Frenemies Zine by Halina Reijn

Groups are scary and seductive at the same time. Cults, communes, conspiracy theorists, friend groups, families, theater troupes, political parties, sports teams, Game of Thrones fans, religious movements, herds, flocks, tribes, or just a collection of humans in a confined space. Many of us tend to think of ourselves as aliens and imposters, trying to fit in and belong (or trying to run away).

It used to fill me with both dread and excitement when my friends wanted to play a game. Do I understand the rules? Will the bottle actually spin toward the person I like, or will it point to the one friend I couldn’t kiss without throwing up? Do I really have to be honest during truth or dare? What if I know my answer will hurt someone else?

Please let me go home, please let me out of this house, please let me disappear and never return. But please, let me stay to see what happens, please let me be kissed by the person I secretly love, please let me win and be popular.

Bodies Bodies Bodies is about group behavior gone wrong. It’s Lord of the Flies meets Mean Girls. It’s about moving through a storm like a school of crazy fish. This zine looks at friend groups in all their spite and tenderness, in the spaces where these dynamics play out most intensely: at parties, online, sitting in a friend’s bedroom late on a Friday night. In an instant, you are in and then out, laughing and then crying, predator and then prey.