Before blogs and the web, the hip young mutants were publishing zines;
the late 80s and early 90s were an explosion of zine culture, with the likes
of bOING bOING (it wasn't always a blog), Ben Is Dead and Pagan's Head
arising out of Generation X slacker/hipster ennui and spreading their memes
widely. It was a subculture in which ideas, rather than clothes, social
hierarchy or animal magnetism, were the arbiters of cool.
Now there's a
book on zines, which has articles and
interviews with the leading lights of the zine wave.
(via bOING bOING (the blog))