Sunshine Recorder

Granted, digital media are now so integral to the way the world functions that even the most contrarian hipster will never shun them entirely. And some digital juggernauts—Apple, for example—retain a certain chic, even a rebel aura, among younger consumers. But popular sentiment toward Silicon Valley is shifting. You can see it in the portrayal of Mark Zuckerberg in The Social Network or in the latest scathing Gawker piece about Google. You can feel it in the swift backlash against Steve Jobs hagiography in the wake of his death. The Web elite are now our power elite, less beloved than envied and distrusted. More importantly, the Web is becoming the limelight and other media the shadows. These days, if you want to bow out of the mainstream, you go offline, not on. For activist rebels, that shift could make print tactically advantageous. Digital media have become the overwhelming focus of state and corporate surveillance; witness, for example, the reported police monitoring of Occupy Chicago protestors’ cellphones. An underground print publication in today’s climate would arguably be more underground than ever. (That is, like an equivalent website in the ‘90s, it wouldn’t be invisible but it might go unnoticed.)