Random idea: Zine Roulette

[Tiara Shafiq]

So lately I've been mailing some of the zines I've bought & enjoyed to some friends who I felt would enjoy them too. It's gotten a positive response, especially from people who won't necessarily know about zines but relate to the content.

While walking today I had a random brainwave: Zine Roulette! Like ChatRoulette but hopefully with less penises. The idea here is that you sign up to get a random zine from someone, either one that that person made or one from their collection (depends on whether your sender makes zines or not). You can also offer to send zines on too.

When I first thought of it, I imagined asking my friends to give me their addresses and I'll mail them a zine at random. Though I could see this working in a Secret Santa style, in that you don't know who's got your address (though that also means you could be cheated out of a zine).

What do you think? Doable?

[Billy Da Bunny]

great idea! hopefully at least a FEW penises, though not as many as chatroulette. ha.

seriously, though, a cool idea. i'm not sure how to do it though. because were you thinking that YOU would be doing all this mailing? what i would like is if a random person mailed me a zine, and then i mailed a different zine to a different person. so lots of random people were mailing out lots of random zines.

maybe you could compile a list of addresses. like, if you got 30 addresses, you could print them on a piece of paper, and on the reverse side could be instructions. the instructions would go like this:

"Please enjoy this random zine from the ZineRoulette! Please choose an address from the opposite side of this paper and mail a random zine to that person. Cross their name off the list, and include this paper in your mailing."

something like that. if you really wanna be crazy, you could get a few of them started at once. something like that, does that make sense?

[Mab]

I like the idea of having a list of names like that. Some of my penpals do something similar where it says, for example, "Send five pieces of nice stationery to someone on the list, cross that person off and add your name, pass it along." I think Billy's idea is similar and would work nicely for Zine Roulette.

[Yvonne G.]

i like Tiara's idea, and feel tempted to join in!
this reminds me of chain-letters, back when i was 10-12 years old, but now it's cooler, it has zines! though i never been on anything like the Secret Santa thing, i understand the concept and how it works, and it's really a nice thing to do!

and i agree with you Billy, i liked your idea about compiling addresses & adding instructions (your instructions are quite simple but straight to the point), then send them out in a paper to the first/next person.

maybe make a blog about the project, just so that people could leave their comments, saying they're happy cause they got a zine from someone/somewhere, or to track how the project is going along.
would it be "open" to We Make Zines members only? because if not, if it's open to anyone, then maybe the blog would be really helpful. it reminds me a bit of the 24 Hour Zine Challenge website.


Billy Da Bunny said:

what i would like is if a random person mailed me a zine, and then i mailed a different zine to a different person. so lots of random people were mailing out lots of random zines.

maybe you could compile a list of addresses. like, if you got 30 addresses, you could print them on a piece of paper, and on the reverse side could be instructions. the instructions would go like this:

"Please enjoy this random zine from the ZineRoulette! Please choose an address from the opposite side of this paper and mail a random zine to that person. Cross their name off the list, and include this paper in your mailing."

[Yvonne G.]

as for the problem of being cheated out of a zine, maybe that can be "avoided" if the people joining in are only people from (other) online zine communities, or people "known" for being part of a zine scene, whether they make/made a zine, run a distro, or are usual zine buyers, or someone else from this community knows them and knows they are trustworthy (though you can never be 100% sure it will work).
i don't know if this makes sense to any of you reading though hehe, my brain is a bit speedy right now, trying to process these exciting new ideas...

[Matthew Mu]

But my zine is filled with pensises! (This is a lie)

[Amy]

I'd participate in that. But no penises for me, please.

[Yvonne G.]

i guess the penises talk scared everyone away?... LoL

[Race]

I reckon it would work. Sounds cool. I have nowhere to get zines from where I live anyway.
Am happy to put my address on a list for this :)

[Jenna Appleseed]

I think this is a cool idea & like Billy/Gome's suggestions for how it could be run.
Maybe set up a group/blog that's members only so only people who've been vetted can sign up to take part? then people can post to say they've posted their zine (but without giving away it's id or who it was sent to) and when they get one & reactions/reviews?, or if it never arrives...