Low-tech in a high-tech world or, Birthing a zine

I have been online since 1998, when I discovered a discussion board for Black women exploring natural hair styles after I grew up surrounded by Black women mostly relaxing or straightening their hair. That group of women were my lifeline when I moved to Maine in 2002 and didn’t have a single soul here to connect with aside from my then-husband, my ex-husband, and my son.

In 2003, when my mother was diagnosed with the cancer that would end her life eight months later in 2004, that same group of women would bear witness to my mother’s last days as I shared almost daily updates in our group. I was 30 years old with a dying mother, a significantly younger sibling who was away in another country for graduate school, and my dad who was holding it all together. I had only met a handful of those women in person, but they supported me in the aftermath of my mom’s untimely death with calls, cards, etc.

Later in 2004, when I discovered I was pregnant with my daughter, it turned out that several of us in the group were also expecting. In the summer and early fall of 2005, we all gave birth to what we still refer to as the 2005 babies. All of whom are now young adults.

When I was pregnant with my daughter, grieving the loss of my mother—with no aunts on my mom’s side and no satisfactory support in my personal life what I was going through—I found support on several online parenting boards. The connections on the mothering boards were what led to embracing a natural parenting lifestyle that included extended nursing, cloth diapers, and several years of being deep in the throes of all things natural—including my daughter’s carrot muffin for her first birthday instead of an actual cake. When I go in, I go all in.

More importantly, it was the online connections through the parenting communities that led to offline connections. Friendships and relationships that are still a part of my life today. My first designer for my blog, who is still our IT/security person today, was a fellow Maine mama who lived in my community.

I say all this to say that online life has been a part of my overall life for the better part of over two decades. Those connections were the lifeline of support in my early years in Maine. Those connections helped to create the Black Girl in Maine site (initially just a simple blog) when I launched in 2008. While I did not start my writing career online, it was social media that really propelled my career as a writer and speaker. It’s what allowed my reach to expand far beyond Maine, for speaking engagements across the country and the opportunities to write for national publications and contribute to several anthologies.

I literally would not be here doing the work that I am known for without social media and while I am grateful for the opportunities it has afforded me, including the ability to become financially solvent after my marriage ended, increasingly I grapple with my growing disdain for the medium.

I still enjoy writing, but at 51, the incessant hustle to stay relevant and ahead of ever-changing algorithms and keep my “brand” out there is overwhelming.

The thing is that social media has changed. It’s less about community-building and authentic connections. It has turned us into influencers and brands and, in doing so—in  my opinion—it strips us of some of our humanity.

As someone on the production side, it feels never-ending. People have come to expect a steady stream of “content” that speaks to them exactly as they wish it to be. We seek echo chambers of confirmation rather than the experience of learning something new. Or having our eyes opened. Or new thoughts to consider. As I have painfully learned recently, sharing one opinion that does not align with a reader is enough to be canceled. Also, in a world where everything has become subscription-based, the hard reality is that people don’t have the means to support every writer/creator/etc. with $5 to $10 a month. Especially as mainstream media nickels and dimes us to stay abreast of factual news.

There’s also the fact that for many of us, me included, do we even have the bandwidth to read all the damn Patreons, Substacks, blog posts, and articles that ping our phones and flood our inboxes? Probably not.

For over a year now, I have been dreaming of a return to something a little slower. Something that allows us to read without sitting on our laptops or with phones and tablets in our hands. Something that a reader can pick up and read at their leisure that is more than words on a screen.

A zine.

For those who aren’t familiar with them or who have forgotten, a zine is a non-commercial (often homemade) publication that follows a do-it-yourself philosophy. Zines were in their heyday back in the 1980s to the early aughts but online publishing changed things up and—while they still exist—they aren’t as popular or prolific as they once were.

That said, I have been dreaming of creating a BGIM zine; a place where I share pieces that appear online as well as pieces written just for the zine, along with a few pieces from my favorite contributors.

While I have the writing part down, I have been researching the mechanics of printing and mailing them and plan to start slow this October. I am taking the next few weeks off from my day job to immerse myself in a trial run. Which will be a compilation of the best-read pieces from my blog along with a few other goodies.

I want to write pieces that can be enjoyed over a lazy cup of coffee or tea, or when you want to disconnect from the chatter of social media.

While social media is not inherently bad and has done a lot of good, social media in this moment is increasingly a space where I believe humanity goes to die in bite-sized pieces. Where anxiety is ramped up and where our attention is always getting ahead of our intent. Where our attention is driven by the oligarchs who control these platforms and who—despite our intentions—aim to keep us addicted to the dopamine hits that their platforms provide us.

A zine isn’t here to do that; it’s meant to be read and processed at the speed you choose with spaciousness to jot down notes, to pick it up or put it down as you see fit. To even be passed along or simply savored.

I am a long-form writer in a short-attention-span world, who is tired of trolling the intellectual flea markets of Substack and social media to be noticed or even paid. My goal of the zine is to create a two-way street for readers and myself that feels humane.

For the foreseeable future I will continue to write on the blog and Patreon until I see if the zine is viable. I am working out the logistics of how to offer patrons the zine without gouging folks but also covering printing and postage cost.

Dismantling white supremacy for me means looking at all the areas of life in which it shows up and how we live our values. Moving toward a slower more humane offering is one way that I feel I can lean into my values. It’s asking supporters to join in that slowing down and examine if our lives are aligned with our stated values. Anyway, if you are interested in the zine or have any thoughts, I would welcome them.

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