Saturday 13th June 2015 saw a series of events around an alternative Magna Carta in Clerkenwell. Stand Up and Spit was part of this with a discussion on ‘zines with one time ‘zine editor Miki Berenyi, Joe England, editor of Push lit ‘zine and Tim Wells.
We talked about how ‘zines were an individual voice, often an outside individual voice and ones that built community and how ‘zines were grass roots.
People also made their own ‘zine at the do. Several young people were introduced to Letraset.
Our graphic designer Renee O’Droninak hard at it.
Thereafter we moved over to London’s premier poetry pub, The Betsey Trotwood for some beers and poetry. Alongside the poets Surfin Dave and Laura Anderson belted out some tunes.
All in all a drunken evening with some kick arse poetry and some arses kicked.
The evening ended with a singalong of Hurry Up Harry, and quite right too.
standupandspit 
went to altmagnacarta this weekend and this talk about zines. I’m a gaming “journalist” or whatever the fuck we are supposed to call ourselves these days. Members of the press? Gamers? Writers on games? Noone can make their fucking mind up because they let the internet make it up for them.
But the zine thing… listening to Miki and Tim and Joe… it just reminded me why I got into this shit in the first place. It’s not about having a nice little site or blog or magazine (though I like to think I do); it’s not about having a big audience (I most definitely don’t); and it’s not about going with the consensus and just trying to fit in (we tried that, got the t-shirt, it was shit, and boring, and it’s more fun to write about what you care about for nothing than to play Shit Game #5535 for a paycheque, trust me).
But with the zine scene, and you could see the passion in every sentence they uttered, it was exactly what gaming – or any kind of fandom writing – should be about (and sorry to all those people in the gaming industry who think of themselves as serious journos but let’s face it – it’s all just fucking fandom at the end of the day).
The sine scene didn’t care if it was good, or bad. They liked it, and that was all that mattered, and they’d write about it til their Letracet stencils ran out of letters. One memorable cover of Alphabet Soup which really stuck in my head had this line on the cover: “Still just as shit, but only 10p”.
Gaming used to be like that. We’ve lost that passion where we game for the love of it, where we buy stuff that could be the shittiest thing in the world, but we’d love it anyway, because we’d just spent 30 minutes waiting for it to load and another 20 unspooling tape when the c64 casette loader decided to fuck it all up.
There’s a reason why people of a certain age eulogize the likes of Zzap and Crash magazine; why the death of CVG was mourned so heavily (despite it having long since been absorbed into the mainstream). People yearn for a return to writing done for passion and not paycheques; they crave writing done not by a slave or a wage, but by a fan and for fun.
We (or “people who write about games and pretend that what we do is actually important in the long run”) need to get back to that, where we write about stuff we love, no matter how shit other people think it is. almost punk, in a sense – that “fuck you, I like it, so fuck you and that’s what I’m going to write about” mentality.
That’s what the industry is missing. We’re missing a big fat middle finger to the suits and the sequels. People whinge and bitch and complain and caterwaul; and yet they lap it up. They extol the virtues of the indie scene – which is about as punk as punk can get when you deal with computer code and not a frayed guitar with three strings and a hole in the body – but then ignore it.
Call it laissez faire, punk, indie, whatever you want to call it. The games “industry” has lost its passion for the new and exciting, forgotten to treat games as new and exciting, and players have forgotten how to be excited about anything except the next big sequel.
We NEED punk. We NEED indie. We NEED, more than ever, people who just don’t give a flying fuck, people who want to create to be creative, people who are passionate, gamers who want to game, writers who want to write because they want to write, not because they want to pay the bills. Free games are cool; but free expression is even better. I’d rather say something is shit and not get paid, than feel pressured to say it’s ok because everyone else is saying it, even if it does pay the bills.
#TotallyAlreadySickOfE3