Print Lives!

Escaping the Algorithm, One Choice at a Time

The latest issue of the bioGraphic e-newsletter opened with an editorial reflection that caught my magpie’s eye. Editor Jude Isabella reminds readers that, despite her personal fondness for glossy magazines, the team behind bioGraphic has embraced the digital format since launching in 2016. Yet, she notes, there are still creators leaning into the intimacy of print. She points to The World of Orcas, a black-and-white (whale of course it is) zine created by Vancouver’s Fred DeNisco. Better known as The Orca Man, DeNisco has built a loyal following outside the gravitational and other perverse pull of algorithmic feeds. Isabella writes:

Print is not dead. That’s a line I bark out whenever anyone—usually my colleague Krista Langlois—muses about a special print edition of bioGraphic… The desire to create something tangible is real, but print is limiting… Inspired by another zine—whose publisher describes their mission as escaping ‘the algorithm, by any means necessary’—DeNisco’s zine has gained over 400 paid subscribers, myself included. Those of us who subscribe are choosing to read The World of Orcas; no algorithm is suggesting I read it. It’s just a fun and informative way to spend time while I sip a coffee in the morning.”

Bold emphasis mine. Isn’t that nice? And very much in keeping with a theme that preoccupies me in my Old Growth line of thought: that of connection through community, and the commensal, mutualistic effects of such connections. Whether it’s a scientist-editor in San Francisco celebrating a print zine from Vancouver, or a reader finding delight in a slim envelope filled with orca lore, the common denominators are deliberate communication, appreciative attention, and human choice. May we all find ourselves in communities convened not by algorithmic sorting, but by affinity and care. Or find within ourselves the means and motive and mettle to help bring about such community.

For those unfamiliar, bioGraphic is an online-only publication supported by the California Academy of Sciences. Their nonprofit mission is dedicated to regenerating the natural world through science, learning, and collaboration. Each week, subscribers receive new feature stories, biodiversity and conservation journalism curated by editors, behind-the-scenes insights from contributors, and even the occasional game. It’s free to read, it’s uplifting and wonder-stimulating an informative, and it’s built on the premise that good writing about the living world should be widely available.

I’ll leave you with Isabella’s closing words:

“So yes, please check out The Orca Man — he is delightful. But also, please forward this newsletter to friends and family. Our newsletter also jumps past the algorithms, ‘suggestions’ that too often deliver a reading list of mediocre content. Perhaps one day, on sustainable, forest-friendly paper, we will continue to evade the algorithms with a special print edition, or several. In the meantime, thank you for reading!”

You can sign up for the bioGraphic newsletter here, and I hope you will: biographic.com/newsletter-signup.

Orca thumbnail image cropped from a “handpressed linocut printed with black ink on real Canadian wood veneer”, created by printmaker Allison Tremain and available for purchase on her website.