On one of the first days of class, I thumbed through the stack of newspapers at the entrance of Reavis Hall. Aside from the fabulous publication you hold in your hands right now, I found something that brought me back to my youth- a zine.

Zines were huge for me when I was growing up. As a punk rocker (which I feel goes without saying, given my elitism and self-important opinions on everything), zines were the coolest way to interact with a local music scene. Instead of covering whatever “Verb the Noun” trendy metalcore band was popular at the moment, zines were focused on the tangible; interviewing bands I saw in basements or discussing things that I saw every day. Zines were localized to the point of intense reference, where writers could be people you sat next to in class or saw on the bus.

This zine, however, titled LAMP, provided me with nothing but the semi-ornate ramblings of (presumably) local writers. While I won’t take the time to single people out, I would like to say that hipster-bashing is almost ludicrously outdated. When I picked up a zine, I was expecting people to put in the insights that the Northern Star can’t (more informal dialogue, cutting edge content that a newspaper can’t touch), but all it contained were “Voice Mails from Last Night” (a cheap play on the website involving texts) and pages upon pages of hipster bashing.

Isn’t the definition of “hipster” someone who thinks they are better than everyone else? If we follow that logic, shouldn’t publishing a zine bashing “hipster fashion” make the authors even more guilty of culture slumming than the PBR-drinking, skinny jeans-wearing social pariahs of the 21st century?

Low budget, DIY publication is amazing, and I feel like the people that run and write for LAMP have a responsibility to not re-hash the Internet memes of 2010 (Texts From Last Night, Look at this F***ing Hipster).

Don’t get me wrong, LAMP. I have all the faith in the world in you. I love that the people in charge are not sitting complacent and hating the other publications on campus, but proactively doing something about it and publishing their own original content. I hope future issues address the problem of finger-pointing and (to be honest) content that looks like it took minutes to think of and whip up.

LAMP, it is my hope that this article serves as a call to arms to you: stop hipster-bashing and start publishing the stories you really want to run. Instead of engaging a group of people who could care less what you think about their personal style, you should focus on finding new writers and getting new submissions.

For people curious as to the submission process, the e-mail listed is [email protected].

You can expect that I’ll be submitting things myself. Zines are a tradition and there is no reason why LAMP shouldn’t be one of them; especially with all the gifted, talented writers and thinkers we have here on campus and in the city of DeKalb.