Scrapbooks and Zines

Scrapbooks and Zines are personal forms of communication that illustrates a snippet of a time period that holds some sort of significance to a person. They are both created to be shared with others who may have a similar connection to the time period. Even though they are not personal letters one would send to a close friend or family member, they hold some sort of significance in a category of everyday writing. Scrapbooks and Zines may be more personal to a person than a letter would be because it takes more time to compose than a letter would take. They both are short and to the point forms of text that can successful convey emotions to another if they are created correctly. Katriel and Farrell contributed to the ideas of everyday writing by creating a perception of what a scrapbook usually holds and how it is presented to an audience. They also recognize that everyday text, including scrapbooks and zines, do not need to follow an outline because they hold different meanings for each individual person. They state that a scrapbook is a “genre of self”. This essentially means that to fully express yourself through the text of a scrapbook, you must put yourself first in your storytelling. As a scrapbook is composed the person creating the scrapbook must ignore the audience who might see it and focus on their own presence. It is a form of expressing one’s identity to an invisible audience.