"Zines have always been more than just words or images on paper: they are the embodiment of an ethic of creativity that argues that anyone can be a creator. Professional newspapers, slick magazines, and academic journals, art galleries and television shows, regardless of their content, have a uniform message to the reader or viewer: you can't do this, you are not skilled enough , you do not have the resources, so just sit back, appreciate and consume the culture that professionals have made for you. A zine, with all its amateur, low-rent, scruffy seams showing, says something else to the reader: this is easy, you could probably create something just as good, now go out and Do-It-Yourself...
"The zine world, like all bohemia, is a ghetto. This sounds negative, but I don't mean it this way. For in this ghetto, we get to set the standards of what constitutes valid expression and creativity, instead of having these definitions determined by the academy, art world or the commercial marketplace of culture. We create an alternative culture. Self-publishing may have been democratized with the rise of the Internet, but within the zine scene Do-It-Yourself is more than just publishing practice, it is an entire way of thinking, being and creating; a shared ideal of what culture, community, and creativity could be."
– Stephen Duncombe
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