Dally Anbar hates few things more than reading product placement that tries to masquerade as actual informative content. But instead of venting his frustrations on Twitter—which rife with the very thing he was pissed about—Dally turned to a medium everyone says is dying: print.

The Bandung resident is the man behind Cucukrowo Mekgejin—an often humorous zine celebrating life in the West Java capital. Dally wrote an article declaring that these so-called informative Twitter accounts were all “trendy as shit!” and then put the issue to bed.

“In my opinion, those accounts are unsubstantial and nothing but a fad,” he said. “I wanted to confront the people behind these accounts in real life, but they weren’t having it. As far as I’m concerned, this matter is closed.”

It generated a surprising amount of controversy for what amounted to a personal opinion in a photocopied zine. But that’s exactly what Dally loves so much about making zines. Anyone can make one, and the handmade, photocopied aesthetic allows creators an unfiltered medium for their opinions, writings, and interests. Even terrible zines, ones with poor ideas or shoddy layouts, come across more honest than a lot of what’s currently online.

“I always hold the principle you’re free to do anything as long as you take responsibility for it, so you can write or say anything in a zine, as long as you take responsibility for your words,” he said.

So just how far can Indonesia’s zine creators push the boundaries of socially-acceptable behavior? Pretty far. In 2008, I found a local zine on someone’s shoplifting addiction. The issue recounts the editor’s experiences of going from one warehouse to another, one mall to another, just grabbing whatever caught his attention. The reason for his shoplifting spree: a protest against the practices of big corporations.

Jakarta-based stage photographer Dinda Advena tackled the patriarchy in her zine Being a Child of a Javanese Virgin. The writer was born into a conservative Javanese family and she grew up with the early idea that women were inherently inferior to men.

“I just wanted to raise my voice against discrimination and the awful stereotypes of women,” she said.

In Malang, East Java, the Penahitam arts collective just published an erotica fanzine that explores a side of Indonesian society often repressed by its conservative elements.

Together, these zines represent the country’s rich fabric of ideas that rarely break through into mainstream media. In the West, where zines caught fire as an early offshoot of the punk scene, the medium still holds some sway in D.I.Y., punk, and leftist political circles. But here in Indonesia, zines serve as an important outlet for ideas, regardless of their scope or importance, that would’ve otherwise remained hidden.

Most people would look at the crude layouts, photocopied pages, and occasionally absurd titles, and be turned off. But the audience is still there. Last August, I went to the Bandung Zine Fest and found creators from as far flung as Malaysia engaged in an exchange of ideas and, of course, zines.

The event had a “zine library” where people could photocopy up to three zines yourself—paying only for the cost of the copy machine. I browsed the library’s collection and found zines dating back to the 1990s. I even found a zine my friends and I made back in 2008 that only had like ten copies when we published it.

“Way before all the fuss regarding online copyright, zine culture already started implementing copyleft or anti-copyright ideas even though no scientific studies have analyzed it yet,” explained Hilman Fathoni from Creative Commons Indonesia, a non-profit organization from the United States that provides alternative licensing in idea creation and creativity.

Most zine makers have no problem with people photocopying their work. Some even encouraged readers to make copies, as long as it’s not for commercial purposes. Dally is one of those people. He gives his readers the freedom to copy his work as much as they like. He also uploaded his zine online as a pdf so people can download the issues and share them online.

I asked him how it feels to know that so many people were copying his work without his knowledge.

“I don’t feel bad about it,” he said. “I feel appreciated.”