Top News

Zines are not about perfection, they’re scruffy, hand-drawn, often glued together on someone’s bedroom floor and that’s also the point they try to put across. They always represent people who don’t see themselves in shiny magazines or carefully curated headlines. People who want to speak in their own voice, in their own way, without any external interference.

These scrappy little booklets continue to be playgrounds for individuals finding their voice on their own terms

Right now, zines are becoming the center of conversation again. Across cities, zine fairs and DIY print pop-ups are buzzing with new life. Post-pandemic, more people are reaching for slow, handmade, physical things. It’s a chance to trade stories face to face, to feel paper in your hands and to build small, real communities which seek human connection.

But zines have always been this way. In the ‘90s, punk girls and riot grrrls picked up pens and glue sticks and made their own safe spaces through zines by writing about music, rage, feminism, bodies, and everything the world was scared to talk about at the time. The Queer community did the same, sharing stories about love, identity, and finding family beyond blood. There were no rules, no bosses, no filters—just raw, honest scribbles that travelled across cities and changed the lives of strangers.

Moving forward to the digital times, zines still haven’t disappeared. They show up on cafe counters, at gigs, at zine swaps where people trade their creations like secret treasures. There’s something about holding a zine—it’s a bit rough, sometimes wonky, but always personal. It’s not shouting to a million people online. It’s a quiet, brave thing you stumble across and think, “Ah, someone else feels like this.”

Zines aren’t trying to be timeless or polished. They’re about right now. They carry the voices that usually get cut out, and they do it without asking for permission. And that’s why they matter—because the messy pages often hold the realest lives.