Carrie Brownstein runs a guest post from Tobi Vail, one of the most counterculturally significant figures of the 1990s. I just realized that by running this next to a video of “Aneurysm,” a song she inspired, I might be slighting her groundbreaking work with Bikini Kill, which isn’t my intention at all. I just really like “Aneurysm,” and it wouldn’t exist if not for her.

Anyway, I also really like this point of Vail’s:

I asked a younger friend of mine if he thought the Internet had eliminated the hierarchy of “cool,” and he said, “Instead of hanging out with annoying record-collector guys, kids today just read that guy’s blog, but the same guys still get to decide what’s considered cool.” I think he’s right regarding hipster culture, where there does seem to be a handful of male-dominated music sites that exert a disproportionate influence over what’s trendy. But women have thrived in the past 10 years, and our history is being documented and preserved like never before.

Do we ever really get out from what’s considered cool? I think the joy of the internet is the lowered cost of admission for everyone. If I want to read a blog about, I don’t know, Studio One classics, I can either Google one or start it myself. It’s been a long time since I was part of the DIY hardcore scene, but the final issue of HeartattaCk featured a couple of passive-aggressive comments about how the internet was ruining zine culture. So? Zines cost money to print and distribute. Blogs cost nothing. Which is more punk rock? I’m not saying there isn’t value in zine culture, just that it shouldn’t engender the standard ironic punk hostility to any technological development that’s new and different and useful.

Speaking of zine culture, read Jessica Clark’s TAP piece about zines and feminism. Dudes: raise your hands if you brought those Kinko’s cards to the chicks you had crushes on, and even volunteered to help fold and staple…