The End
If a webzine falls down in the cyber forest and nobody was there to read it, did it really make a difference? OK, clumsy attempt at updating an idiom aside, as Culture Voice is put to rest I can’t help but wonder if any of this was worth the effort. People were reading. New individual IP addresses were perusing the site regularly indicating that, for whatever reason, people other than family, close friends, and contributors were checking in. But is readership the point of something like this?
By its very eclectic format of ‘anything goes’ the zine demonstrated that it was not all that interested in marketability. Perhaps a more cohesive tone or mission statement might have helped it gain popularity among the masses, but then it would have been something else entirely. Don’t get me wrong, I am not a believer that once something becomes popular or accessible that it ceases to be art. I would argue that the Twilight series is art despite its seemingly juvenile following. My point is only to say that, like most artistic endeavors, Culture Voice is an act of self indulgence and narcissism and with that, it could have lasted forever.
We write because we get off on it. Some of us want to change the world with our prose, others just love to turn a phrase. Either effort is an act in selfishness – yes even changing the world for the better is an ego feeding act that puts an individual in the center of altruism (ain’t that right Bono?). So what? Writing for yourself is all you have, and if a reader enjoys it then all the better. But Culture Voice was never about you the reader. Yes, I’m talking to you, because you are the reader. You became the reader when you began the act of reading. I type as a writer, but it is your act of reading that makes me an author. Your reading gives my words life and right now as you are musing over the meaning and significance of my signs you are essentially creating this text and my authorship. For that, I thank you. But, truth be told, I didn’t need you. Not in order to write.
Writing and being read are two different things and if we at Culture Voice were overly concerned about the latter, this zine would not have lasted even as long as it did. As mentioned previously, we could have done this forever, but life got in the way. Many of us have day jobs that require more attention than this artistic endeavor. Perhaps for some there is grander art that occupies our time and Culture Voice was not sustainable. My hope is that my band of fellow self absorbed, neurotic word mongers never stops writing, even when the audience has vanished. You see, it isn’t that Culture Voice is ending, you, the reader, are ending. And with your demise, so go our accolades, criticisms, and false sense of self worth.
The film Synecdoche, New York is a fine example of the pathetically beautiful tragic comedy that is the artist. The movie is confusing, messy and almost unwatchable but somehow rewarding. Such is the artist. If I sound as though I am waxing hyperbolic and melancholy, it is because I am. I don’t want to see the webzine end. Reading all the final articles makes me a bit sad and apparently I deal with my unhappiness in a self aggrandizing fashion. I have even been tempted to go the Brett Favre/Jay Leno route and stage a comeback before the end is even official. And who knows, maybe this isn’t the end, but an excuse at a new beginning. Whatever the fate of Culture Voice, I want to say thank you to our contributors for providing a window into their talented souls. To my pseudonym and all the other pseudonyms, may you have succeeded in liberating your masters. Your selfishness is its own reward. And to you the reader, I sincerely hope you understand what it is I’m trying to say in this article.
Though you might not.
Not that it matters.
But it could.
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