“Disgusting, Beautiful, Safe”: Exploring Community through Fourth Wave Freaks

From 2012 to 2015, against the otherwise-conservative backdrop of a small city in Southern Alberta, a group of young feminists, activists, and queers organized around the small publication, Fourth Wave Freaks. Drawing from an interview with the zine’s creator, Kristin Krein, and the author’s own memories of participation in the zine’s culture, Jorgensen-Skakum argues that Fourth Wave Freaks established what Alison Piepmeier calls an “embodied community”—a web of connections informed by pleasure and materiality. In addition to analyzing the content of Fourth Wave Freaks, Jorgensen-Skakum pays close attention to the zine release parties, which physically enacted the community-based orientation of the zine by creating an embodied, alternative gathering place for readers and contributors. It was through this embodied community that the publication made it possible for zine participants to explore sexuality, gender, and performance in imaginative and political ways.