Photo by Kizzy Kalu
Sunstroke is an independent print magazine, publisher and survival guide for the Gen Z cinephile, bookworm, fangirl and fashion curious. By upcycling past philosophies, archives and practices, we’re reimagining what the future can and will look like. We’re a community of young adults using our creativity to initiate conversation and encourage Gen Z readers to embrace their obsessions, pop and underground culture alike.
We imagine a future that honors the intersection of our identities. We imagine a future where we and the people we’re in community with are free. We imagine a future where art is abundant, respected, enjoyed and made by the communities it represents. We’re determined to bring this future to life.
Why “Sunstroke”?
Sunstroke was named after the long days spent under the sun, doing what Gen Z loves: dancing at concerts and festivals; reading our favorite book by a lake; taking photos in the desert or dancing in the park, wherever our passions ran high. Sunstroke began as a DIY project in between a 17-year-old’s basement bedroom and local coffee shops in Salt Lake City, Utah. The mag began as a nostalgia piece for herself that, year after year, has become a time capsule documenting Gen Z and our passions.
Gen Z
Sunstroke is run by and for Generation Z. It’s our goal to educate Gen Z on important cultural and sociopolitical events. Gen Z is known for absorbing what older generations have figured out; what’s rarely documented is how we remix and reshape it to express our own ideas. We want to emphasize that and make our community better along the way.
While pop culture remains a constant presence and major influence to us at Sunstroke, it is not all-encompassing of our interests, as Sunstroke also promotes the independent creation of work, outside of institutional and corporate interests. For that reason, we want to emphasize the history of pop culture’s appropriation of marginalized subcultures, which has simultaneously subsumed these interests into the mainstream, and isolated the communities that originated them. Instead of conserving this norm and repeating history, Sunstroke strives to be a platform for those it represents and advocates for. We want to lead by deconstructing our past and present structures, upcycling our cultural interests and creating a new world through art and activism.