What is a zine?
A zine is a small leaflet or booklet of self-published material someone circulates of their own volition. If you live in New York city, you're pretty familiar with dodging zines all over the place in busier parts of town, particularly down by NYU on move-in week.
Zines can be used to spread information about something such as an upcoming festival, to look for lost animals, or—in one woman's case—to track down a thief.
Eve Harms (@EveHarmsWrites) set up a decoy package on her porch which would reveal itself to simply be her zine "for my neighbor who steals my packages."
Someone keeps stealing my packages so I made them a zine, asking them to stop and explain themselves, and put it in a decoy package. Stay tuned and more pics belowpic.twitter.com/EhRJcgMmZL— Eve Harms (@Eve Harms) 1643738547
pic.twitter.com/CUEnvG39yu— Eve Harms (@Eve Harms) 1643738551
@EveHarmsWrites/Twitter
@EveHarmsWrites/Twitter
@EveHarmsWrites/Twitter
"I have of course, considered revenge," the zine read.
"A decoy package perhaps...with something gross. Or...explain yourself."
"Who are you and why are you doing this?"
Twitter was so impressed by the intricate detailwork on this zine Harms eventually made a limited run and put them up for sale.
Umm so a lot of people want this zine, apparently! So, I put it up for sale on gumroad, limited run of 48https://eveharms.gumroad.com/l/package-thief— Eve Harms (@Eve Harms) 1643747810
This is wonderful and sounds like it was cathartic. I just bought the zine from your shop (along with the mega-pack of zines). For some reason @gumroad wouldn't let me buy both things at once, but feel free to put them in the same package.— DoctorPopular.cash (@DoctorPopular.cash) 1643767100
Just picked up a copy for the zine archive I'm compiling an index of, very interested to look at your other work and future zines— Death Positive Wei Wuxian | Fahs | ko-fi pls (@Death Positive Wei Wuxian | Fahs | ko-fi pls) 1643767784
Aww, it's sold out already— Goth Music Latin America (on hiatus) (@Goth Music Latin America (on hiatus)) 1643773200
Unfortunately, Harms' plan to catch the package thief has so far not worked out as the decoy package has not been taken.
Package zine update:\n1. The decoy has NOT been taken, if it\u2019s still there tonight I\u2019ll try a different approach\n\n2. Thank you so much to ppl who bought zines! It was more orders than I\u2019ve ever received so please be patient as I assemble & send them out\n\n3. Thanks for defending me— Eve Harms (@Eve Harms) 1643834211
The package was never taken, so I'm going to try and mail it to myself with FedEx. Update on the zines themselves below. If you are interested in a second run, please reply to the quoted tweet so I can gauge if it's worth it to print more. https://twitter.com/EveHarmsWrites/status/1489402057551335424?s=20\u00a0\u2026— Eve Harms (@Eve Harms) 1643936643
This is absolutely incredible! Fortunately, I don't have an issue with porch pirates as I live in a very quiet neighborhood, but it's cool seeing a way to address it without resorting to petty revenge like those glitterbombs I see on Youtube.— Stoneth (@Stoneth) 1643773396
I would\u2019ve made a package with a cracked vial with a biohazard sticker on it and a receipt that said \u201cCongratulations on your purchase of Ebola\u201d but that\u2019s just me.— Mitch Lovell (@Mitch Lovell) 1643746240
Harms also received a number of disparaging responses from people suggesting shaming people for stealing packages was wrong, which resulted in her muting her own thread.
Well, I've been accused of being a Karen and misgendered, along with being told I'm gross by profiting off of the hypothetical suffering of package thieves (it's just a friendly zine so I guess the suffering is they are disappointed it's not valuable?). Time to mute this.— Eve Harms (@Eve Harms) 1643759041
"Having a tweet go viral feels like an intimate gathering you’re hosting is suddenly crashed by thousands of strangers," she joked.
The package thief is still at large.