A Bit of a Change

Hello dear readers! Tarro here, with a little bit of a Zooey Dot Pub update!
 
 
If you're an avid fan, you might have noticed for the past couple of weeks we've been uploading one article a week instead of our normal two. And, unfortunately, that's going to be the cadence for releases going forwards as well. I want to talk a little bit about why we're doing this.
 
 
I wish I could tell you that it's some kind of strategic decision that we're making for the benefit of the content and is some kind of crazy 4D chess move, but to be honest, it's not. If you've been following the magazine for a while you've probably seen me talk about how what the magazine currently looks like is very different from what I was picturing in my head when I first signed onto the project. When the idea of a "Zooey Magazine" was first pitched, there was a group of 9ish people all together in a Twitter group DM. I wasn't even the person running it at that point. I was just a fresh faced kit trying to find a way to use my skills to help the community in some tangible way. The idea was that we would be a community publication. That anyone could come in and write and have their voice heard. We wanted to be a megaphone, allowing anyone of any standing or size to put out a message to the community as a whole. Something fun, something informative, something serious. Whatever.
 
 
Of that initial group of 9ish, three ended up writing articles. One of them was me. I LOVED the idea of the magazine. I wrote an article called "An Open Letter From a Zoo". It's funny looking back, the writing in that one is TERRIBLE. There's a weird anecdote in the middle that doesn't make any sense, I make a super weird tangent to talk about how bad religion is. But, it does still have a lot of heart, and going back to read it always puts me right back to where and when I was when I wrote it. I was like a teen girl in a high school drama laying on my bed kicking my legs in the air behind me as I giddily typed away. I never would have imagined that nearly 4 whole years later I'd be sitting in a coffee shop, watching the world go by, writing what has to be something like my 200th article.
 
 
After the initial couple articles, it was clear that out of that group, I had the most passion and energy for the project, as well as the most time to work on it. If you look at those first couple months, basically every single article was written by me. In my head, that was just trying to get the fire lit. Who's going to write in for a magazine they don't know about? I mean, once people get to know who we are and what we stand for, I was absolutely convinced that we were going to get more contributors than I knew what to do with. I really thought there was a world where I was going to have to selfishly push in one article of mine a month into the flood of other content that we were rolling out. Back then, I really hoped that we could transition to three articles a week, and then four.
 
 
That didn't exactly happen. Thank god for everyone that did end up writing in, because they've been able to give me breaks here and there. And a HUGE thank you to our recently retired head editor Alissa, who honestly this could not have gone on without her. She's not as present in the community, but everything that I've ever done she should get half credit for. And, between us, and the people that have written, we've managed to keep things afloat, two articles a week.
 
 
But it's been hard. Really really really hard. I've missed so many things in the past couple years because I just refused to let the content schedule slip. When I make a goal for myself, I stick to it no matter what. That's just how my brain works. So instead of seeing my friends, I'd find the time to write. Instead of date nights, I'd write. Instead of working on any other projects or things, I'd write. And I don't mean to turn this into some kind of pity party. I enjoyed doing it. I love writing.
 
 
So, we're switching to one article a week. We'll likely start doing throwbacks again as well. We used to do Throwback Wednesday before our Twitter account was banned, but I think now we'll do Throwback Saturdays, and have Sundays be our new article day, or vice versa if the article we're putting out needs more time.
 
 
Now, let's talk about the upside. First of all, if you're my friend, you'll probably be able to see a bit more of me now. We'll also have more time to sit with each article, meaning that there's a good chance it's going to get an extra pass or two. We'll also have more time to do more research. Also, if you're fans of the ZDPM, hopefully that'll mean more time that I'm able to spend trying to plan ways to do cool stuff in there too. I've also been releasing a song a month on my Youtube channel, so if you like shitty zoo covers, boy do I have news for you. It'll be cool to have more time to pursue music, because I really do love doing that as well. I'm also probably going to start streaming too! I'm likely going to be streaming the day this article goes out, so if you're reading this right on release there's a chance I'm live on Twitter right now! And if you're reading this days, weeks, months or years later, maybe I'm still doing it every now and then if I don't end up giving up or getting too busy!
 
 
And of course, we'll still be open for guest articles whenever anyone wants to as well. The idea of having a full week off whenever we have a guest article is a little mind blowing to be honest, but the idea sounds very fun. Honestly, at an article a week, there's a world where we could have it so I have actual time off here and there, and I think that would be nice from time to time.
 
 
Still, I can't help but feel bad about pulling the content back. I know that we're just some silly dumb magazine on the internet, and that most of the community doesn't even read the articles themselves. But also, I know a lot of people out there do, and have come to really enjoy the content as it releases. Did you know that last month we had twenty-two THOUSAND unique visitors to the site? That's a whole ton of audience. Sometimes it's really easy to forget that I'm actually speaking to people doing this, but every now and then I'll get a DM from someone just saying "hey I really liked the newest article", or "I didn't know you did an article about (whatever), that's awesome!", and I can't tell you how awesome that is. The goal of every artist is to have their work appreciated, and I've gotten so much appreciation doing this, and it feels so amazing. And so, in some ways it feels like a failure on my part to drop down to one a week. Like I'm letting that audience down. But, unfortunately, that's life, and I've kinda gotta swallow my pride on this one and accept it.
 
 
Hopefully you'll still be here, dear reader, even if we slash our content schedule a bit. Thank you so much for reading — you're the reason we're still doing this. Sorry about the slightly sad update, but even though things are changing, I'm still really excited for what's coming. We've got some great stuff in the pipeline, and I can't wait for you to see it.
 
 
Thanks so much for being here. I'm gonna go finally grab dinner with some of those friends I've been missing. See you next week!
 
 
 
 
 
Article written by Tarro (June 2026) 
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