Interview with Steeeeeeve of ZooStories
Tarro:
Hello! We’re joined today by Steve with a lot of eeeee’s because I know that’s how you like it. He’s also known as Zoo Stories on Twitter. He’s been a part of a ton of things, but you can catch him frequently over on Zooier Than Thou and, relevantly to today, he’s also the person who started the whole sticker campaign off! Did I miss any of your accolades?
Steeeeeeve:
Um, I’m also old.
Tarro:
That is an achievement, honestly.
Steeeeeeve:
Yeah. I mean, I’ve kind of Forest Gumped my way through a lot of internet zoo community history, but yeah just the fact that I survived to adulthood as a zoo and came out to a bunch of people and it didn’t destroy my relationships. I think that’s what a lot of people would probably want.
I don’t know. That’s what I think. It’s an accomplishment compared to what I’ve seen happen to a lot of less fortunate zoos. So I think I’m gonna count my blessings.
Tarro:
Honestly, that is 100% an accomplishment that you can hold. I feel like even just where I’m at, I’ve been a zoo for a pretty long time. I’ve come out to a number of close friends and things, and I feel like I’ve got a little bit of a community. But still, feeling like you can live like openly with that is something that I struggle with sometimes. So if you’ve managed to get there, that’s incredible. Honestly, put that on your resume.
Steeeeeeve:
Oh, don’t say I’ve gotten anywhere, but let’s do say that it’s a process.
Tarro:
Fair enough! So again, thank you so much for doing this. I wanna start off simple. It’s a pretty common question in the zoo community, but I just really love hearing the answer. In general, what was your zoo awakening and how did that lead to you to finding the community in general?
Steeeeeeve:
I think I was kind of an early bloomer. So when I was about five or six years old, maybe a little earlier, I watched a lot of like animated cartoon features, which would star anthropomorphic animal characters, like The Secret of Nim, Fox and the Hound. You know, anything by Disney. Things of that nature. I was really attracted to the characters, but I didn’t, you know, have like a sexual context for that at the time. And then I just felt really close to animals, family pets, cats, dogs. Right around the time I was 10 years old, uh, I realized that there was also like a romantic component to that and became active to the extent that it seemed natural and everyone was into it. Mostly with dogs and then progressed on from there.
Tarro:
You were not kidding about being an early bloomer! Wow. Five or six is really young for that, but I mean, it’s cool that you knew yourself that well, or I guess you came to realize that so early on you knew yourself, cause I’m sure it was very different at the time.
Steeeeeeve:
Well, you know, as with anything it’s less of a destination and more of a journey.
Tarro:
So do you think that in the same way that Disney is responsible for like a whole generation of furries, you could attribute a whole generation of zoos to them as well with some of their more “feral” stuff?
Steeeeeeve:
Well, I think we might be juxtaposing cause and effect in this case, because I think as evidenced by some of our earliest known paleolithic artworks, we’re talking about petroglyphs, cave paintings, which feature interspecies coitus, it seems like as long as there’s been humans, at least as far as there’s been human artwork, there’s been reflections of zoosexuality.
So if we’re saying that Disney’s the earliest recorded instance of this, I think we’re missing the entirety of human history. Before it was written down. So we’re seeing in Disney, an emergent property of zoo sexuality in humans that apparently has been there as long as there have been humans.
Tarro:
So I guess with that you’re saying a little bit that because of the fact that Disney is making cartoons that feature hot animals to some degree, there are people at Disney that are interested in hot animals?
Steeeeeeve:
I think that what we’re seeing in Disney is just one facet of a larger gem that features a broad range of inter species romance that spans the entirety of our species.
Tarro:
Fair. Although I will maintain that I think it’s very funny to just think of everyone at Disney just being zoos that are trying to put out the imagery for people.
Steeeeeeve:
Well, you know, because there’s zoos everywhere and Disney is a part of everywhere, I think it wouldn’t be unreasonable to conclude that there may be some zoos at Disney. And if I had to hazard a guess, I’d say that given the focus on anthropomorphic characters, there’s probably more zoos at Disney than there would be at a comparably, non anthropomorphic focused art studio. But I don’t have any data on this. It’s just a wild guess. So if you work at Disney and want to reach out to one of our podcasts, tell your story. We’d be delighted to hear it.
Tarro:
Oh, that would be so cool. So you’ve got all these amazing sticker designs. You’re sending them all over the world. I think I literally saw you tweet out that you’re sending another batch out today, as of recording. Where are you coming up with these cool designs? Are they all stuff that you’re making yourself or are you getting artists from other places that are helping you?
Steeeeeeve:
Well, it’s, it’s a little of both. The ones that come from other places are probably my favorite aspect of this project. It started with Love Cat spray painting stenciled Zeta symbols during his travels on random graffiti spots, and I thought, “oh, this is great.” It’s super graffiti. But it’s a little messy and cumbersome. You have to carry a spray can and the stencil and it’s messy and it takes a little more time and it’s hard to distribute and at the same time I had seen some other artists that I know producing stickers of their work for distribution at conventions like anime conventions, comic book conventions, things like that. And slap stickers as well, which graffiti artists have often made out of something as simple as postal labels and they customize them with tags. And, you know, I just became interested in street art generally, but also as a crossover into expressions of zoosexuality. So I thought, well, what if we just mashed these two together and make zoo slap stickers?
So I didn’t really know what to do with the design and I didn’t have any funding for it at the time. So the first design that I put out was just a a close up of a dog vulva. And it said, lick dog pussy. Not subtle! And, I knew that people would probably try to remove them, but I didn’t want them to be able to do that. So I did a little research and I found these labels that were meant to be “Void if removed” anti like warranty tampering kind of stickers. It’s supposed to be on the bottom of a PS five. And if you open the case and you’re not allowed to, then it voids the warranty. That kind of stuff.
It’s called eggshell substrate. And this eggshell substrate is really, really, really thin and it breaks apart like an egg. But the glue on it is really aggressive. So what happens if you try to scrape it off is it shatters into a bunch of pieces, but you can still read the sticker. It just scratches thin pieces out of it. But it’s incredibly difficult to remove as anti tampering labels are meant to be. So I did a bunch of research and I found a handful of Chinese companies that would make a minimum order of a thousand stickers. And I didn’t have any money for it. So I just put out a call to various zoo communities, including on Twitter, and said, “Hey, if you’d like me to make some zoo stickers pitch in, give me some money”. And very few did at first, and it took a long time. It was about a month before I raised enough money to print that first batch. I think it was something like 250 US dollars?
Tarro:
For a thousand stickers plus shipping, I guess that’s not too bad.
Steeeeeeve:
Yeah. Well they’re four inches across. They’re pretty big stickers. And they’re on this fancy holographic eggshell substrate. So it’s all rainbow-y and pretty, and they precut them for you and then they mail them, it’s a whole thing. So eventually I got the money and then I ordered the stickers and then I started sending them out.
And, um, there were some issues. Like people were wary, understandably, about sending their mailing address because a lot of zoos are at least partially closeted, if not completely. So that was an issue. Another issue was that nobody knew they existed. So, and I was trying to put out the word like “Hey man, I’m giving away stickers if you’d like, so I just hit me up.” And you know, then I had to pay for postage. So then I had to put out another call and say “Hey, um, thanks for funding the stickers, but I need help with the shipping as well.” I ended up paying for a lot of the shipping out of pocket. I just did whatever I needed to do to get ‘em out there.
But then what happened is as soon as people actually saw physical evidence at the stickers and said, “oh, those are real, those really got made.”
Then there was a lot of interest and the next design funded in about a week. And it was from the horse people because they said, “Ah, man, you’re just representing dogs. You should reference horses as well. We want a horse version of this.” So it was very much in the same tradition as the first sticker. It was just a close up of a mare vulva that said lick mare pussy. Again, not subtle. So then, gay dog zoos said, uh, we’re not interested in pussies at all. We want dog cock ones. Can you do that? And I said, yeah, I reckon I could do that. And then it was funded in about three days. People were really hungry for stickers at that point. And the third edition just said, suck dog cock. So I put that out.
And I think the fourth one I did was like, um, a little further away. And it just showed a dog’s anus and vulva and tail, and it was a little more subtle. It said dogs make better lovers. And then I think the fifth one I did just said zoo.wtf. It was a big rectangular sticker with Zetas in the background. And then, I think the next design, somebody else sent me, it was like this cute cartoon dog, and it said, “let’s get knotty”. And he had a goofy cartoon erection. I didn’t design that one. Someone else anonymously contacted me and said, “Hey, would you like this design?” And I said, “Sure. You know what? I’ll put it out there. And if people want it, they’ll send money for it.”
And sure enough people did. I crowdfunded it just like I did all the other ones and people sent money and I was able to print it and I sent pretty much all of those out at this point. And again, I order them in batches of a thousand. So, so far I’ve sent out I’d say round about 6,000 stickers.
Tarro:
That is an incredible number of stickers to be sending out. Honestly, when I was first getting my ones, I was frankly shocked that I was so willing to give my address to someone I didn’t know, in this context. And when the stickers showed up and it wasn’t the police. I was so excited. I was really, really overjoyed.
Steeeeeeve:
It’s pretty exciting and scary when you’ve never like really met a zoo before. I’m not saying that you haven’t, but a lot of people haven’t. ‘Cause zoos are kind of spread out and they’re secretive. And so it’s hard to find other zoos in person sometimes. I do remember there was a time when, when I met my first zoos and it was pretty scary.
I’ve heard from people who received the stickers that they hid them under their bed and they haven’t put any up anywhere and, and I get it. I get that. It’s really scary and it’s exciting, but it’s also proof that you’re not the only zoo in existence because there’s something physically tangible there that was made by another zoo for other zoos. And you don’t feel quite so alone. And that’s a big part of why I make these.
Tarro:
Yeah! I think even just past the fact that they’re stickers themselves, one of the coolest parts about this project is that in any other community, there’s always merch you can buy. Things you can get that you will show off your interest in that community or whatever. But with zoos, it’s hard. You can’t go to Target and just buy a zoo pride hat or anything, you know? And so I think this might be the first physical product that people can just get. Where they can say, “Oh, this is something that represents this community that I can put on like a laptop,” for instance. Or even just have the sticker up in your room and look at it every now and then. It’s actually kind of amazing in that regard, even totally not even looking at like any of the activism that the stickers can provide.
Steeeeeeve:
Right. It’s definitely a form of self-expression. The other thing that inspired me to do this was, in the late 1990s, say around how 1997 or so, there was a zoo who was apparently a jeweler in New York. I don’t remember his name, but he made a run of Zeta pins. It was the Zeta symbol and a pewter pin about the size of a quarter. And it was a silver pin with a black background. And you could buy them. It was something like $10. It was pretty expensive at the time. And you had to mail a check cause it predated PayPal. And then you had to provide a mailing address and then however many business days later he’d mail it to you and it would show up. It’s really exciting. I had that for a long time. I lost mine. I don’t know where it went, but it was super cool and I was really thankful to have it.
And again, it was one of those things where you feel really alone and you’re trying to express yourself in defiance of this world that seems turned against you. And it was a little thing to help. So when I decided to do my project, I wanted to make sure that everything was free. So that anyone who wanted the stickers could get them anywhere in the world. And I’ve shipped them in I don’t know how many countries, quite a few, to, people that it’s surprising that they’ve heard of this. But zoos are everywhere. It doesn’t matter what your country calls itself, there are zoos there.
Tarro:
Fantastic way to transition into my next question, by the way, I love it when people do that! I feel like you probably have, more than anyone else on the globe, the best knowledge of the fact that zoos are everywhere. Are there some places that you get requests from where you’re just like, “I can’t believe that there’s someone from here that is asking me for stickers”? Or at this point, are you just so like jaded to it that anywhere just seems plausible?
Steeeeeeve:
No, it’s always cool. And it’s amazing. The place that probably surprised me the most was Hungary. Because it’s an authoritarian government. And so if you hear about Hungary in the news, I’m not saying that the news is necessarily reflective of the reality of people’s lives there, but it’s the kind of place that just seems completely orthogonal to queerness and zoosexuality, right? And so for a zoo to be there and reach out was like really surprising.
Tarro:
Yeah! I know you said that you don’t know exactly how many countries that you’ve sent stickers to, but if you just had to ballpark guess here, are we talking like more or less than 20?
Steeeeeeve:
Well, you know what, you’ll wanna edit this I’m sure. But, I’ll give you the data and then you can parse it out and put that figure in. Is that cool?
Tarro:
That would be so cool.
We then proceeded to go through a ton of data
There were 22 different countries, and also 37 different states.
Tarro:
So after all that, you’ve delivered stickers to 22 unique countries! And it is really a pretty widespread sampling. I gotta message the Korean zoo I know and get him to request some stickers so you can add another one to that list.
Steeeeeeve:
Oh yeah. That would be a lot of fun. I don’t have any Asian countries so far. And that would really be neat. So, here’s my favorite part about this whole thing. There was a zoo who just absolutely did not feel comfortable providing a mailing address. And I totally respect that. And, they wanted a design that I had already sent everything out, so I don’t have anymore. So what I did in response to that is I posted all of the design files for all of the stickers and endorsement for anyone who wants to use them to just do so for any purpose they like, free of charge.
They don’t have to credit me. Just completely free use. And, people did. People reprinted some of the old designs. Most recently I designed a sticker that was just a Zeta symbol, but in the background of the Zeta it has the zoo WTF for the podcast. Well, here’s the interesting thing about it. I ordered the stickers, but I posted the design file at the same time that I ordered them and someone else got the design file and ordered them and received theirs before I got my original batch of them. And they started distributing them. That was one of my favorite things.
And then, at Eurofurence, the furry convention in Europe that just resumed after being shut down for the entirety of the pandemic, somebody also printed a variation of those that had kind of a twisty rainbow background, as opposed to the eggshell substrate. And theirs were the ones that were targeted by anti zoos who were tearing them down. But they had greater numbers. So they just kept putting them back up. That wasn’t me. And it wasn’t my stickers. It was just my design that someone took, adapted, reprinted for themselves and deployed. So there’s a kind of redundancy where it’s a widely distributed network of people, who are making their own designs. Now there’s somebody else designing zoo stickers and taking my designs and modifying them and reprinting them and doing different formats and in different places that I don’t have to put that input in. The stickers are still getting put out there. Some people are even trying to sell them for a profit. I think that if you dig these designs and can make a profit from them more power to you, that’s awesome. It’s literally free use. So as long as somebody’s finding use for these, I’m super happy for them to be able to do that. And I’m gonna keep putting them out there as long as I can.
Tarro:
I’m amazed that you’re okay with people that are trying to take the stickers that you theoretically might have potentially sent them and then reselling them. Does that make you a little bit jealous that you’re not making more of a profit off this cool idea?
Steeeeeeve:
No, I never wanted to make a profit from them. I just wanted to get them out there. Whatever people do with them after that is totally okay with me. And I don’t think anyone’s taking stickers that I sent them and reselling those stickers, but they are taking the designs potentially and selling stickers using those designs, but I’m okay with that too. The result is the same, which is that they get out there. And any zoo that happens to make some money from them, it helps the zoo. So win-win.
Tarro:
I’m waiting for the day that someone takes one of those designs and like puts it on like a t-shirt or something. That’s gonna be neat. Cause I’m sure it’s gonna happen.
Steeeeeeve:
Yeah! I mean, I didn’t come up with the original Zeta symbol myself either, the one with the kind of ying-yang round border? So who gets credit for that? It’s certainly not me. And neither is it somebody who adapts one of my designs because I adapted ‘em from something else, you know, all creation requires influence and I’m okay with that.
Tarro:
Yeah. So speaking of Eurofurence, I feel like on Twitter recently there’s been a lot of discourse around the idea of whether the stickers that we’re putting up are good things that are advertising the community and serving activism, or whether it’s more like vandalism that just makes people frustrated, especially when it comes to stickers that are hard to take off. How do you respond to people that are critical of the whole sticker thing?
Steeeeeeve:
Oh, anytime you put artwork in the public sphere, you will face discriminating judgements, both favorable and unfavorable. It’s a part of the creative process. And I see the perspective of zoos who just wanna lay low, and I have been there before. And I also see the perspective of zoos who are tired of laying low, and want to be seen and recognized. And they believe as I do that exposure is the solution to better relations with non zoos. Zoos did contact me privately and also on forums, to voice their discontent. They had problems with a lot of aspects of this. There were zoos who didn’t want me to compile mailing list information for fear that it presented a security risk. And I encrypt my mailing list, but there were some people for which that wasn’t a good enough answer. There were zoos who were upset that I had cartoon genitalia in my stickers and they didn’t like that. And they were okay with the zoo.wtf ones that advertised the podcast, but not the ones that had animal genitalia. They didn’t like that. There are others who don’t want any stickers at all. There were some people who didn’t like the actual stickers because they were so difficult to remove. I guess the line is pretty zigzaggy. It’s blurry because some people were okay putting them literally anywhere, and then other people were a little more temperate in their approach to where they thought it was acceptable to put up these stickers. So I guess it’s a person by person thing. I know for a fact that some people are interested in the stickers, but too afraid to send a mailing address. I know there are other zoos who sent a mailing address, got the stickers and just hid them. And they’re too afraid to put them up anywhere, but just having them serves some purpose for them. And I’m okay with that. There are other zoos who are putting them up so frequently that they’ve requested and received multiple batches of them. And that’s okay, too. And then there are still others who not only put up all the stickers that I sent them, they’re reprinting their own and even designing their own stickers and distributing those designs so that still other people can reproduce them. So, there’s a whole spectrum there of what people think is okay to do with these stickers.
And I trust each individual person to consult their conscience and figure out what to do with them. Everything from voicing their discontent and never getting any stickers to enthusiastically endorsing the project, donating cash app to zoo stories to help support the sticker campaigns and/or putting up stickers in the public space. What people do with them after I send them out is up to them and their god.
Tarro:
Do you think that it could be potentially beneficial to create some sort of code of conduct for people that are putting up stickers? Even if it’s just like basic stuff, like, “Hey, don’t put up dog pussy at a school”, or “Don’t put stickers on con spaces where the hotel might get mad at the convention or things like that.” Or do you feel like it’s just totally up to every individual and the exposure, regardless of whether or not it’s positive or negative is still good for the community as a whole?
Steeeeeeve:
Well, I can’t really say what what’s good, what’s bad. There’s a large portion of the population that doesn’t really care about us either way. There’s a tiny minority of the population that hates our guts and then there’s us, right? My personal opinion, which is the only one that I have access to, is that I think it’s pretty fool hearty to antagonize people with zoophilia. But also there’s a balance where if you’re doing activism, you are necessarily intruding into the public sphere and being a little bit disobedient. So how disobedient? I think it would be probably pretty fool hearty to put up stickers in a con venue in the hotel because you’re kind of biting the hand that feeds you at that point. And it paints the entire convention in a negative light if some of the members of the convention are vandalizing the hotel space. I think for putting ‘em up at a school it creates the arguably accurate impression that you are targeting minors with your message. And because this is a sexual minority in a sexual movement, targeting minors seems to create the impression that you are grooming them or attempting to engage minors in sexual activity and discourse, which is not the case for me. Similarly putting them at a church, people are there to worship and do their own thing. It seems pretty disrespectful to people’s religion if you’re putting up your stickers there. But at the same time, maybe you feel like there’s people there that need to see that message. I don’t know. And I can’t decide for other people what they should do with the stickers. And I can’t enforce that. What am I supposed to do, go to Brazil and find these individual zoos and tell them what to do with their lives?
Tarro:
I mean, you have their addresses you could do it!
Steeeeeeve:
You know, maybe I should! Just go sighting a little bit and see some people. But no, I trust people to listen to their own conscience and act accordingly. And then however people react to that, that will inform their future behavior. That’s how we all learn.
Tarro:
So the sticker project is clearly growing. Like you’ve been saying there are more people creating stickers, there’s more being printed, they’re getting more attention at conventions and such. How do you see this project developing in the next couple years? Do you think there’s a next step that’s going to happen? Do you think it’s just gonna keep growing or do you feel like at some point the stickers are going to eventually sort of fall off as a medium.
Steeeeeeve:
No, it seems to be growing. And the reason that I believe that is because I know hard numbers for how many of these packets are being sent out. And people are posting their own designs, and their own sticker campaigns. And seeing that grow just beyond me to where there’s more people, there’s kind of a positive feedback loop. ‘Cause people see the stickers, they want them for themselves, they want to make more, they want to distribute those and then other people see those. And then those people in turn wanna make their own because self-expression is a basic human need. We all want to be heard. We all want to be seen and understood. And going directly to the public is a pretty risky proposition. And not a lot of people are really ready to do forward facing activism in that way. So this is something for everybody else, who still wants to express themselves. And they want to participate. But it is growing. And stickers have been around a long time.
But if we’re just looking at stickers, I mean, how long have we had an eggshell substrate? Not really important. How long have we had stickers? Not really important. How long have we been spray painting on a wall? Well, if we go back to paleolithic Australia and you have a hollow bird bone, and you take mud that contains ochre and put it in your mouth with some water, put your hand up on the side of a cliff and blow that slurry through a hollow bone onto your hand and remove it, leaving your hand print for future paleontologists to study. Are we saying that spray painting your signature on a wall is a new development? Of course it isn’t. We’ve always wanted to leave our mark on the wall and say, “Hey, we’re here.” So are the stickers gonna go away? Only insofar as humans are gonna go away, because it seems like this is a pretty indelible art form.
Tarro:
I know you said that you were old, but I didn’t think you were in Australia hand painting on the wall. That’s pretty good! Wow!
Steeeeeeve:
Well, if by me, you mean me individually then no. But me as a representative example of the human species then yes. Yeah, no, we’ve been around a long time.
Tarro:
So as someone who’s been around for so long, I only really became active in the community space about a year ago, and while I’ve been a zoo longer than that, it’s mostly just been small communities and friends and stuff. How do you feel that the trajectory of the zoo community as a whole is moving? Are you happy with the way that it’s currently going? Or are there things that you’d like to see changed?
Steeeeeeve:
Well, yeah, of course there’s stuff I’d like to see changed. I’d like to see us have rights and acceptance and everything. But those rights come and go. So it’s pretty cyclical. When I first joined the online zoo community, sex with animals was legal in most US states and now it’s illegal in pretty much all US states. So the pendulum has swung. Gay marriage was illegal in my country until very recently, and now there’s momentum to create a backlash and try to take away rights for LGBTQI people. So I don’t know where it’s gonna go. So it seems pretty cyclical. It seems like these rights come and go. There’s repression and then there’s backlash and a revolution against that repression, and then there’s a conservative backlash to push back against the reaction to the oppression and it goes on and on and on. And whoever’s the most motivated to fight at any particular moment either curtails the rights of our group or they push for the rights of our group and create pressure until we can enjoy our life free of the kind of oppression that we’ve experienced. So I don’t know where it’s gonna go. I can’t see the future. I feel like there’s a lot of really good, smart, hardworking, funny, wonderful, loving people in our community that are leading it in a direction that looks positive. I only hope that they succeed. Like the people on the podcast production crew are really, truly exceptional people. They are wonderful. And, I really hope that they succeed in all their endeavors because they’ve got a really good spirit.
Tarro:
So do you have a favorite place that you’ve seen pictures of your stickers?
Steeeeeeve:
Yeah. The ones that I really like are ones where there’s already something that’s round, like the letter O, like in “Dog park”. And the stickers that I make are mostly round. Well there’s been two designs that were rectangular. The let’s get naughty, which was not my design. And then the first Zoo.wtf sticker, which was the rectangle. But all the other stickers are round. And so if somebody puts one in a spot that’s already round, I think that’s pretty clever placement. Putting ‘em in a place where people are likely to be interested in or thinking about animals like a zoological garden or a dog park, or an animal control facility, I don’t know. I’m not suggesting that you put these up. I’m saying that I have seen people put them up in those places. And I thought it was pretty funny. I’m just speaking for myself, not on behalf of the entire zoo sexual community. Or just in parks general, where people are likely to bring their animal companions to walk and people are generally pretty cool with nature and whatnot. And it’s kind of cool.
A lot of these end up in bathrooms, because no one can put up a surveillance camera inside your bathroom stall, right? That’s illegal in most places. So it’s pretty low risk. And also a lot of people use the bathroom because it’s a basic human need. So a lot of these do end up in bathrooms.
And in fact, we had one listener call in who discovered the podcast because they saw one of our stickers in a public bathroom and knew that a zoo must have put it there, but they didn’t know who or when or where or anything. So they started just asking all the zoos they knew and they were like, “oh, I think it’s these guys.” And then they found our podcast and wrote to us and said, “Hey, I discovered your podcast because I ran into this sticker in a bathroom in Louisiana.”
Tarro:
That’s actually so cool. And it shows that the advertising works! So if people are really passionate about the sticker project, what’s the best way for them to support you?
Steeeeeeve:
Well, if they wanna support me in my effort to finance the printing and distribution of the stickers they can, because every one of the international stickers is at least $2.46 US dollars. So, it does add up. And I know that CashApp is apparently only available in the US. I’m looking at other alternatives that are anonymous, that you can use from overseas. But right now, what I accept is CashApp to the cash tag, $ZooStories. So if you’re in the US and you have access to CashApp, feel free to donate whatever you can. And it all goes toward the sticker project. There is no profit taking, it all goes to printing and shipping. Period. That’s it. Otherwise, if you look at my Twitter, @StoriesZoo and you scroll back a little bit, there is a tweet where I have linked a Dropbox with all of the files to all of the sticker designs, so that anyone who wants to print and distribute them can do so. Even if it’s something as simple as running off a copy on a home inkjet printer, cutting out with scissors and gluing it up somewhere, you know, it doesn’t have to be high tech. You don’t have to have a lot of money to do it. If you have access to an internet connection and Twitter, you can get those PDFs, print off whatever you like and use it however you like. And other than that, I would say if you wanna support the project, start designing stickers, and share the designs and print them, sell them, get them out there. Do whatever you can to get the word out that zoos exist and to help other zoos understand that they’re not alone.
Tarro:
If someone wants to get in on the next batch of stickers and get a couple for themselves, what’s the best way for them to go about trying to do that?
Steeeeeeve:
Oh yeah. You can just DM me on Twitter at @StoriesZoo. Just drop me a line with any shipping address and I’ll send some stickers out for free anywhere in the world.
Tarro:
Ideally new places though. If you’re reading this and you’re from a country that you figure hasn’t gotten stickers before, definitely add to that list. ‘Cause I think the unique number of countries is such an amazing metric for just how widespread the community really is. If you’re from Antarctica and you’re reading this, we need you!
Well, thanks again for doing this. Is there any last messages you wanna impart on our readers before we wrap things up?
Steeeeeeve:
Yeah. The best thing you can do as a zoo is to stay alive, thrive, live a good life. Show people who hate you and want you to go away that you have something to offer to society. Something to give, something to create. That’s the best revenge on people who wish you harm.
Tarro:
That seems like a fantastic message to wrap up with. You can find Steeeeeeve at @StoriesZoo, or https://twitter.com/Steeeeeeeeeve2, if you want to keep up to date with what he’s got going on. Thanks so much for reading!
Questions, comments or concerns? Check out the discussion thread on Zoo Community, or join our discord server!
