AMV Editing: A dying hobby (?)

[Begi]

There is still a good amount of AMVs being uploaded on to YouTube, but it's very inconsistent as far as consecutive releases by the same editor. It seems like one editor makes an AMV and never uploads one again for another year or even more, resulting in a less TOTAL amount of AMVs. A possible rebuttal would be "Oh no, AMVs are just dying on YouTube."

Well then, let’s take a look at another site. Possibly the biggest AMV outlet…

Looking at the .Org you notice a similar trend. If you look at the amount of videos that have premiered per year you will notice that every year after 2006 the amount gets smaller and smaller. Now I understand that a new member to the .Org could upload a video that premiered, for example, in 2005 and then when searching the video catalog, it would list the video as being from 2005; and, that might skew the actual amount of videos UPLOADED to the site in 2013. But, I'm not sure of any function on this website that allows you to show the amount of videos that have been UPLOADED per year as opposed to DATE PREMIERED. But still, if this site were active, wouldn't there be people giving donations?

http://www.animemusicvideos.org/members ... /stats.php

Looking at the donation statistics is quite scary. We are on the last day of the 30 day period and we haven't even reached HALF! I don't know who might cover the rest of that bill, and I don't know how much it costs, but it's not pretty. My only deduction from this is that this site is also dying. Less Donations + less videos premiering per year = less activity. For God's sake I don't need to go through all of this, just look at the Forum activity, it's DEAD! Look at all the new members. Out of 210 new members ONLY 3 HAVE POSTED ONE SINGLE POST EACH! WTF? I think this is another indicator that AMV editing is dying.
Your reply? "BRO THAT ONLY REPRESENTS THE .ORG, NOT EVERY OTHER SITE!"

Really?

http://www.ketsuryu.com/ --> stopped being updated 1 year ago
http://www.amvnews.ru/ --> a video or 2 might be uploaded every few months
you cannot upload videos to reddit, so no -_-
amvswamp.com takes videos from other sites as do most other amv websites


WHERE IS THIS SITE THAT NO ONE FUCKING KNOWS ABOUT THAT YOU SAY AMVS ARE BEING UPLOADED TO?

I think that if the .Org activity comes to a halt and the amount of NEW YouTube videos being uploaded decreases, it's a good representation of the hobby dying as a whole, since they seem to be the biggest outlets for AMVs. However! I have a theory about this, a possible reason why. Many people who get into editing for the first time are in their teens (15-18) and really have no responsibilities other than high-school. Once they graduate it seems like the hobby is kinda left behind because they now have important life matters to attend to such as school, relationships, work, etc. But I think within the next 2-4 years, many of those editors will start to come back because they will be finished with school, have an established relationship, and work is...well...work.

Or this shit is just dumb as fuck and people finally realized it's a complete waste of time.

[InsaneWaya]

NS, I disagree.

I think there is favoritism. Up to about 2007 it wasn't that difficult to get in the "in" crowd, regardless of how good or bad your AMVs were. But after that it seemed like the clique wasn't accepting any new members and if you didn't have some sort of real life relationship with editors before then, you were fucked on the forum.

A part of me thinks that the only reason I even get replies to my threads these days is because my join date is so early (and I have a title).

Not to say that's really bad... Every website and group has cliques. But this is my opinion on what's going on here. It's just difficult for people to get critique/feedback, or form friendships over the forum.

I can totally see this, when I first started editing it was on youtube in like early 2006 and I was using WMM. The persons videos i was watching and getting inspired by most at that time was Zetzu. compared to me he was a giant and he had a decent amount of respect even back then. I simply asked for him to give me an opinion on a video and gave him my msn messenger info(yea back when most of the community talked on there lol) and he added me, gave me his opinion and then proceeded to show me how to download vegas and talked with me for a good hour. He introduced me to other people in the community and from that i gained the inspiration to edit for as long as i did. But as time when by and some people stopped editing and i tried to meet other people nobody really would reply and what went from being able to have someone in the community to talk to everyday and bounce ideas off of it went down to only a few and most of them were barley editing anymore anyways. The whole community needs to actually be a community. As it sits noone really goes to new people (or even just others in the community that they don't know) to talk to them outside of the forums and really make friends. I know personally that if i didnt have all the friends i did after i met zetzu and he introduced me to people here i never would have continued editing. They were my inspiration more then anything and they kept me motivated to edit. I didnt need a contest to edit i just needed people to help motivate me and to talk to about it. Nowadays when i try to edit i can never finish because i have noone to bounce ideas off of or beta test like i used to. I think thats a major issue that as a community can be solved. I could go on about it in more detail but i think what im saying is clear. I just wonder if anyone else feels this way.

[l33tmeatwad]

NS, I disagree.

I think there is favoritism. Up to about 2007 it wasn't that difficult to get in the "in" crowd, regardless of how good or bad your AMVs were. But after that it seemed like the clique wasn't accepting any new members and if you didn't have some sort of real life relationship with editors before then, you were fucked on the forum.

A part of me thinks that the only reason I even get replies to my threads these days is because my join date is so early (and I have a title).

Not to say that's really bad... Every website and group has cliques. But this is my opinion on what's going on here. It's just difficult for people to get critique/feedback, or form friendships over the forum.

I can totally see this, when I first started editing it was on youtube in like early 2006 and I was using WMM. The persons videos i was watching and getting inspired by most at that time was Zetzu. compared to me he was a giant and he had a decent amount of respect even back then. I simply asked for him to give me an opinion on a video and gave him my msn messenger info(yea back when most of the community talked on there lol) and he added me, gave me his opinion and then proceeded to show me how to download vegas and talked with me for a good hour. He introduced me to other people in the community and from that i gained the inspiration to edit for as long as i did. But as time when by and some people stopped editing and i tried to meet other people nobody really would reply and what went from being able to have someone in the community to talk to everyday and bounce ideas off of it went down to only a few and most of them were barley editing anymore anyways. The whole community needs to actually be a community. As it sits noone really goes to new people (or even just others in the community that they don't know) to talk to them outside of the forums and really make friends. I know personally that if i didnt have all the friends i did after i met zetzu and he introduced me to people here i never would have continued editing. They were my inspiration more then anything and they kept me motivated to edit. I didnt need a contest to edit i just needed people to help motivate me and to talk to about it. Nowadays when i try to edit i can never finish because i have noone to bounce ideas off of or beta test like i used to. I think thats a major issue that as a community can be solved. I could go on about it in more detail but i think what im saying is clear. I just wonder if anyone else feels this way.

To be honest it's not about who you know in real life, it's how you communicate with others from this community. In terms of meeting people on the forum to make new friends you'll definitely have to start communicating by other means as well. Most of the groups tend to communicate on services like Skype and become friends that way. Most Skype groups I have been a part of have been pretty open to adding new people to group chats when they asked for feedback and advice. It's a lot easier to give feedback in chat rather than a long post or email, therefore most everyone I know tends to do it that way. To be honest there aren't really "in crowds", the crowds that are considered that are just well known from winning big contests and/or being active in contests here on the forum. My advice is make friends on Skype, get involved, and most of all have fun !

[InsaneWaya]

NS, I disagree.

I think there is favoritism. Up to about 2007 it wasn't that difficult to get in the "in" crowd, regardless of how good or bad your AMVs were. But after that it seemed like the clique wasn't accepting any new members and if you didn't have some sort of real life relationship with editors before then, you were fucked on the forum.

A part of me thinks that the only reason I even get replies to my threads these days is because my join date is so early (and I have a title).

Not to say that's really bad... Every website and group has cliques. But this is my opinion on what's going on here. It's just difficult for people to get critique/feedback, or form friendships over the forum.

I can totally see this, when I first started editing it was on youtube in like early 2006 and I was using WMM. The persons videos i was watching and getting inspired by most at that time was Zetzu. compared to me he was a giant and he had a decent amount of respect even back then. I simply asked for him to give me an opinion on a video and gave him my msn messenger info(yea back when most of the community talked on there lol) and he added me, gave me his opinion and then proceeded to show me how to download vegas and talked with me for a good hour. He introduced me to other people in the community and from that i gained the inspiration to edit for as long as i did. But as time when by and some people stopped editing and i tried to meet other people nobody really would reply and what went from being able to have someone in the community to talk to everyday and bounce ideas off of it went down to only a few and most of them were barley editing anymore anyways. The whole community needs to actually be a community. As it sits noone really goes to new people (or even just others in the community that they don't know) to talk to them outside of the forums and really make friends. I know personally that if i didnt have all the friends i did after i met zetzu and he introduced me to people here i never would have continued editing. They were my inspiration more then anything and they kept me motivated to edit. I didnt need a contest to edit i just needed people to help motivate me and to talk to about it. Nowadays when i try to edit i can never finish because i have noone to bounce ideas off of or beta test like i used to. I think thats a major issue that as a community can be solved. I could go on about it in more detail but i think what im saying is clear. I just wonder if anyone else feels this way.

To be honest it's not about who you know in real life, it's how you communicate with others from this community. In terms of meeting people on the forum to make new friends you'll definitely have to start communicating by other means as well. Most of the groups tend to communicate on services like Skype and become friends that way. Most Skype groups I have been a part of have been pretty open to adding new people to group chats when they asked for feedback and advice. It's a lot easier to give feedback in chat rather than a long post or email, therefore most everyone I know tends to do it that way. To be honest there aren't really "in crowds", the crowds that are considered that are just well known from winning big contests and/or being active in contests here on the forum. My advice is make friends on Skype, get involved, and most of all have fun !

That's true but what i was try to say is its harder to do that nowadays though. The reputation of the .org has been mentioned before but a lot of ppl are intimidated to even post on the forum much less try to add people that have a reputation like that. Also the more people making strides to being active not just in the forums and with critic here but on skype as well, the more i believe that people would have a continued interest in this hobby. Im just saying this because personally my best memories that involve editing are involving talking with all my old friends on msn and/or skype and i think in a community thats healthy you need people that talk to each other like everyone did back then on a daily basis.

[BasharOfTheAges]

Though I kinda said it in my previous posts in piecemeal fashion, the current state of these forums are pretty simple to understand.

1) Churn is a thing - by that, I mean a healthy, active community will have within it a natural cycle of older members drifting away from their previous active states - posting less and lurking more. They will be replaced, in turn, by newer members or members that want to express themselves more. These new folks will take over being the active members of the forums as the older folks drift away.

2) We aren't a healthy community, so we don't have enough new, active members to replenish the churn. This causes turmoil, and angst and drama, and, most importantly accelerated burnout from people trying to "pick up the slack." Being helpful all the time is a workload that is far more easy to manage when spread out over a large number of people. As the number of people that have the time and energy to do this shit year after year shrinks (because life happens) it falls to fewer and fewer hands to take up the responsibility. These folks, understandably, decide it's not worth it after a while, and leave too.

3) While I'm sure our "reputation" may have played some part in scaring people off in the past, I think there's more of a social group dynamic at play here in web trends in general that can explain why we don't have enough new blood to replenish the churn... And that is the our web culture has shifted to formats of confrontation adverse, real time, echo-chambers. We (and I'm pointing my finger at the younger ones here) don't want to debate and defend our opinions. This is a hobby, it's supposed to be fun, not work. Forums are inherently text based, and the lack of tone tags means we go off the hinge and assume everyone is biting at our throat with every word. We can take criticism from someone we know in real life just fine. We know how they act; we have a feeling for how their minds work. We know that the paragraph they just wrote wasn't meant to upset us - it was meant to inform us. But THAT guy over there? He's a complete ass. Why would I want to subject myself to him when I can get all the feedback i need from my curated group of facebook friends or my IRC/skype buddies? Why force myself to engage in discourse with more people when I already know too many people. My Christmas card list is already too long... fuck that.

#1 is a fact of life for the web as a whole. #2 is happening because we are a knowledge-based community that has very little it wants to talk about. #3 is just sad. I don't see it getting better. There is no will for it to get better. All these threads do is try to guilt more people on their way out into pushing themselves more and making #2 happen FASTER from increased levels of stress and a growing fount of cynicism.

[l33tmeatwad]

Adding onto the web trends that Bashar mentioned, the internet itself has long sense moved away from forums as a major way of communication. Sites like facebook have replaced both AIM/MSN/IRC and forums as ways people connect and communicate with one another. It's not that the org is a dying trend, the foundation which is relies on is a dying trend and unless it adapts (the org facebook and twitter help) it will continue to dwindle.

[BasharOfTheAges]

Adding onto the web trends that Bashar mentioned, the internet itself has long sense moved away from forums as a major way of communication. Sites like facebook have replaced both AIM/MSN/IRC and forums as ways people connect and communicate with one another. It's not that the org is a dying trend, the foundation which is relies on is a dying trend and unless it adapts (the org facebook and twitter help) it will continue to dwindle.

I'd personally prefer they died than get sucked into proprietary formats not suited to searching or finding info years down the line unless you happen to be an advertiser or a data mining organization.

[Begi]

Adding onto the web trends that Bashar mentioned, the internet itself has long sense moved away from forums as a major way of communication. Sites like facebook have replaced both AIM/MSN/IRC and forums as ways people connect and communicate with one another. It's not that the org is a dying trend, the foundation which is relies on is a dying trend and unless it adapts (the org facebook and twitter help) it will continue to dwindle.

I definitely agree with this. Why happened to all this

[SacredArrow18]

If you want to know, my friend and I'm not going to lie: From the beginning of this year I started to not feel comfortable with the org. In other years normally I respected the authority of the org as a community of amv edition, but in the last videos, I have noticed there's no more feedback for the videos. There;s no real intention of helping other editors, to help improve videos, so I decided to move out to amvnews since I have found that the community there helps more than the org, so that the last proyects have received feedback mainly from the news, rather than the org. And that's the reason of my decision.

If I comment a video here, it's because I previously watched it in youtube or other sites. It doesn't matter how much the org could promote about the techncial aspect of amv making: If there's no real help here, then it's useless.

I guess I'm not the only one with this thought: I have noticed in the newbies, intention and hope to improve and they trust this site as a possible solution, but when taking part here, you see you will have to take your time to find the people that could be a help. And in which case, there aren't much, just a few ones

Yes I really believe the org has just been dead, I am an older amv editor been on here since 2005. and I must say since after 2009-2010? Im not sure where the feedback stopped, but now that I just put 2 videos up this year, I barely got any feedback at all. People used to give out opinions and after awhile since the quick comments started everyone stopped doing the opinons. I think it is also laziness that has started people are lazy to do the opinions.

[xDreww]

Why happened to all this

Indeed what happened? whoever is in charge of that must have stopped caring.

If you want to know, my friend and I'm not going to lie: From the beginning of this year I started to not feel comfortable with the org. In other years normally I respected the authority of the org as a community of amv edition, but in the last videos, I have noticed there's no more feedback for the videos. There;s no real intention of helping other editors, to help improve videos, so I decided to move out to amvnews since I have found that the community there helps more than the org, so that the last proyects have received feedback mainly from the news, rather than the org. And that's the reason of my decision.

If I comment a video here, it's because I previously watched it in youtube or other sites. It doesn't matter how much the org could promote about the techncial aspect of amv making: If there's no real help here, then it's useless.

I guess I'm not the only one with this thought: I have noticed in the newbies, intention and hope to improve and they trust this site as a possible solution, but when taking part here, you see you will have to take your time to find the people that could be a help. And in which case, there aren't much, just a few ones

Yes I really believe the org has just been dead, I am an older amv editor been on here since 2005. and I must say since after 2009-2010? Im not sure where the feedback stopped, but now that I just put 2 videos up this year, I barely got any feedback at all. People used to give out opinions and after awhile since the quick comments started everyone stopped doing the opinons. I think it is also laziness that has started people are lazy to do the opinions.

The org is pretty much dead, stopped coming here awhile ago, I Noticed how biased the org is when it comes down to replying to a random editor, or a very well known popular editor. Who gets the most replies? That's an easy answer. Not to menton how friend biased the org is now too. Org needs a new setup.