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Formas abstratas iluminadas
Tranzine
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Denis Kandle assinatura

It was a cold October night in 1997 in London. I had left Rio de Janeiro, my hometown, to study English in England, and I had just bought a used computer. It was the early days of the Internet, back in the dial-up era. MP3s didn’t even exist yet, nor did the concept of blogs. I wanted to create a personal webpage but had no idea what it could be about. Then it hit me: "I've always been fascinated by music, so why not create a fanzine about the bands I like?" And that’s how TRANZINE!!! Inc. was born.

At first, the zine focused exclusively on music. But by the second edition, I started writing about other topics that also interested me. I did this to express ideas and discuss issues I felt needed to be communicated—important subjects I rarely saw anyone talking about. I asked myself: "What kind of content would I love to find online? What urgent issues need to be addressed that aren’t being discussed anywhere?" With this mindset, the zine was born. The goal was for the zine to be a unique space, something that transcended the usual. That’s where the name comes from: Tranzine is an alternative publication meant to transcend.

The original name of the zine was “TRANZINE!!! Inc.” because at the time, there was already a zine called Tranzine, so I had to use a slightly different name. But the other zine discontinued, so I just called it “Tranzine” for short, but the official name is still “TRANZINE!!! Inc.”

Since then, more than two decades have passed. Tranzine is one of the oldest websites in the history of Brazilian Internet culture. Longtime readers might have noticed that the site was offline for a while. That’s because in 2011, I started writing my thesis for the Philosophy program I was completing at IFCS/UFRJ. Some of the texts I included in my thesis had been published on the zine, but academic requirements demanded unpublished content. So, I decided to take the zine offline and only relaunch it after graduating, which happened in 2016. However, right after that, I moved to Italy and was constantly busy with other things. Maybe you don’t know, but editing a zine is a lot of work! I just didn’t have the time.​ During the pandemic between 2020 and 2021, I launched my new post-shoegaze band, DKANDLE, and all my time was dedicated to writing, recording, and producing new songs, besides practising for concerts. It’s only now, in 2024, that I’ve had a bit more time, so I decided to finally relaunch the zine.

But one thing that kind of discouraged me from returning to the zine after I graduated in 2016 was the rise of social media. Suddenly people stopped reading blogs and other websites and just stayed on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. It seemed like there was no point in investing in a zine with the hype of social media. But now what I've seen (and felt) is that people are getting tired of social media, with the blatant fascism of Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg, and they're actually missing more content sites. I decided to return to Tranzine because this is exactly the kind of site I would want to visit right now.

 

The site has been revamped: I updated the design, removed

some articles, and added new ones. One of the new criteria I’ve

established (which didn’t exist before) is to avoid speculative

content. Previously, each edition had between 12 and 14 pieces.

Now, in this reborn second phase, each edition will feature

seven articles.

I created Tranzine because I wanted to share my thoughts with

the world about topics I believe are important. The zine is a

space where I can express these opinions since they rarely find

a place in mainstream media. Now that newspapers have fired all their

best journalists and have become a right-wing electoral corral,

completely losing their quality information aura, it is up to us to

create quality journalistic and informative content.

 

I hope you read the articles and that they resonate with you in some

way—whether you agree or disagree. What matters is that I can

communicate these ideas and that you don’t remain indifferent.

I appreciate your visit,  and feel free to leave comments! Oh, and

don’t forget to check out my podcast. 😉

Denis Kandle
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