The wealth of music zines in the 1990s, for example, came from geographically dispersed, passionate, lonely outsiders who both gushed over and critiqued their idols on handwritten pages. They were not for profit (in fact they lost money), they were collaborative (participatory, transformative), and they were decidedly amateur.

I remember asking for The Beatles Illustrated Song Book for Christmas one year & then being dismayed by how every song had so many chords in it. We had an acoustic guitar that my mum had bought as an ornament while at college & I would sit looking at the pages of the book & then at my fingers on the fretboard, feeling totally helpless. Then punk