Why did AMVs (kinda) die?

[tuxedomarty]

It’s bad enough I can’t get any feedback on my own AMVs. Are you just trying to make people such as myself lose hope even more? And I hate those shorter videos too that are only a few seconds long. I bust my ass off whenever I make an AMV trying to make it look as good as I can and give it my all using an ENTIRE SONG or at the very least a radio/single edit for time constraints (not like the aforementioned shorter 30 second or so videos I hate), and people rarely say anything about any of them. The last time I made an AMV was 2021, and the only ones who said anything about it were some friends of mine on another message board when I posted it there, and that’s it. I don’t need my spirit crushed anymore than it already is.

[requiett]

Just make the videos you yourself want to see. The whole media world has exploded and everyone's attention is split in a thousand directions at once.

[MagicDarkLight]

My opinion on this topic when I was still making AMVs was that the main problem of this kind of hobby/art is that you have to make something new out of something that was created and meant for something else. So the editors in the past years tried everything they could and we had a lot of examples like Whisper of the beast, Skittles, Pencilhead, F.Y.C. and so on.

I don't want to invalidate your experience, you definitely have the right to feel like that about AMVs but I do want to comment and offer my perspective on that because I made this very same observation "you have to make something new out of something that was created and meant for something else" but I have a completely opposite reaction to it.

It's funny that you point that as an issue, I think that's exactly what makes AMVs worth existing. The constraint of having to create something new out of media with a different initial purpose is exactly what makes it interesting to me. This trend to get closer and closer to actual cinema by getting rid of more and more constraints is, in my opinion, not helping the hobby in the long run. Firstly because, as someone else pointed out, it can blow up expectations on newcomers. But also because at some point, you're better off just making a short-film from scratch. I'm not saying this to be critical against videos that do go down this road; Qwaqa's videos are incredible, but some of his works involve skills far removed from what you usually need in AMV editing and shouldn't be seen as (the only) goal for excellence in the hobby. At the same time, he also by-passes some challenges that AMV editors typically have. Using other sources should be a constraint that lead to a creative process, rather than a hindrance. In my opinion, thinking that AMVs are only relevant when they look like cinema is, in the end, stripping them of any relevance at all.

[TritioAFB]

Nice to see you back guys. Hope you had a great time in the meantime.

Well, recently I've been watching my own old stuff and even though I had to say that I was motivated in the past, my love for this little hobby hasnt decreased even though my time has seriously been reduced. Still nice to see a lot of the old crew here

[ShadowXxtreme]

This is just my experience that I want to share so excuse me if its long but I was watching amvs in the late 90s early 2000s and to me they were a gateway into seeing stuff that was yet not released in the states. it used to be a lot harder to watch anime in general but as technology advanced so did my excitement in seeing them because you can find almost anything with a couple of clicks. Amvs for me were a way of discovering new anime, uncut scenes, and finding new music. I remember being shocked at some of the stuff scene like excessive blood and beatdowns that toonami had edited it out so they will always be special to me. Ive made a few amvs of my own and continued to watch them until about the early 2010s and i guess i grew out of them. I feel the ones during the 2010s didn't really feel fun they were overedited and tried to be theatrical (adding dialogue over music) and it wasn't like the ones ive seen growing up. Its now 2025 and I want to get back into making stuff and watching them again.

[seasons]

I feel the ones during the 2010s didn't really feel fun they were overedited and tried to be theatrical (adding dialogue over music) and it wasn't like the ones ive seen growing up.

If I'm even thinking of the same kinda of AMVs that you might've been referring to here, which were kind of popular and did have an effect the mass audience consensus of what AMVs were or what they were supposed to be... I still don't think that those made up even 1% of what everyone was making/trying to make during that decade or any single year of it. It probably seemed like a lot more than that, but I don't think that most editors, novice or experienced, pivoted to the trend of peppering dialogue or even sound effects over their song of choice.

Of course, I don't have data to back this claim up and I'm ready to find out that I'm totally wrong about this impression.

[Darth Unrivaled]

I don't think AMVs are dead, I think the people who used to make them are older and have moved on with their lives. I myself who made some in the mid 2000s now in my 40s I think a lot of the points people have made are correct and I think that AMV's havent' died so to speak but I think some things have made them seem as they have.

Things like copyright, harder to get raw anime rips, most people don't have a DVD burner for their PC now. You also have to look at music as well. If I were honest, most music past 2010 is kind of beyond me now. Like sure, there are likely 1-2 songs that stick out, but over the last 20 years, I couldn't name a hit song. Sure enough, I can name bands and songs from the 80s, 90s, and early 2000s, but past 2012, nope. It could just be that at that time in my life, I didn't listen to much music.

I think it's still pretty strong, but with he rise of so many people wanting to be content creators, I think the term has just changed and the way people market themselves has also changed. I remember long time ago it was against the rules here to post a AMV on Youtube, now I think that is where most people post them.