer zine publishers? I see so many complaints about no one making fanzines anymore, but yet they refuse to acknowledge or work with newer publishers. Wouldn't the Fannish Generation Gap close if people on both sides worked together?
Oh, nonnie, why do you always ask me this stuff with no name attached? I get the feeling you want me to say something rude that you can take back to Zinelist and try to get me in trouble for.
To put it simply, there is no single, massive generation gap in fandom. Fans who are 50+ are plentiful on tumblr. Fans who like oldschool media fandom fanzines are here too. Some of them are actively participating in new zines, whether contributing or just buying.
The gap that I have seen is a gap that happens all the time, and it’s not about generations: it’s about being left behind.
Once upon a time, I am told, zine publishers were a Big Deal, and being a prominent zine ed was one of the fastest paths to being a seriously important BNF. There were a lot of people who spent the 80s and 90s clawing their way to the top of the fannish heap. Zines became more and more and more about fic and less about art because that’s what the market wanted. Zines became longer and more physically unwieldy because, again, the market demanded as much fic as possible. Postage became ruinously expensive. Media Fandom diversified, going from a focus on a few megafandoms to demanding a place for multifandom zines and tons of mid-size or even small fandoms, so print runs dropped to the point where those wretched comb bindings were a good option.
And just when a bunch of pan-fandom BNFs who were at the top of their game had bought a bunch of expensive binding equipment or figured out the right formula to reliably please their audience, the internet came along and curb-stomped all that.
“Where have the zines gone?” means two things in my experience:
1. Fans who are just consumers and who are relatively monofannish and OTP-focused have a hard time moving with the times. The Starsky & Hutch or Professionals fan of today is the Destiel or Stucky fan of tomorrow. Sure, you can read only the great novel-length fic that is specifically recommended to you, but one day, your ship will quiet down enough that you’ll have to make your own party. If you’re the kind who just moves on to the next juggernaut, you’re set. If you’re the kind who has a couple of OTPs and sticks with them for decades, you’re screwed.
Yes, there are new zines on Tumblr, but they’re rarely for the fandoms that were popular for Media Fandom zines in the 80s and 90s.
2. Fans who were big name publishers want new fans to submit to their zines and to buy their zines. They want their names and reputations to be respected. Most of Tumblr will never have heard of the cons they used to go to, much less the fannish pseuds of older zine publishers.
If they wanted to buy new zines, they’d be set, but they don’t: they want to sell zines to a new audience, and this requires social ties on Tumblr that take time and effort to make.
Another problem is the art vs. fic issue: Most zines I see advertised on Tumblr have a lot of art in them. It may be narrative art (i.e. comics), or they may be purely artbooks, or they may have a lot of fic in amongst the art, but they cannot be made except by a zine publisher who has the backing of artists. Because of that, they must also maintain a certain level of physical quality to be worth buying.
If you’re just a consumer, that’s great! I’ve never even seen Hannibal, and I still bought a bunch of copies of RAW. For a very cheap price, I got a lovely, professional-looking product.
If you’re a zine-maker, it’s intimidating, especially if you’re someone who was known for your fic or your ability to get great fic writers to submit to your zine. All of a sudden, your skills are no longer important. Your reputation has vanished.
I find that a certain number of oldschool zine people also honestly believe that zine eds are great structural and line editors, while betas are useless cheerleaders. This assumption is holding some people back. In their view, if younger fans would just give their product a chance, they’d see how superior it is and become a zine fan. My view is that the very worst online fic is worse than what you’ll find in zines, but everything else is exactly the same. Even if younger fans “gave zines a chance”, they might not find anything there to justify paying money for.
The trouble is that some zine publishers are treating it half like a business and half like a fandom project. Either one works, but not a hybrid.
If it’s a fun fandom project that has lots of community buy-in, or it’s just a thing you’re doing with your friends, then it’s reasonable to expect people to help you foot the cost. All of your buddies chip in for the copy shop fees, and then you hand-sew the bindings on your doujinshi, etc. It’s reasonable to expect people to be tolerant of crappy printing and a less than professional physical product.
If, on the other hand, you’re doing zines more like a business, you need to ask what the market wants. You need to ask what price the market is willing to pay for that product. In my experience, the average fan on Tumblr is not willing to pay very much but expects a highly polished product. Complaining that postage and printing costs are ruinous is irrelevant: these fans feel no and have no obligation to help a stranger make a zine. If it’s more fun than some cheap-ass romance novel ebook off Amazon or more tempting than the bazillion fics on AO3, they’ll buy. If not, they won’t.
Honestly, I think the “generation gap” is more about people who used to get what they wanted from fandom, who no longer do, and who are not willing or able to put in the large amount of work it would take to get those things back.