👋 byebye B.P. magazine
When not spending most of his time baiting and humiliating Indigenous writers in themed special issues, or denying genocide, HN “ran” a magazine. In the announcement that he’s pulling the plug he does the usual paternalistic claiming of success for people who in fact qualified him, and not the other way around.
if HN was a champion of free speech and the exchange of ideas, if Broken Pencil was really a hub for that discourse, then HN shouldn’t have treated it like a tailings pond for all his rancid dog-whistling terminally-online nonsense; the grotto was fine until you opened your mouth, HN. Literally just get out of the way (he hasn’t been editing the mag since 2022, and yet here he is pulling the plug and making it all about himself, desperate for another hit of notoriety).
The man is not a punk or a champion of DIY. Who cares how many people you published or the money that the festivals brought in? Those writers were the workers. Those zine makers at the table were the workers. You’re just some guy with his name on a magazine 4 times a year.
Looking fwd to re-imagined zine festivals that reflect the spirit of DIY (community, doing stuff, etcetera) and not the numbers and bragging of it all.
He’s evil but not satisfactorily clever enough to become a big right-wing personality. He wore the Pencil down to its nub. I guess I’ll have to go on the internet to find out about cool small new things now.
Oh well.