b1a0t"Swapper"-ArticlestRokDaZonethps1f2c11The Phenomenon of "Swapper"-Articles f1c12 by RokDaZone/Endzeit c13Whatever mag comes across your place, you can be sure that it features a "Swapper"-article. Well, maybe not in each issue, but at least every second. Leaves us to the question, what a "Swapper"-Article is. c12With "Swapper"-article I mean - you expected it - articles which concern the position of swappers and their significance for todays Scene. Although the topic is quite old, I remember first publications in 1993, there is little doubt that it is one of the most mocked about inside the writers guild. Macno early began to stress that articles like that are mere fillers and in masterpieces like his "The Importance of Swappletters in Lappland" he ridiculed them. c13Actually it seems like the hefty and emotional feedback that writers get whenever they note simple sentences like "Swappers Leave!" (Alive/Nah-kolor in Generation#25) really justify a cheap filler. Only seldomly one has the option to write something down in just a couple of minutes without having to think about anything new and receive an optimum of counterstatements and reactions. c12Still, slowly but surely this situation gets beyond normal lunacy. I recently have started to ask myself if what we do is legitimate as matter to fill-up ScenZines. To face the facts: Swappers are except for some niches at their end. With the boom of modems and INet their future has turned into past and although there are some left who are still needed for spreading, their significance lays at around 10% of what they actually had. c11 "That's not so new, Rok." c13Correct. c12New is my attempt to ask if these "Swapper"-article really have to be understood as fillers or if they have a by far more important psycho- hygienical task. c12This should be explained a little nearer by now: c13Daily talkshows on TV are often laughed about or simply criticized as somekind of voyeurist intended quotegainers. It even seems fashionable to intellectuals to condemn these shows as end of talk- and interview culture in the public media. Still from a socio- psychologist viewpoint they have an important task as they deliver some form of a 'second-level catharsis' (K.Lorenz). Catharsis means a possibility to loose aggression by acting emotionally or physically which is not in direct connection to the actual cause of the aggression. For instance someone who is under aggressive pressure due a negative stress at work might find deliverance in a boxfight against a sparring- partner. He frees himself from aggression by fighting the other who is by no means reason of his anger. A second-level catharsis would then mean to watch a boxfight. The emotional upheaval which is set free by viewers can easily be identified when studying spectators of boxing duells or soccer fans. c11 Back to Our Swappers c12It might seem to me that a swapper - who is under a constant pressure regarding the way his profession is looked upon - actually might see "Swapper"-articles as way of catharsis. Whenever he sees something written against swapping in common, he can find relief in reacting emotionally on the topic. In this way, a second-level catharsis might take place. Catharsis as although the topic is identical (the swapper-discussion that is) the actual cause of the pressure (which can be defined an aggressive situation) is not the "Swapper"-article, but the situation itself. Second-level because he does not shoot against the writer of the article - and therefore a physical impersonification, but on the abstract construct which the author has set up. c11 Summing Up c13Under these presumptions, we have to ask ourselves if we haven't simply misregarded the importance of this topic and which it might have for certain parts of the Scene. That there actually is a need to discuss the issue is in fact underlined by the mass of publications, but is there a need to just munch on the same patterns all of the time? I doubt that my heurist examinations actually will enable and lead new viewpoints when nearing this discussion. Still it might be a possibility to understand how certain authomatisms of inner representation of an articles topic work. It could be worth some seconds of considerations why an article works, not what it might effect.