RABAGAS MAGAZINE Joins the Networked Publishing Era

How we accidentally upgraded into the future.

By The Cast at RABAGAS
Published via one of approximately seven hundred new buttons we just discovered

We thought we were just hitting "Update."
One of those casual admin moments — the kind where you sip burnt coffee, open Ghost, and mutter something confident like: “We should probably update to 6.0 before the robots unionize.”

And then… something changed.

A tiny, glowing line appeared:

“People can now discover, follow, like, and reply to your posts across the social web.”

We blinked.
We blinked again.
We Googled “ActivityPub — is that a cult?”

Turns out, Ghost 6.0 has quietly turned our humble corner of the internet into a fully networked publication node. That’s fancy-speak for: you can now follow RABAGAS posts from Bluesky, Mastodon, Threads, Flipboard, WordPress, and more — without us lifting a finger.

In other words: we are now in the blogosphere again, baby.
Except this time, it talks back.

Okay but what does this mean, really?

For starters:

• You can now follow us from almost anywhere — not just via email or a bookmark you forgot about in 2021.
• You can like and reply to our posts from your platform of choice. We might even reply back, unless it’s Sunday.
• Your favorite RABAGAS pieces — fiction, essays, or unhinged classifieds — can now go semi-viral without being filtered by TikTok’s algorithmic mood swings.
• RABAGAS
• Indie Publishing
• Ghost 6.0
• Networked Media
• Fediverse
• ActivityPub
• Cultural Commentary
• Satire
• Updates
• Editorial

Also:

• We have analytics now. Native ones. Which means we actually know if anyone read that article about loyalty programs or that weird short story with the haunted spreadsheet.

Our newsletter editor just leveled up into something that feels like a magic trick. We can add member-only previews, live edit links after sending (yes), and highlight your favorite print zine without crying into the HTML.

Threads? As in clothing?

No.
Threads as in meta-meta-microblogging. The kind of platform where someone might repost a quote from your essay and write “Why did this make me cry in public?” and then you get twelve new readers with names like @fermentedpoet and @glutenqueer.

Thanks to something called ActivityPub, your posts are now part of the decentralized social web. This isn’t a marketing gimmick — it’s a protocol. A way of connecting platforms without needing permission from billionaires in expensive hoodies.

Which means:

• RABAGAS is no longer a lone zine-stall at the edge of the internet.
• We’re now part of a weird, nerdy, beautiful network of open-source publications, creative islands, and talking blogs.

And that suits us just fine.

New Book: How to Behave in Public

How to Behave in Public is a dry, absurd, and sneakily moving novel about going viral, going missing, and learning how to be seen again — or at least make peace with it. Includes diagrams, footnotes, and one very long apology to a dog.

RABAGAS MAGAZINEJTV

So what now?

Well.
We are quietly euphoric. And slightly overwhelmed.
We now have dashboards, metrics, likes, follows, replies, recommendations, and bookmarks. We are officially measurable. (Weird.)

But we’re not changing what we do.

RABAGAS will still publish:

• Satirical zines with emotional baggage
• Fictional memos from departments that may or may not exist
• Commentary disguised as conceptual art
• Weekly book releases, strange posters, and possibly a music agent named DJAGENT

Only now, you’ll see us out there, too. On the platforms you already use.
And if you see something you like — tell someone.
Leave a comment. Repost it. Whisper it into the wind.

We may be old-school at heart, but we’re not afraid of new pipes. We just want them to carry something worth remembering.

A few things you can do right now:

• Follow us from your favorite social platform (Mastodon, Threads, Flipboard — it all works)
• Reply to this post if your client supports it (we see you, fediverse people)
• Sign up for our newsletter if you still believe in the magic of inbox epiphanies
• Tell your local librarian that we’ve gone semi-syndicated
• Buy a poster before they disappear again

And if you’re also a small publisher, lost creative, or writer with 39 half-finished essays in Google Docs…

…you might want to update to Ghost 6.0 too.
It’s not just a CMS anymore. It’s a passport to a better version of the internet — where your work gets seen because it matters, not because it’s optimized for rage clicks.

We didn’t know we needed it.
Now we don’t want to go back.

See you out there.

—
RABAGAS Magazine
🪐 Filed under: Networked Publishing, Sentimental Optimism, Decentralized Weirdness