Please Clap (For The AMVs)

[Kionon]

Okay, now that I have your attention with this Jeb Bush AMV (which is totally an AMV, right? It says so right in the title).

I've heard a number of more recent and/or younger editors say they are having problems finding places online to get into deep discussions of AMVs. Not just individual announcements or opinion exchange (which ideally might actually be the same thing), but rather philosophy of art and its application on AMVs. I think a lot of video sharing and social media sites aren't really good for this.

The Org actually is. Yet.... This can't happen (and I'm also at fault) if we don't actually acknowledge the videos which are posted. I've spent a bit of time watching logins and so I see a lot of people (veterans included) who appear to log in, look around, say nothing, and log back out. If every single person I saw log in actually said something, we'd be able to start a positive feedback loop as new members are able to participate.

In conclusion, when announced or posted, please clap for AMVs.

Thank you for coming to my JEB Talk.

[seasons]

There has been a nice uptick in new videos posted to this forum over the last week or two, which has made it a lot easier to find stuff to comment on.

I'm always checking the forums here for new videos but not always bothering to give them a chance, which I'm trying to work on. It's paid off a lot lately.

Would be really great if new members left some feedback on other editors' works in the announcement forum before/after posting new threads of their own. If I see someone is participating in the forum, that gives me a good feeling that they have a basic understanding of how this place works, and that they're actually going to read any comments I leave them (and might even respond). I haven't quite gotten to the point where I can tell who's going to check back in on their thread after a while and who's just literally never going to log into the forums ever again and not read my ostensibly helpful feedback, but I'm kind of getting there. Just saying, if I see you leaving comment(s) on someone else's AMV, that's gonna make me a lot more likely to watch yours and leave some feedback of my own on it.

Of course, when I say "feedback" I could mean a whole paragraph of how it made me feel or what I liked/didn't like about it, or just one sentence. Would love to give everyone a long breakdown on what I think of their AMV but I'm more conflicted about my own opinions than ever these days, and it's hard to feel motivated to do so when you're not even sure if the creator is ever going to read your words. But sometimes you've just got to chance it, I guess.

[Kionon]

Quoted Image converted to link:
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-EPATLtQl1_0/T ... ething.jpg

Love it.

There has been a nice uptick in new videos posted to this forum over the last week or two, which has made it a lot easier to find stuff to comment on.

Yes, there has been, and I've spoken to some of these editors in their threads, but I've also recently spoken to some others on Discord and on other social media. Even a couple on YouTube. I am surprised, but the there is STILL a reputation that the Org has for delivering rather lengthy, detailed, and comprehensive feedback. Even amongst individuals who only just started editing very recently and never previously were on the Org, and were potentially small children or even babies during the high water mark of Org activity. That gives me cause for hope.

I'm always checking the forums here for new videos but not always bothering to give them a chance, which I'm trying to work on. It's paid off a lot lately.

I've noticed that, and I think if other regular visitors (I can see you when you login and which forums you are in, even if you are hidden, it's the mod powers) can do what you've done, even if it's only a few serious sentences, it would help a lot.

Would be really great if new members left some feedback on other editors' works in the announcement forum before/after posting new threads of their own. If I see someone is participating in the forum, that gives me a good feeling that they have a basic understanding of how this place works, and that they're actually going to read any comments I leave them (and might even respond). I haven't quite gotten to the point where I can tell who's going to check back in on their thread after a while and who's just literally never going to log into the forums ever again and not read my ostensibly helpful feedback, but I'm kind of getting there. Just saying, if I see you leaving comment(s) on someone else's AMV, that's gonna make me a lot more likely to watch yours and leave some feedback of my own on it.

Yeah, this is definitely part of the issue. I think if people stopped thinking of AMV Announcements as a dumping ground, a post-and-run type of place, and thought about it more like Opinion Exchange, everyone would benefit. There will always be those who just want to rack up views on external sites and they don't care about feedback. We can't do anything about that, but if people are expecting us as members of the Org to give them comprehensive feedback, or at least feedback of a higher quality than can be acquired elsewhere, they really need to make that go both ways.

Of course, when I say "feedback" I could mean a whole paragraph of how it made me feel or what I liked/didn't like about it, or just one sentence. Would love to give everyone a long breakdown on what I think of their AMV but I'm more conflicted about my own opinions than ever these days, and it's hard to feel motivated to do so when you're not even sure if the creator is ever going to read your words. But sometimes you've just got to chance it, I guess.

Sometimes I only have a short sentence to say. Sometimes a few sentences. Sometimes a few paragraphs. Sometimes a total formatted opinion. I think all of these are valid and any of these would be welcome.

[DJ_Izumi]

I mean, I think the issue is bigger than that. First AMVs were once popualar ways to discover new anime, be they tucked onto Fansub tapes or a 20-50mb file someone could easily download on their 1mbit 'broadband connection'. Now all the anime is one click away on a legit or pirate streaming service. You can get lists of algorithm generated suggestions from these services. Even Netflix has anime and will cry out 'YOU LIKED AOT? CHECK OUT MHA! :O' or something.

Secondly, while the Org maintain's it's original functionality, well, it's also not evolved with the times. Forums in general are in a decline and the commenting and downloading system on The Org is archaic to a young generation that can stream anything with a single click. YouTube on the other hand will not only offer instant gratification, but also a means to instantly comment 'THIS WAZ GOOD BUT DO ONE 2 BOROTU!', and automatically start running a playlist of AMVs it'll guess you want to watch.

[seasons]

I mean, I think the issue is bigger than that.

Everything in your post is true. But I don't think anyone is disputing those points, either.

The idea is that there are probably a lot of editors, novice and experienced, who are disillusioned with AMV culture and the platforms that have become the hubs of it since the beginning of this decade. If there's a subset of these users who actually want feedback beyond the stereotypical YouTube sentence fragments, the only way we could draw them here is to have the forums consistently active. So yeah, this is less about the Org as an AMV database/server and more about the forums.

I don't think forums are on the decline. That decline already happened thanks to social media. Yes, it will continue to happen in little increments if we don't take the simple steps of just posting more on a daily basis. That's really all there is to it (pertaining to what Kionon is proposing in this thread), which probably sounds like a really shitty plan but keep in mind that we're not trying to restore this place to how it was back in 2006. It's always going to be a shadow of what that was. However, it is not unrealistic to try to make this place a little more active, giving new users an incentive to want to join and share their work and...hopefully stick around after that.

Again, this isn't to appeal to every AMV editor out there, just those who would like a place like this where they could share their work, get a response from an actual person and hopefully feel like they're a part of something. Even if that's a very small subset of all the editors out there, that's okay.

[Kionon]

I mean, I think the issue is bigger than that.

The way I see it, over the past decade AMVs have grown exponentially because the fandom has grown exponentially. This means the subset of people willing to use forums is also probably large. The problem is, as stated, we have a significant amount of traffic, but few people are actually saying anything.

The Org is absolutely under a redesign, has been for a while, but it's all volunteer and is very slow and under the back-end, but it is happening. The younger generation as a whole may be able to stream all the things, but they can't seem to stream comprehensive feedback. Hence why people still show up here from time to time... and then leave when no one responds.

[DJ_Izumi]

The way I see it, over the past decade AMVs have grown exponentially because the fandom has grown exponentially. This means the subset of people willing to use forums is also probably large. The problem is, as stated, we have a significant amount of traffic, but few people are actually saying anything.

Uhhhhhmmmm... I would have to wholefully disagree with this evaluation. You can't just say 'Anime is big, thus, AMVs must be big'. You have presented no evidence to support your claim. I see no evidence that there is some huge 'AMV Audience' out there that just haven't found a 'home'. This place is #1 on Google, it's not hard to find, and 'No one replies on the forum' is not the problem, it's a symptom of the problem.

This forum is in a state that most ALL dying forums enter. It's at that state where it has a wide series of ENTIRELY stagnant sections. It has the 'die hards' who peek in and basically go 'Nope, still dead' and that drags on slowly until someone shuts the lights off. Forums themselves are a hard sell these days, they're not that interesting as a means of communicate to the main internet going demographic these days. 'Forums' like this have been in decline for a decade now, despite a few exceptions that do manage to thrive. IMDb gave up on it's ghost town forums. Megatokyo, which has NEVER ceased releasing new pages, once had a THRIVING forum of internet nerds and it's a ghost town now. This has happened ALL over the web. Once upon a time a dedicated userbase of 20-30 people could sustain a stable level of activity on a forum dedicated to some esoteric topic but this is no longer that time.

The problem of the slow death of the AMV community is much bigger and more multifaceted than 'Nobody bothers to click reply'. People don't SEE things worth replying to very often on this forum.

I think probably the biggest factor in this is the 'Decentralization of Fandom'. People have largely moved away from focused fan communities and onto broader services, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and so on. A lot of fandom involvement has moved to these broader, mainstream services, where people can simple formulate their own circles while also having broader access to that service's whole audience as well and that has significant value to the users. Surely you've seen this yourself? You've been online as long as I have, surely you've seen COUNTLESS once thriving communities dedicated to different flavors of nerdom fade away like dying stars?

[DJ_Izumi]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qcuJM1 ... e=youtu.be

Here's another example. Gigguk, a popular Anituber with 1.3+ million subscribers produced a video on the rise and fall of AMVs. There's been NO discussion of this video on this forum. No one's started a discussion of it on this forum.

...Meanwhile, on Twitter...



Yup, even the Org -itself- felt that Twitter was a better place for discussion of the rise and fall of AMVs than it's own forum.

[Kionon]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qcuJM1 ... e=youtu.be

Here's another example. Gigguk, a popular Anituber with 1.3+ million subscribers produced a video on the rise and fall of AMVs. There's been NO discussion of this video on this forum. No one's started a discussion of it on this forum.

Oh really?

Lol I such at spelling, I meant Dieing. But I get what you mean and agree, when ever you look up X popular song you get a lot of the same trow some clips in a basic editor with subtitles. If your lucky cut it a bit but still leave large enough chunks of unedited clips that the video will get a copyright notice. It bugs me because It makes it so hard to find the good because you have to sift though so much (I dont like saying it because people get man) trash.

Oh, you mean Gigguk's video. People have been AMVs are dying for many years. Don't believe them. The best way to get AMVs is the same way it's always been: getting AMVs from the creator themselves or from a community like this one. Given the higher level of difficulty (although not by much), the AMVs that tend to show up here in Opinion Exchange or in AMV Announcements tend to be much higher quality. They may be a YouTube link, but at least that will take you directly to the video.

Very little discussion, that I grant you, but not NO discussion. Further, I have only anecdotal evidence, and only care about anecdotal evidence. There are people who have expressed to me they want this level (what we are doing right now) of discourse. I don't care if it is 20 active people, or 50 active people, or 100 active people. It's probably thousands. The internet is just that big. Fandom is that big, and despite having no evidence to offer you, AMVs are that big (if we count every attempt at making an AMV, regardless of our perception of the skill, and I do).

And the Org doesn't start discussions on Twitter. People do in the tweet thread, so I think you've misunderstood the purpose of the Org's tweet. The Twitter account is present to interact with the outside world as the Org. This is quite different than internal discussions. That said, YOU'RE still here (and we're glad for it).

[DJ_Izumi]

Oh, you mean Gigguk's video. People have been AMVs are dying for many years. Don't believe them. The best way to get AMVs is the same way it's always been: getting AMVs from the creator themselves or from a community like this one. Given the higher level of difficulty (although not by much), the AMVs that tend to show up here in Opinion Exchange or in AMV Announcements tend to be much higher quality. They may be a YouTube link, but at least that will take you directly to the video.

Very little discussion, that I grant you, but not NO discussion. Further, I have only anecdotal evidence, and only care about anecdotal evidence. There are people who have expressed to me they want this level (what we are doing right now) of discourse. I don't care if it is 20 active people, or 50 active people, or 100 active people. It's probably thousands. The internet is just that big. Fandom is that big, and despite having no evidence to offer you, AMVs are that big (if we count every attempt at making an AMV, regardless of our perception of the skill, and I do).

And the Org doesn't start discussions on Twitter. People do in the tweet thread, so I think you've misunderstood the purpose of the Org's tweet. The Twitter account is present to interact with the outside world as the Org. This is quite different than internal discussions. That said, YOU'RE still here (and we're glad for it).

And with this I'm only convinced that this community, like so many before it, is destined to it's demise. When anyone with any say in how it operates thinks it's still the mid-2000's and the wants and needs of fandom haven't evolved and there's no need to evolve with those changes, it's fate is sealed. There's no more need for me to post here anymore.