The Metaculture Is Making A VR Zine, and You're Invited to Submit

Imagine you can tell a VR developer anything. Give them a tour of your world, let them know what VR is to you, show off your fashions, or write a trippy essay about doing real-life drugs in a virtual club bathroom. No matter what platform you come from or what virtual world you inhabit, you can now express yourself in our first zine project! Read on to find out more.

Explanations below. Form is here for sending in pitches. The deadline for idea submissions is January 31st, 2023.

What is a zine?

A zine is self-published work that's created mostly for community and expression. For The Metaculture, we wish to document the life, feelings, and sentiments of digital citizens as a sort of time capsule.

The Metaculture will gather submissions, arrange them in a readable and artistic fashion, and then publish the results to Internet Archive. From there, everyone will be able to download the PDF and enjoy.

What games are okay to submit from?

If it's virtual and it's a world and you're in it doing stuff and making memories, we want to hear from you. It doesn't need HMD access to be eligible for this project. We're calling this a "VR zine" but it's actually encompassing digital worlds that people "live" in.

What will the process be?

• Submission starts now: fill out this form of what you'd like to do. Nothing final has to be ready currently, just send us your ideas! The deadline for pitches is on January 31st, 2023.
• You'll have a couple months to do that thing you wanna do, once we let you know you're greenlit (please note it's very likely everyone gets in unless something crazy happens). If your work needs coaching, idea-building, or editing, we'll be able to help. Final submissions will be set at a soft deadline of the beginning of March 2023.
• In April, or thereabout, we'll publish the final zine copy on Internet Archive for all to enjoy.

What should I submit?

There is an open theme for this round. Here are some questions you can answer and ways you can answer them:

• What is VR to you? Tell us in an essay or poem, or a series of pictures. If you submit photos, you can write an explanation along with it if you'd like.
• Why should people care about VR? Why should users come here?
• What do you find the best about your platform of choice?
• What's a way in which VR has changed you?
• Submit a drawing or photo of yourself, your friends, or your favorite world.
• Submit your best VR-related art, especially if you make really cool posters. That stuff is art too, did you know that?
• Did you do a fashion shoot? Show it off with us! (NOTE: You'll need permission from your avatar and clothing makers on their TOS. Booth customers, take note of this stipulation!)

Can I make my own zine and still submit to yours?

YES. We want more literacy linked to VR. Please make more zines. When you're done, please share them because people love reading VR-related creative works.

Do you get the copyright to my work?

NO. You keep the copyright to any work you submit. You are only giving us temporary permission to publish your art for this one zine.

What will you refuse to accept?

• Explicit NSFW material is a no-no. Please keep it PG-13 max if you can. Talking about sex in an academic way is okay; showing us pictures of your DPS placements on your avatar is not something we're cool with, even if it does have a clever toggle.
• We don't want advertisements for anything. We want personal expression and messages from the heart.
• No AI-created writing, please. We'll help edit your work if you don't feel it's quite ready.
• Creative works regarding games typically seen as single-player. We want to know about your Minecraft server saved your mental health, not about how cool we all know Caves of Qud is.

What's the form location for submitting stuff, again?

Right here.

Is this a paid thing?

Sadly, no! It's a DIY thing, since we couldn't figure out how to physically put works in a cool book and keep printing costs low at the same time and not have to ship from our home address. In the future if it's possible, we'll do that. For now, we just want people's voices to be heard.

Any tips for submitting?

• Don't be afraid to send in a wacky idea. If it's related to VR then we want to hear about it.
• If you make videos, visuals, or movies, talk to us anyway. We can chop up the stills and get creative with you about showcasing stuff.

I've got more questions!

Hit us up in our DMs on Twitter or send an email to metaculture.submissions at g mail. We'll help you out!