Telum Talks To… Wen Lo-Han, Editor-in-Chief, BIOS monthly
Interview

Telum Talks To… Wen Lo-Han, Editor-in-Chief, BIOS monthly

Wen Lo-Han discussed with us about the creativity of art & culture media, and also shared about the challenges of publishing its first print magazine by crowdfunding and her views on Taiwan’s recent focus on local culture content creation.

What does BIOS monthly cover?
We are often described by the others as “artsy and hipster” (laugh), but we position ourselves in another way - delivering creation-related topics with a creative mindset. It encapsulates “what to do” and “how to do” for us, and both are our goals. In short, it is an artistic and literary platform based on “creativity”. For editors, all the elements, including visual effect, writing and issue selections, should be dealt in a creative manner.

In the aspect of content, we do not only invite professors from universities to talk about in-depth issues, such as Transitional Justice and National Identities and interviewed politicians such as Cheng Li-Chiun and Chen Chi-Mai, but also invite Ray Du, hanhanpovideo and many other YouTubers or creators to share their coming-of-age stories. The core is to explore the world for readers born during the 1990s. We have a tacit understanding that no matter who you are, Ang Lee or a fledgeling creator, you equally deserve a 5,000-word report to display your own traits and your view on creation. Sometimes such consideration may surprise readers but honestly, I really enjoy the impact of the novel topic. Compared to recommendations, we are more looking forward to starting thinking and conversations. Although it often takes more effort to write and cut points, I think this is a long-term operation that establishes and shapes the uniqueness of the media.

What are BIOS monthly's target audiences? Any rules about interviewees and topic selections?
Our readers are a group of people, mostly aged from 25 to 34 years, who care about the cultural and creative industry. We suppose that these readers are a group of people who wants to maintain individuality and gain power from creation. So when it comes to the choice of interviewees, we may take “what else we can do” into consideration, in the hope of interviewing those who haven’t received many interviews before. I believe we don’t need too many duplicate articles. It’s better to find something new and interesting. I hope we can resist the temptation of click rate and sense of comfort and keep searching for the breaking point. We try different ways to choose books, films and music each year. In the early days, we often discussed with columnists who had long-term cooperation with us, but now most columns are handled by our editorial team.

Recently, most of our external cooperation is exclusive interviews. And most customers enjoy reading in-depth exclusive interviews with a strong narrative and good visuals. But since we spend most of the time on interviews and barely publish ordinary press releases, our team prefers to work in the front-line, writing and shooting by ourselves, so we don't cooperate with outsiders often.

BIOS monthly published its first print magazine Wild Yeah by the way of crowdfunding. Why would you choose this format?
Last year, besides print magazine, we also tried running our YouTube account with different and separate sections. The diversified media environment can help us think about how to express ourselves through different forms. Wild Yeah is an experiment to some extent. We can know what digital natives, who often think and express ideas via the Internet, think of physical publications. Of course, we still have some room to improve, but I think we have tried some interesting things.

When we just worked on online content in the past, I was sick of the stereotype of “online media” every now and then, which was defined as shallow, because many online media deliver quality content. I used to discuss how to change the prejudice of the public over online media, which made me neglect the changes in the media environment from the perspective of physical magazines. After the publication of our first print magazine, I can genuinely feel and understand the retention and sensory experience that can only be offered by physical publications. In this case, we can gradually take advantage of the different characteristics of both physical and online publications, giving full play to different strong points of both forms. That’s the key.

As Wild Yeah focuses on the preservation of "local wild culture", how do you define wild culture and is it related to the tide of emphasising locality in content creation?
There are multiple meanings of “Wild” so it’s difficult to define. We try to interpret different possibilities in many volumes and articles as well as from different perspectives. It may be featured by the wilderness of nature or local consciousness, or perhaps something out of control and ignited. But the most important thing is that when we review these definitions of “Wild”, there is perseverance and fortitude hidden inside. It’s not compliant or obedient, but groundbreaking, vital and creative. This is one of the reasons we choose “Wild” as our title. We think it has an important relationship with the core of creation that can’t be ignored.

However, localism is not everything. I think the more important thing is to open the readers' mind. For example, we interviewed Taiwan Meme and Cai Ge. Because the meme culture itself needs to be creative and responsive. Wild Yeah is like a surgical biopsy to preserve creations in Taiwan in 2019, ranging from the Internet, temples, forests to social movements. Maybe when you look back in 10 years, there are a lot of things that have changed or unchanged are more interesting. I think people born in the 1990s should try to consider localness as an internalisation factor rather than a limitation, and then try more types of editing and visual presentation.

Besides crowdfunding to publish a print magazine, BIOS monthly also has another business operation - BIOS create. Do you think the cross-platforms business model is the rule of living for media?
Though we were famous for BIOS monthly in the early days, we focus more now on workforce and our business scope are put on business cooperation, that is, cooperating with creators in various fields such as Joe Fang, Johnason Lo, Soac, Ayo, etc. Besides business cooperation, we also make proposals and negotiate with enterprises like McDonald's and public institutions like Golden Horse Awards. We stick to high-level independent editorial freedom and occasionally cover in-depth reporting about the cooperation with creators. At the same time, we keep a close eye on different creators through media negotiation. It's unlikely to find a solution for a while to overcome the difficulties in media survival, and honestly speaking, it’s not easy to combine with other business models either. We want to explore the value recognised by readers via the print publication. Maybe in the future, we will compensate for the business model by trying different content.

Any special interviewing experience to share?
We invited novelist Chen Xue and her partner take a wedding photo as our cover story in May last year, which was an unforgettable experience. The story of the same-sex couple has always accompanied many people who are pursuing and longing for love. They held a simple wedding ceremony 10 years ago when same-sex marriage was not legal in Taiwan. We had the opportunity to take a complete wedding photo for them and recorded Chen Xue's change as a novelist and the development of their relationship. In fact, the result of a same-sex marriage bill was about to be announced before we finished their cover story. Everyone was not sure whether the bill could really be passed. Fortunately, Taiwan has become the first Asian country where same-sex marriage is legal. The happiness we felt is hard to explain.

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