SurfClub Guides E-Zine! #3 ~ Kitsch! - Accepting Submissions

[Melooon]

Surf Club Guides E-Zine #3

Heloooo, this is the official thread for the 3rd issue of our community e-zine; a collectively made zine that is published on the MelonLand website for everyone to read!
Check out the last issue here! https://melonland.net/zine/issue-2/

In this issue we are gonna chnage up the format a little; I won't be providing a HTML template (although you can still download the old one from the other e-zine topics if you wish), and we will be accepting non HTML entries; you can submit webpages, web games, image art, scans of handmade art, writing, audio, videos etc! Everything submitted will be compiled into a mini website!

The theme to think about in this issue is "kitsch" (sorry I forgot who suggested it thank you @Rosaria Delacroix ) ~ often meaning, bright, bad taste, cheap, ephemeral, trashy, fun ~ what does it mean to be kitsch and who gets to decide? What is a kitsch website? How does kitsch connect to fantasy? How does the idea of what is kitsch change over time, and how do you relate to it? How do you walk the line between kitsch and non-kitsch? Is it something you avoid, or something you aspire to? Are there things you think are kitsch that others don't?
There are so many possible questions, and I'd encourage you to look around your world and see what questions and answers you can find (do u have any good ones?)


^^ Some examples of images that might be considered kitsch 

Once you returned from your journey into kitsch land  Report back! Create a guide, or an artwork, or other media about what you've learned! In the spirit of the SurfClub Guides format, it would be good if there is some resource, lesson, fact or guide people can take away from your submission; however often just making something can offer that!

• I also fully encourage people to get into the kitsch spirit and make some really kitschy stuff

• I also really encourage people to work together in pairs or teams on this one; I think it's a lot more fun that way, and you might even make some friends! Post your name below if you'd like to work with someone, and if others have posted their names, see if they would like to join you. If people are left waiting, I'll try to pair them up, but it would be helpful if you could organise yourselves.

Its helpful if you can post below anyway, with the overall theme and medium you're working on, so I have an idea of what to expect!

The deadline for submissions is March 24th @000! 

You can PM me your submission or e-mail it to webmaster@melonking.net ~ Good Luck 

[dotmidi]

"kitsch" (sorry I forgot who suggested it )

It was Rosaria!

[Rosaria Delacroix]

Super fun to see my theme idea used! I thought I'd lob over a site people might want to use to scan for inspiration- thrift stores are a great source of kitsch, and this Tumblr compiles a bunch of oddities/stand out 'cursed' pieces from people roaming around them. Might be something worthwhile as inspiration in plumbing the depths of the blog- it's been one of my favourite to follow for awhile now, due to the silly nature of some of the stranger finds. The archive goes back to 2013, and I'm surprised to see they have more recent posts from this year.

[dotmidi]

Super fun to see my theme idea used! I thought I'd lob over a site people might want to use to scan for inspiration- thrift stores are a great source of kitsch, and this Tumblr compiles a bunch of oddities/stand out 'cursed' pieces from people roaming around them.

yooo! I love this blog it is one of my favorites.. Brainstorming here but I think maybe it would be cool if we had a huge group page for everyone on the zine to share photos of stuff they have seen in thrift stores...!!!  maybe the front/first page.. it could be a big collage and everyone can edit and cut out their photos as crudely as they would like. For people who can't take photos-- they could invent their own kitsch items and illustrate them to put on there      or take a detour on ebay and find something to use for the collage

other than that, I was considering doing a very chaotic and weird messy parody of a newspaper page with interviews from people on the forum, maybe involves a bit of photography or art as well, and a "kitsch or pitch" section similar to a "hot or not" section on a teen magazine haha. If anyone would be interested in either of these ideas (if they are acceptable) I would love to hear from y'all

[Melooon]

maybe the front/first page.. it could be a big collage and everyone can edit and cut out their photos as crudely they would like

That's a really cool idea! and it would save me having to put something together for the cover which is always extra work!

I think to keep it simple:
If people would like to add pictures or build a collage together for the cover, you can do so on this page: https://everyone.melonland.net/zine-3-cover

[Marcellus]

I've been looking forward to this ! I've had the idea of writing an article about WordArt since the 2nd edition of the E-Zine. If anyone would like to help and bring ideas to this entry, I'd gladly accept !

[BlazingCobaltX]

Unexpected theme! The first thing that comes to mind is making a one minute video with Tekken 4's Kitsch in the background, but I don't know what I could "tell" with that. It would be more of a meme than anything. If anyone has good ideas for this then let me know. :P

[Melooon]

Unexpected theme!

Everyone's freaked out by the theme and asking if they can do something with the last zines theme instead

However, I think thats exactly why people should take this one seriously; it's a really hard theme! But it also gets right to the root of what it means to be making homepages and what it takes to make things.

Kitsch is a double edge sword; if you want to be kitsch then it's cool, but if you tell someone something is kitsch then it's often an insult! Kitsch is cringe, but cringe is cool in the web revival (or perhaps even cringe is irrelevant in the web revival) ~ that feeling is not just an aesthetic or a skill, it's part of the freedom and power of claiming craft and making things for yourself.

So, I think this is a really great topic, and a really important one, and I hope people give it the focus it deserves because I think there are some very important things buried here waiting to be found!

[mipy]

honestly it might just be me being very terminally online but when I hear that description of kitsch , "bright, bad taste, cheap, ephemeral, trashy, fun" , i think about "cringe" on the internet ! For me , that means websites like [old] deviantart or scratch [ which are the ones I have personal experience with ] or things like animation memes or overly bright and overpowered Mary Sue ocs or sparkledogs and such since i grew up on the mid-late 2010s internet for the majority of my preteen years and was basically raised on animation memes. I was wondering if art/writing/etc surrounding that would, like , count for the theme ? Or if that'd be like , an entirely separate thing ?

[candycanearter07]

I'll be honest, I don't really have any ideas for this one.

[TheFrugalGamer]

Everyone's freaked out by the theme and asking if they can do something with the last zines theme instead

See that's funny because this is the first one I feel like I have a lot of ideas for! Here are some I've come up with, feel free to steal them or discuss:

• If you have a kitschy collection of knick-knacks, write an article detailing them.
• Write a short piece about your favorite kitschy artist or writer, detailing their life and works (Lisa Frank immediately came to my mind; she's had an interesting drama filled career)
• This could also apply to objects (ex: the history of beanie babies)
• A how-to on how to "kitsch-ify" your artwork/website/writing, whether it's digitally or traditionally
• Listicle of kitschiest movies and tv shows
• Write a poem about your favorite creepy clown painting
• Revisit something from your childhood and write about whether or not it has aged well, or is now firmly in the genre of kitsch.
• On that note, pick a genre of "things" (pop songs, self help books, t-shirts, LEGO sets, etc.) and rate them all in terms of their kitschiness, and include details about why.
• Create a kitsch shrine, or a shrine to something that qualifies as kitschy!

And now I'm tired of typing the word "kitsch"

[KatiePla.net]

Ahh, Kitsch! My favorite topic, I am so excited to contribute to this!    I will be submitting a How To guide on how to use PicMix, my favorite website for making fun kitsch-y gifs! Hopefully this will lead to more PicMix creations across the web.

Contributing my most recent PicMix creation:

[brightbluebug]

i have an idea of making like a digital collage-maker website, where you "decorate" a room with various pngs of pictures of wacky & tacky stuff( that you can scale and rotate).

(i am intersted in finding someone to work with, as i am still very much in the beginner stages of website creation! any and all assistance/advice is greatly appreciated)

[candycanearter07]

I'd also like maybe having a teammate because I have 0 ideas..

[nobo]

a lot of the music I've been listening to recently would be considered kitsch: sort of hyperpop era music. It dials the conventions of different aesthetics all the way up with no concern for if it's going too far. It also blends together influences that don't feel like they match. If you've listened to 100 gecs or Bladee or even Sematary you can imagine what I mean.

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I made this a few years ago. It's pretty kitsch I guess.

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Kitsch can be used in a kind of derogatory way to describe poor taste. But it's one of those things that's also reclaimed and done intentionally. In a lot of ways, amateur websites have always been like that. And these days when people are intentionally doing it as a throwback to when there were more amateur websites, that is kitsch as well.

I mean just look at the design of this site! 

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I don't know if I'm going to have inspiration to write or not. It's something that comes to me and it's not really my choice, and all other times I don't have it.

Maybe these thoughts will give someone else an idea though. Feel free to use them and consider me your team mate if you want!