Welcome to The REAL Issue
What is real, anyway? We are, dear readers, perhaps in the age of the unreal. We date through apps. We chat mostly through text boxes. Robots write our emails. We lose sleep watching videos of nonsense that we know do us harm, yet feel no desire to switch off. A decade ago, we worried about fake news ruining our brains, but the enforced proliferation of AI slop into almost every aspect of our lives makes that era feel almost quaint.
I do not know you, but I know you need to get off your phone. I know this because I do, too. We all do. We often talk of “real life”, yet we have all willingly migrated to a digital realm full of online friends, notifications and distractions. Digital life may be the default, but it doesn’t have to be. Being in the real world now takes effort. It takes time. It can feel unnatural, like a chore. But there are few things in life that are worthwhile that don’t ask for a bit of discomfort.
Unknowingly, by reading this, you’ve already made the first step back to reality. Flick through this issue right now. Feel the tangible pages, the texture of the paper. See the kaleidoscope of artwork, witness the result of hours of writing, proofreading, and behind-the-scenes arguments about spelling. Flick through the pages and witness the work of several dozen humans with thoughts, feelings, heartaches, dreams, and lives entirely of their own. This is the product of people, not a programme. Magazines have never been more important – they are an antidote to the ragebaiting, lingo-stuffed “content” that screams and claws for our attention.
In this issue you’ll find dispatches from community cinemas, interviews with punk bands, low-league football clubs, ways to get back into the analogue world and spotlights on the people who are already there. Read it. Spill your tea on it. Give it to a stranger. This is not drivel churned out by ChatGPT, it’s real.
George Francis Lee
aAh! Magazine Editorial Assistant
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