The 2025 Wildcat Anarchist Zine Fair: Our wrap up

Stallholders and attendees mingling at the zine fair, 8 June 2025. Photo courtesy: Robbie Mason.

Thank you to everyone who showed support for No Filter at the Wildcat Anarchist Zine Fair. Hundreds poured through the doors of Gumbramorra Hall in Marrickville over the weekend. Punks, queer fencers, SHARPs, antifascist militants, anarcho-communists, you name it. Food Not Bombs served up free vegan food, rescued from becoming food waste, for the masses. People came interstate to set up stalls.

“I’ve never seen so many trans people in one space,” I overheard one attendee exclaim to their mate. “I’ve never felt so at home.”

This just about sums up what the Wildcat Zine Fair is about. It’s not just a space for organising politically and networking, it’s also a judgment-free refuge. Going to events like this, I myself feel an anxiety in my body, an impulse to second guess myself. I’m not a huge theory bro after all. I’m just a journalist.

I needn’t have worried. 

On Sunday, I sold and traded more magazines and t shirts in one go than I have at any other event. Seeing a community of like-minded people appreciate and adore our magazine and t shirts has relit the fire inside me. It’s also helped me reconnect with political communities I’ve always loved. I often question what I’m doing. I wonder if anyone even cares. But this zine fair was a bear-hug reminder that I shouldn’t give up.

My haul from the Wildcat Zine Fair. Everything from radical stickers to muses on the legitimacy of protest violence to an experimental dungeon synth album.

I’m always surprised by many people actually read my writing, by how many people already know about the magazine. But, when I think about it, I shouldn’t be. The analytics on our website shows me that my No Filter writing receives almost as much online engagement as articles I’ve penned for independent media publications with decades of history.

On the weekend, I learned that an article I wrote for the USyd student newspaper Honi Soit years ago has appeared as an optional reading in a UNSW history course on the history of Sydney. I saw my writing about a Glebe public housing demolition quoted in another zine (shout out to our Wollongong friends). Put useful info out into the world and it will find a home.

No Filter is proof that you don’t need to write for big name publications to develop an audience. You don’t need to temper your words to appear in morally-bankrupt mainstream media publications. You don’t even need to partake in the cut-throat meritocracy-enforcing game of grant applications. Plus, it’s hard to even trust our public broadcasting services. Not only has the ABC consistently silenced critics of the Israeli war machine but it has broken journalistic ethical codes and passed on footage about activists to police, despite promising not to do this very thing. Look up the recent case of the Disrupt Burrup Hub group and their interactions with Four Corners if you haven’t been following along. In short, why write for a national broadcaster?

I understand that a job is often just a job, even in media. We all need to put food on the table at the end of the day. But I’m in the process of shifting careers – car mechanic lad – so I can focus most of my brain energy on this magazine.

The first print issue of No Filter. Also currently the only issue. Burn out is real folks. But we will be coming through with a second print issue soon, we promise!

If you came up to the stall and discussed collaborating, hit us up. If you mentioned buying a mag or a t shirt at a later date, hit us up. If you’re a writer, photographer, graphic designer or comic book artist and you dig what we’re doing, hit is up.

I like to think of this publication as a souped-up rattle cage vehicle. No Filter is a backyard build, a lightweight stripped-out operation, so we’re a bit sus and we’ll probably puke fluids all over your driveway. You learn to ignore the Christmas tree of warning lights on the dashboard quickly. But we want this to be a communal project.

We want your input and your solutions.

If you have time, look up Radio Rata. Look at anticop.com.au. Sus backlashblogs.wordpress.com. These are just some of the DIY alternatives to mainstream media we learned about n the weekend. Mad respect.

None of us are going anywhere. Beware.