can we talk about this blog entry?

[gotenks794]

Everyone is a noob at first, no? It's not like bad videos are a new thing, he's just too lazy to filter them out, as trythil said.

[BasharOfTheAges]

Ease of use and cheapness of technology really hasn't kept up with objective filtering. Pretty cut and dry. Most cons do a good job of filtering for those that aren't so involved in the hobby that they're spending time here - cons are probably the majority of exposure most people get to this hobby in the first place. Rants like this are from people in a weird middle ground of AMV fans. They care enough to look for stuff outside of what they can see at cons, but aren't bright enough to seek out a community that has some form of standards that serve as a filter. They're ranting over their own laziness.

There is something to be said, however, about the praising of mediocrity only breading more and more mediocrity, making the filtering process more and more difficult or cumbersome.

[Davis 51]

My first video had a DivX watermark, because I didn't know what I was doing, and had not learned of better forms of compression. My first AND second videos were done using lossy rips because I didn't know about lossless techniques, AND I even had the DVD's.

Then someone showed me the guide to all things technical and I learned about lossless compression and avisynth and indexing and 3:2 pulldown and fields vs frames all that other fun stuff. And I was able to salvage footage from my second video and clean it up with avsp enough to be convention worthy. Some of the shots even looked better than DVD quality when I was done with them. Since then, I have grown drastically and continue to grow.

If I hadn't made those mistakes I wouldn't be where I am today. For every 99:1 crap to good, we have to remember that the good started somewhere, and it was most likely crap.

[trythil]

There is something to be said, however, about the praising of mediocrity only breading more and more mediocrity, making the filtering process more and more difficult or cumbersome.

Breading.

[BasharOfTheAges]

There is something to be said, however, about the praising of mediocrity only breading more and more mediocrity, making the filtering process more and more difficult or cumbersome.

Breading.

I was in the food thread... so hungry.

[Corran]

I blame Youtube being an outlet of speech rather than a curator of art for a lot of the views the author expressed.

[outlawed]

Well it's a rant so I'm not certain why people expect more out of it? Props to the blogger for mentioning Duane Johnson. Duane's Particle Man was one of the few AMVs to get shifted a lot during the modem days. Duane was also involved with running contests and had a very large library of videos that influenced a lot of people. In the historical context of anime fandom I've felt he and many of his earlier peers are overlooked.

He is correct about one point but seems to be missing the forest for the trees. A single AMV creator (and a fansubber for that matter) had significantly more influence on anime fandom up until about Fall 2001. There are several factors which have lessened the ability of an AMV creator to influence anime fandom broadly today (fandom size pool and demographics increase, internet fansub distribution pervasiveness, increased AMVer/fansubber competition, increased domestic market of anime, online retailers). The core of why is simply scarcity. Anime was no longer scarce by Fall 2001 and the intrinsic value of the label "anime" had dropped (in North America).

There are many longtime members of anime fandom who are still surprised AMVs are around at conventions and the like now as they expected it to be a fad that would go away. What you need to take away from this is that AMVs like anime itself is a product of its times. I consider the general purpose and pulse of most AMVs during scarcity as evangelical. You would see significant crossover in the AMVer/Fansubber pool during anime scarcity. Many fansubbers themselves or their friends would make AMVs to promote the anime the fansubber released. I can tell you right now if Hecto hadn't subbed Kakugo no Susume (Apocalypse Zero) and Maboroshi hadn't done those explicit videos with it at Katsucon there is no way in hell that Media Blasters would have thought to license it. Heck I remember their flyer at ACen announcing Apocalypse Zero saying basically saying they had picked up the cult hit at college campuses.

The author states "AMVs lost their ability to add value to social fandom the day a few mouse clicks could conjure up any footage of any anime almost instantly." I argue against this. They still add value. The only difference is the intrinsic scope of their effect. Yes there are some outliers but you have to remember those typically transcend the anime fandom audience. Right now I would say the things which have the ability to regularly have a wide scope of their effect on anime fandom would be 4chan and the con scene. An example of the outreach of this type of effect would be the "anime faggotry" attitude pervading a significant portion of anime fandom these days. Another example would be the continued impact of cosplay. Cosplay's impact is not intrinsic. It requires the con scene. AMVs on the other hand needed some control point like the scarcity of anime to have an intrinsic wide scope of their impact. AMVs have become their own kind of insular thing that is no longer attached at the hip to anime fandom. A great example of this would be the number of longtime members on this very site who say I don't watch anime anymore yet they make AMVs.

Let's look at the positives. As someone who has had involvement in the tail end of the VHS fansub era and the beginning of the AMV online era I think I'm qualified to say I know what the scarcity days were like a little. What about today where we have so many AMVs that it's very hard to know who all the great creators are? Average production quality is far beyond the old days. There is a wider variety of music and anime used today. (Weird Al + Ranma was a regular at pretty much every con back in the day). Contests are run better and in more places. We have gotten to the point that most people entering AWA Pro don't even know why the peer judging contest was made and used to be the agreed upon true test of AMVs.

Linkin Park + Shounen anime's impact was exaggerated by many creators. It became constantly talked about because it was a cool in-joke in the community. The reality is while they dominated the stats for entries on this site those videos had negligible impact. Perhaps what triggered the talk was the fact we were seeing the paradigm change right before our eyes as scarcity disappeared and some people may have even felt ostracized.

[BasharOfTheAges]

AMVs have become their own kind of insular thing that is no longer attached at the hip to anime fandom. A great example of this would be the number of longtime members on this very site who say I don't watch anime anymore yet they make AMVs.

This point can't be understated. While the hobby may have come about as a way to express fandom, people eventually realized you don't have to be a fan to participate, it can be a creative outlet all its own. If all a person (and his thousands of youtube friends) can bring to the table is "being a fan" it will rightfully look like the beginning of the hobby again, multiplied a thousandfold. This can be a rebirth if the conditions are right and enough of the multitudes take that next step above bare minimum effort.

[Sephiroth]

Its cause to them AMVs became less special Its Nostalgia for a good old days that never happened. There was just about as much crap back in the day as there is today, we just didn't have other anime to really compare it to other then star blazers back in the day. Now we have all the 80s and 90s anime to look through along with the last decade for comparison. I watch new shows every so often and id suggest other people who may not to do so also. Same goes for AMVs we have a whole 2+ decades of them to compare to each other.

Were all getting old, anime fans as well. Do i miss some things about the old days. Yes.
Do i like some things about this day and age. Yes.

[MycathatesyouAMV]

To me alot of the points he made made me feel like he doesn't understand that much about the topic.