The influence of the social on Frederick’s scrapbook provides a nice segue for another aspect of the social that studying these lesser-known genres provides us: a broader insight, and more evidence, into how these vernacular writing spaces give everyday people an opportunity to write in their own ways. In Gillen and Hall’s article from last week, we saw how Postcards provided a space for everyday Edwardian writers to compose in a space that allowed them to break free from the limitations imposed by the standards of letter writing. The art of letter writing, and its strict rules, was developed, established, and entrenched by the upper classes and foisted onto the lower classes. Postcards—as a new, inexpensive, and more inclusive way of writing—allowed the lower classes to develop and enact their own writing practices, instead of being constrained by the earlier practices. Radway’s discussion of Zines, and the texts she cites, show how “Zinesters” are engaging in similarly exploratory, genre- and gender-defying, and class-bucking ways of writing. In Chu’s words, filtered through Radway, zines “enabled young people to connect with one another out of earshot of adults” (147), much like postcards enabled tradesman to connect with one another out of earshot of the elite.
These lesser-known genres also give us an interesting insight into something that hasn’t really been discussed in most of resources geared towards epistolary writing: writing for an imagined audience. This is discussed explicitly by Barton in his article, but it is something that I believe is implicit in Radway’s Zines. In both spaces, the composers of these everyday artifacts are writing for audiences that are indirect when compared to the very direct audiences of our previously studied epistolary writings. The postcards from last week and the letters from prison from two weeks ago were written for, and to, specific audiences: parents, siblings, friends, etc.
Indeed, zines (which Erin would classify as a medium, not a genre; there are different genres of zines, but the form itself is a medium) exist because of identity politics.
Stephen Duncombe makes a similar point about the “tension between the individual and community, between freedom and rules” (142)
When examining the genre of the scrapbook, however, its important to consider it within social context.
Frederick’s negotiation of his identity was not entirely private or meant for his own eyes only.
Not only did he have help in its construction from his sister, Amelia, but also there is reason to believe that he intended to share it with others. Frederick grew up in an artistic environment, in which these sorts of activities were encouraged. Furthermore, “Children working together on entertaining, educational activities was also recommended as a way of fostering closer ties within a family, according to at least one late eighteenth-century model of domestic artistic production” (79).
The scrapbook was a collaborative activity,
and therefore the formulation of identity was influenced by the social.
Additionally, because Frederick died at a young age, his childhood scrapbook was preserved as an artifact-- a representation of him. Had he lived to an old age, it is likely that he would have discarded the scrapbook (83). This too points to the scrapbook as a space to construct identity. Since Frederick’s identity was projected into the future, if he had lived to become an adult, his childhood understanding of his future identity would no longer be relevant. The materiality of the scrapbook lends itself to constructing plural identities in a socially-contextualized space.
These picture posts and zines are not; they are composed for an audience that is quite nebulous. The nebulousness of the audiences for these everyday texts allows us to study what Barton says is the (flickr) composers’ “asserting new identities, including complex multilingual global identities which they [are] projecting to new audiences” (119), something that was not as visible, if it was visible at all, in epistolary contexts.
Duncombe notes that “zines are profoundly personal expressions, yet as a medium of participatory communication they depend upon and help create community” (142). Thus, zinesters are not only writing for an imagined audience, they are writing to create a specific kind of audience, one that calls into being a network of people who can commit to and foment social and political change (see above).Radway encourages us to examine “the networks based not on the accident of proximity but on the collective elaboration of shared observations, affects, desires, hopes, and even inventions” (148). She shows that these networks are continuing to grow and form, though she illustrates this mostly by referencing the archives and libraries, both physical and digital, that are continuing to develop. What she focuses less attention on is the fact that zinesters are still making zines, still having zine festivals (just Google “zine fest”), and still circulating their texts to old and new readers alike.
