In chapter 4, entitled Work, describes the struggle, and most importantly, the alienation that the zinester (and all people who are not in the top percentage of the wealthy) experiences in the work place because s/he cannot easily associate the production and the product, and s/he is forced to relinquish all control to the company. They do not understand being forced by their bosses to fool themselves into caring about glaringly meaningless work, and they must cope with their displaced circumstances somehow. Zinesters vent through their zines about the meaningless of work, the power structure and the ridiculousness of the instability they must endure. They sabotage their work by stealing supplies and using copy machines to create the zines that destroy their company in the written form. Duncombe writes, “sabotage is about psychic rather than material victories” (81) These people don’t expect to overthrow the company and start anew, as the hope of that is beyond reality, but rather they achieve satisfaction by breaking things and alienating the people around them by being unpleasant and removed; by removing themselves “they stake out as other, not part of the system” (82). But of course, by being an other, the zinester is connected with the system. Without it, the zinester wouldn’t be an other.
Some zinesters bypass the American puritanical dream of achievement, climbing up endless ladders, and realistically giving up authority over their work by being slackers. They “reject society before it rejects [them]. They do not engage in the revolution of acting because that seems to have proven futile, so they refuse to participate. They have no need for a place in society and they don’t need to contribute. Of course, not having a job, or working very little at one requires support from someone who does work hard. Thus their reliance upond the system they are against is clear yet again. However, slackers don’t consume much, and their mission in being slackers is the get by without needing all the excessive possessions that working for the system could possibly provide them. How is zine production, a difficult and time consuming task, appeal at all to the slackers? Duncombe provides us a nugges of Marxist wisdom to understand the slacker’s mindset. (and this is not the first time) Marx says that the problem is that the worker is alienated from the product. Duncombe asserts that Zines are a way for people to seize full control of a project and independently determine it from start to finish. This outlet is no more than a coping mechanism, however, but the zinester can be proud of both the process and the product, a feeling that seldom reaches a person in the workplace.
I wonder how satisfying it is to break things and be unpleasant while knowing that in the end that company will still be running. I’ve been thinking a lot about the work force, from that delusional distance which is actually right at my doorstep. I’ve decided that my dream job is to start my own nonprofit. Maybe the solution for these alienated individuals is to work with a nonprofit that fits their interests. Perhaps knowing that at least part of your work is going to be funneled into something worthwhile would alleviate alienation. You don’t make a lot of money, but no one is sucking your soul through your nose, either.
Duncombe seems to emphasize that any and all zinesters, as part of a counter culture, are still dependent upon the ideas from which they wish to break away . But perhaps the slackers are on to something. Duncombe mentions one slacker, Dishwasher Pete, who, of course, must sleep on his system abiding friend’s floor in order to not be homeless, thus illustrating the slacker’s dependence on those who don’t slack. However, Dishwasher Pete writes about all the inexpensive activities like watching turtles and taking walks that he enjoys, thus making due with the little money that he has. He is an active individual who writes a zine and uses his time for constructive activities. His choice is to drop out of the constantly churning system but to work just enough to get by instead of working from within and actively trying to incite change. This reality is disheartening, as it seems most people have denounced idealism and filled its void with a nihilistic attitude. However, anyone developing during a republican administration might be able to understand ingrained hopelessness. All he asks is to get paid to create from start to finish so that he can conceive of the product’s function. By participating in activities that don't require spending too much money, and by creating his own fun, Dishwasher Pete has severed at least a portion of his ties with the the workforce.
Chapter 5 discusses the zinester’s desire to “become the entertainer of myself”, that is, to fashion a connection with a product,as well as to independently produce eventual consumption through the world of zines. “In brief, we are alienated from what we consume. This is the key to understanding the zine world’s take on consumerism, for what zinesters are protesting-as they do also with respect to identity, community, and work- is alienation. And what they are trying to do- consciously or not- is to reforge the links between themselves and the world they buy.” (107) The desire to develop an intimate relationship with an already manufactured product dates all the way back to the first science fiction fanzine distributed in 1926 by Hugo Gersback. He wrote science fiction stories, published readers’ letters with their addresses attached and debates, sparking communication from reader to reader, and eventually production from the reader’s end. Today zines encourage a similar intersection between reader and writer, and certain zines, like music issues, attempt to establish a close relationship with the music itself through critique, interviews, personal stories, and recreation. Some zinesters use this method with celebrities, using humour as a way to bring commercial success down to the level of the consumer. By taking a product, making it less “special”, and contributing to recreating the product, the consumer “bridges the gap” between him/herself and the manufactured object.
Some people do not wish to participate in the world of consumption at all, so they reject it; they buy thrift and illustrate in their zines the horrors of sweatshops and the products which are born of that horror. Instead of consuming, they create. They Do It Themselves. Duncombe understands that “doing it yourself is once again a critique of the dominant mode of passive consumer culture” but it is also “something far more important: the active creation of an alternative culture.” (117) DIY stems from the early punk days, when kids rejected commercial rock and decided to make their own bands, regardless of their skills. They took the specialization and professionalism out of music so that it would be accessible to everyone. Even as the punk rock style was taken by the mainstream media and confined to a certain image, the DIY attitude allows constant redefinition. Zines, too, are created by the usual consumer considered unfit to produce in the professional world. As mentioned earlier, reader become writers, and thus consumers become producers; the “division” between writers and readers, producers and consumers, which is “normally reinforced by the professionalization of cultural creation, which divides the world into those with the talent, skills, and authority to create, and those without” is abolished. (124) To degrade professionalism further, the form of zines is “decidedly amateur” (127) A man named Walter Benjamin in the 30s asked the question, what is a perfect progressive culture, and decided that “culture is better the more consumers turn into producers- that is, readers and spectators into collaborators” (127) Creating zines takes this philosophy to heart, and the zine itself invites the consumer to become producer; the zine may be alienating because of its rough edges and intimate thoughts, but those qualities also allow the reader to realize how easy it is to produce a zine, too, and will hopefully incite creation in them, as well.
Making Zines is pleasurable, just as consuming is considered pleasurable. The goal, however, is to realize that pleasure comes from active participation in the creative process of a product to be consumed, not by passively accepting something already manufactured.
I thought about the wealth of free information, the ability to share files, and the opportunity to self-publish and promote your band on the internet when reading about DIY and actively sharing ideas with little or no profit involved. It is amazing how many bands are getting exposure now on the internet because they don’t have to go through a record company’s filtering process. I’ve always wondered, what does one person or one group of old CEOs know anyway? We have learned time and time again that they have no more right to authority than anyone else. The internet, just like zines, is the pathway to a truly democratic society.; as long as no one steals ideas to profit from them, then contributing and sharing our own ideas and talents will be beneficial to ourselves. Without the worry of credibility, one can really become exposed to some really amazing work, at least in the realm of music. The documentary “The Day the Music Died” shows RCA’s pathetic struggle to stay afloat amidst illegal downloading and file sharing on the internet. RCA’s golden days were in the early 90’s when they had the biggest band in the world, guns n roses, signed and the internet wasn’t so ubiquitous. As a way to rejuvenate their revenue, in the early 2000’s RCA had the brilliant idea of joining all of the members of guns and roses, minus their front man Axle Rose, with Scott Weiland of Stone Temple Pilots. They thought that if they put one previously big band with one previously big man, then all their problems would be solved. Essentially, the people at the top are extremely uncreative, and they are probably not doing much better, either. One record label not affiliated with RCA pointed out that if record labels would start producing worthy acts people might start buying cd’s again. I agree with him, because creativity and an understanding of the audience is key, however, I am more inclined to buy a cd if most of the proceeds go to the band, and if the clueless yet overcompensated and authoritative middle man is eliminated.
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