The Generic Opinion? Started in the late 1980s as a free paper distributed in Banff , Alberta and area it was also available at many of the large outdoor concerts, like Highwood? and Indifestt.

The Generic Opinion? Like many other fanzines of the time relied on contributions from the public, record companies and a few advertisers to supply the content and capital to print. It was intended to be a monthly publication, but due to lack of content, volunteers and time it came out every two or three months, it was somewhat of a random publication schedual.

There were a few oddball issues of The Generic Opinion?, we had a FAX version available, it was sort of a compilation\sample issue that we could send to advertisers and such. There were also a couple of e-book type versions, they of course had very limited graphic capabilities and were a compiled hyper-text. They were like a modern Web Page but you could only navigate forward and back and home, simmilar to reading a book. It also appear as a big long text on a BBS as well, the MochaCocaChino BBS lasted for a while but both it and the Generic Opinion? as a print publication was over. It was simply becomming to hard to keep it going even at random intervals.

Although we had put The Generic Opinion? to bed it was not dead and in it soon resurfaced on the Internet at www.genop.com The online editions were nothing like the version you can see today, and mosaic was the only browser. For the most part the Internet version was limited, however we could have images and text, and content could be added instantly. After a couple of years The Generic Opinion? Online was offline, and the domain expired. There just wasn’t enough interest at the time and almost everyone who had been involved was gone or just tired of trying to keep it going. The end had come again and this time it was official, there was no alternative issue or way to see it unless you happen to know some one with an issue.

Since The Generic Opinion’s official end, it has refused to die and returned in a number of compilations that have appeared, for various reasons both online and off.

The Generic Opinion? fell under the Media Cooks banner in 2005 as a new compilation. This compilation is referred to as the original Generic Opinion? Although it is a compilation of the original print and online editions, it is by far the best incarnation of the original content. It has a few added features but maintains the general look and feel of the original print editions. There were no thoughts of continuing the Generic Opinion?, as can be seen from the compilations submissions page. The Generic Opinion? Page at mediacooks.com didn’t get a lot of traffic but there were more than just robots cruising by so it has remained there unchanged for a number of years.  

After watching the blogoshpere explode over the years and a little thought we were to revived The Generic Opinion? as what is commonly referred to as a blog. But it was killed quickly as a blog did not seem to fit well. So we reverted to a more traditional web based system, with some interactive features and functionality. New material will be added and with any luck  The Generic Opinion? will have a few more years before it disappears again.

Original