I'm just wondering if your perception on this particular matter is being influenced by the fact that there's so much less noise around here than there used to be. It's entirely possible that the vocal .org members (since you seem to be focusing on the .org community with this topic) are also the ones who tend to enter contests, and discuss contests, and participate in competitive editing. I do agree that it seems like contests and competition are discussed more than they used to be, but there's also about 10% of the discussion here than there was even a few years ago.seasons wrote:I don't want to see this place go under so no, I'm not rushing to do away with contests or shut down anything going on here that people are enjoying. I'm just curious about why competition is so much more exciting (apparently) than whatever it was that used to inspire most people here to make 99% of all the stuff that's currently hosted on the Org servers.
I don't know for sure, all I know is that when I signed up for the .org eight years ago, there was a lot of discussion and hype around contests and there was definitely a feeling of awe with certain contests. Akross was a perfect example; I remember being so enamored at the time of certain Akross videos and getting it into my head that that was the ultimate goal for me -- to one day be good enough to compete in Akross (a goal that I've since ceased chasing because, well, that's a stupid goal).
All this is to say that a "competitive mentality" is not something new, it's ingrained into AMV culture because it's been around since before AMVs became popular and accessible. Contests are how some of the first popular and influential videos became popular. It's entirely possible that this would have remained an even-more-niche-than-it-already-is hobby if contests didn't happen back in the '90s and early 2000s.
(I realize that last paragraph can come across like I'm assuming you're demonizing all contests, which I know isn't the case; just trying to highlight that AMVs and AMV contests have always gone hand-in-hand, at least as far back as it matters for this discussion).
This is a valid question, however, and I'd be curious to know the answer. I don't think that contests have been the main influence on the style of editing that seems to be dominant today, but it'd be stupid to deny that competition can heavily impact the choices an editor makes when making a video, and I'm sure the same could be said from the audience's side -- what do they expect in a contest setting vs. sitting at home on their computer? This same question could be applied to any artistic pursuit that acquires a competitive element. I don't have any answers (at least none founded on anything more than my opinions and observations), but it's a fascinating question.seasons wrote:And I'm curious about what that means for how editors (here, on Youtube, at conventions, in all the overlaps in between those zones and in any others that I'm not aware of) approach their work and how they think they need to edit in order to connect with an audience. And, on the other side of the coin, how audience expectations have changed as a result of the competitive atmosphere that's overtaken the hobby.
You should make another thread on this, I think it'd be interesting to hear what others have to say because I want to know this myself.seasons wrote:Contests definitely seem to be the best way to reach an audience. So will the typical AMV viewer (I have no idea who this is or if they're even on the Org or not) not bother to look for AMVs anywhere else? Do people even "look" for AMVs anymore at all, or do they just watch contests and AMVs that their friends make?
That's the danger of mixing an artistic (or "creative" might be a better term to avoid the whole "Are AMVs art?" argument) hobby with competition. Competition necessarily involves some sort of objective yardstick, or at least the appearance of one, otherwise how could anything be judged? There would be no basis for a competition otherwise. People should know that if you're going to enter a creative work into a contest, there are standards that work will need to live up to. Each contest might have different standards depending on how it's being judged, but it just seems self-evident to me that you can't enter a contest without that expectation.seasons wrote:What it boils down to for me is that everyone's always felt a need to be validated by their peers but as time goes on in this hobby, that's gotten more and more important than ever, to the point where contest success/failure is getting treated like some kind of objective measure of how good an editor is and what they "need to work on" in order to be accepted (or at least feel like they are). This inevitably is going to have an effect on editors' motivations -- which I only care about when it leads to people getting prematurely disillusioned/bored for all the wrong reasons -- and the originality and spirit in their work.
Thing is, this isn't going to change. So long as there are AMV contests and people to enter them, those who enter will be determining some measure of their worth as an editor based on the results of those contests. How this affects their output will most likely vary from editor to editor. But again...nothing new here, this has always been the case, and it's hardly exclusive to AMVs. Don't most people judge their own work based on that of others? Aren't we as editors all influenced by what other people have made? Is it possible that nothing is different now than it was 10 years ago, and that the trend you're observing in the way modern videos are edited is just that -- a trend -- and you just happen to not like that trend?
