Nostalgia Whiplash #1

From the 2025 Flywheel Zine Fest in Holyoke Ma USA.

Title: Nostalgia Whiplash
Issue: 1
Date: February 2018
Publisher: Olivia M
Writer: Olivia M
Artist: Olivia M

Mini zine about internet culture in 2005-2007. I always enjoy a bit of geeky history combined with autobiography, and this was a really fascinating look at the teen girl subculture that grew up around early free webhosting sites like Geocities and Matmice. It also has some self-reflection from the author's experiences exploring these sites while part of a fundamentalist Christian household.

The zine is primarily a prose essay, and examples of website graphics from the era it is looking back on.

Although I was aware of some areas adjacent to the cultures described here through my own experiences on Livejournal, most of this was new to me, and it made for a really interesting rabbit hole of a very specific bit of subculture that is mostly scrubbed from the web at this point. I'm glad someone is remembering and recording this.

Rating: 7.5/10

You Know You're A Rural Queer When...

First review of 2025! Not a comic. Prose zine that I got last Spring at the Flywheel Zine Fest.

Title: You Know You're A Rural Queer When...
Date: 2019
Writer: Olivia M.
Artist: Olivia M.

Short essay in micro-zine form that lays out the challenges facing those in the queer community who live in rural areas. There are a lot of isolating factors that are detailed here, not all of them completely obvious, and there are also some issues with misguided our outright counterproductive attempts at allyship that the author has experienced. There is also a good reminder of the role (and limitations) of online supports.

This was a lot of important insights in a small amount of words.

Rating: 8/10