Before webzines, the first digital attempts to create "zine" style content on the Internet were sent as email-zines. Scream Baby was reasonably well known within certain extremely limited circles, primarily those currents criss crossing the old Future Culture terrain. I can't recall how many issues came out before this issue from January 1993, though my fading memory suggests 3 or 4; I also cannot recall ever seeing another issue after this one, which is probably my fault, but you never know. I got asked to edit this on the basis of having accidentally started an Internet drug cult, which as time clearly demonstrates is no particularly meaningful credential - but hey, those were the wild west days of the intertubes, so.

As a piece of cultural perspective, it is interesting to see the sort of "deer in headlights" attitudes of those who see the coming onslaught of the net revolution before it has fully unfolded, and are more or less powerless to stop it. My writing in this is pretty awful (and by that, I mean, I wish I could go back in time and slap myself upside the head and shout "STOP, JUST STOP, JUST FUCKING STOP THAT"), as I was in the midst of my "am I cool yet?" phase of growing up; however, I present the zine here because some of the material I edited together for this issue is pretty fascinating to look at, especially if you remember things like Paco Xander Nathan pranking a list as William Gibson (and me following up by pranking the same list as Bruce Sterling).

Of course, to truly appreciate the work, you need to think of it as an email you might have received. It's presented here as a text file with original formatting intact.

Scream Baby - The Gravity Issue