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Syracuse University freshman Brogan Thomas sat in the first floor lounge of Sadler Hall surrounded by two boxes of old editions of The OutCrowd Magazine. The magazine, an LGBTQ publication created by SU students, had stopped running in 2018.

Thomas handed fellow SU freshman Samuel Baylow a copy of the magazine and said he should get involved in bringing back the publication.

“We just kind of sat back almost in silence, and we just kind of took in this gem,” Baylow said. “It was a moment where we realized we had something golden on our hands. We had something that could really have an impact.”

A group of students founded the magazine in the early 2000s with Melissa Chessher, chair of the magazine, news and digital journalism department at the Newhouse School of Public Communications. The OutCrowd Magazine will return to SU in the spring under the leadership of students, including Thomas and Baylow.

Thomas, the magazine’s managing editor, found out about The OutCrowd’s resurgence in her honors seminar course. When seniors visited the class at the beginning of the semester to talk about ways to get involved on campus, Thomas became interested in the return of the magazine, which SU senior and OutCrowd Editor-in-Chief Patrick Linehan was publicizing.

“Patrick was really interested in getting that started again, and just from being there, I was able to express my interest and get engaged in the conversation early on,” Thomas said. “When it did start up, I was already involved.”

SU freshman Payton Dunn, who is The OutCrowd’s arts and entertainment editor, was drawn to the magazine because it’s a way to make members of the LGBTQ community feel like they belong at SU. This was something Dunn didn’t have in high school, where he felt like he was one of the only “queer guys,” he said.

Payton Dunn is the arts and entertainment editor for The OutCrowd Magazine. Emily Steinberger | Photo Editor

In his role at the publication, Dunn is hoping to further analyze the cultural trends behind the arts and entertainment industry. He also plans to explore the impact the industry has had on LGBTQ culture, and vice versa.

He’s also interested in covering the resurgence of LGBTQ country artists, such as Lil Nas X, and the popularity that the song “Sofia” by Clairo has gained off of TikTok, since it was already an anthem in the LGBTQ community.

“Starting it up again, there’s a huge opportunity to kind of start fresh and build off of everything great that the old magazine was doing while putting our own unique twist on it,” Dunn said.

The magazine, which will normally run twice a year, will be published once this year due to the challenges of the coronavirus pandemic. The OutCrowd has already begun publicizing its spring edition on its Instagram.

The edition will focus on topics such as the presidential election, the COVID-19 pandemic and the wide array of social and political protests that have occurred in the U.S. recently, Thomas said.

“We’re exploring how the LGBTQ+ community kind of fits into all these different things from this year,” Thomas said.

The OutCrowd’s staff includes more than 25 people, Baylow said, and has eight editors and nine writers. The writers will cross over to different sections of the magazine and will pitch their own articles, Dunn said.

As a staff writer, Baylow’s main focus is writing whatever he needs to make the magazine work. He would be interested in pursuing a story about the role of LGBTQ people in public television.

Overall, Baylow hopes the magazine will look just as good as it did when it ran before, though he predicts it will be even better.

“I would love people who are heterosexual to really enjoy what we’re saying, people who may be in the closet to feel more comfortable with themselves and feel like they have a community on campus,” Baylow said. “And (for) people in the community to know the wide array of personalities and cultures within the LGBTQ community.”

Published on October 18, 2020 at 10:48 pm

Contact Sydney: sabergan@syr.edu