has competition hurt this hobby?

[seasons]

I want to get away from the idea of "troll videos" for a moment -- which is an interesting discussion, don't get me wrong -- and try to figure out why the idea of "winning" and "losing" has become so important to editors.

Why is this hobby so competitive?

Of course there are contests out there for writing songs or drawing pictures or making short films but relatively few people in those creative pursuits will rush to enter them or actually believe that they're some kind of honest barometer of how good their work is. Yet this weird little hobby that we're in seems to be driven by contests these days. If your work is good enough, then you can enter and win contests! And if it's not, then you should work to improve yourself... so you can enter and win contests. I can't think of any other creative hobby that's so driven by contests as this one.

Even in the world of anime fandom, I'm not aware of fanfiction or fanart contests. Even cosplay, which certainly is competitive in nature, barely holds a candle to the world of AMV contests. That's assuming that any of what we're doing is actually about anime fandom at all, which might be a flawed premise to assume anymore.

Don't get me wrong, I like going to anime conventions and watching AMV contests at them. But contest-mania seems out of control in 2014 and seems to be changing what this entire hobby is all about.

On this site, The Quickening, Team Warfare, AMV Roulette, etc seem to have created a cycle where editors are encouraged to participate in never-ending competition under a series of creativity-stifling rules* that have shifted the entire premise of AMV editing from a medium of absolutely unique personal expression towards a more crowd-pleasing, tally-checking mindset that limits their freedom of expression and effectively punishes them for trying anything unconventional. Depending on the season and what contests are going on here, this results in a never-ending dump of AMVs resembling half-finished drafts into the announcement forum (often several for the same song), burying the threads started by editors who're trying to get attention for their original, contest-unaffiliated videos, which compared to the olden days here, suddenly seem inconsequential and invisible, despite the fact that traffic here is about 10% of what it was way back when.

In addition, I've watched a couple of potentially cool MEPs here just totally die on the vine because editors didn't want to devote time to projects that don't have a prize attached to them or because simply trying to make a cool AMV on its own is no longer enough motivation in itself to get involved in anything. The social aspect of this hobby has totally changed from helping each other out** to "battling" each other in "warfare." And on the whole, it feels like people are a lot less inclined to work on anything really ambitious anymore unless they're going to be judged and rated for it, and the whole observer effect of going through that inevitably corrupts the entire creative process and turns it into something else altogether.

This isn't the fault of the Org in itself. The rise of Internet contests (Akross, Big Contest, etc) has further shifted this hobby further away from anime fandom and appreciation towards editor fandom and appreciation. Each year the bar is raised higher and higher and this has had a huge impact on the hobby as a whole. While this site was in a Youtube panic from 2006 to 2010, Youtube editors were paying a lot of attention to those contests and coming away from them with the idea that winning contests was the number-one goal in this hobby and that rolling out a certain kind of eye-catching effects approach to editing was the best way to do it. Of course, this is all tied in to the competitive nature of social media itself. Getting the most likes, subscriptions and "friends" is really important!

So what am I bitching about, anyway? I think that contests have warped the entire premise of this hobby and that there are tons of editors out there with great ideas they'll never work on because they're not conducive to winning contests. This is not the same as complaining about "pandering" to win contests. That's a completely different issue. Are my ideas about this hobby all wrong? Do AMV editors make videos because they genuinely like anime and want to make videos that express some kind of ineffable feeling about it? Or is that just for naive kids and we're all, like, totally past that now?

The standard response to all this might be "You don't like contests? Then don't join any!" That doesn't address the issue at all, and if it seems like it does then I haven't done a good job of explaining what I'm getting at. Even if you're not participating in contests, you're still in a community -- whether it's the small community here or the greater "community" that is the entire AMV editing hobby -- that seems to revolve around them. There's been no shortage of threads about how the hobby is dying or how the org is dying... the only thing that seems to be dying is the idea of editing AMVs for their own sake.

I should probably stress that I'm not here to denigrate anyone's accomplishments or contest achievements. I have no personal vendetta against anyone, I just feel like the culture in this hobby is getting really far away from where it started, or at least where it was when I stumbled in here a long time ago (quite some time before my "joined" date, I'll leave it at that).

I'm reading over Sephirothskr's thread and I apologize if this seems redundant in light of it but this is a very particular issue that I've wanted to talk about for some time now.

* "But seasons, the mark of an editor's creativity is how well they operate under creative restrictions!" I suppose that's true but I can't shake the feeling that all these contests are guiding the entire creative process and changing the "goal" of this hobby for an entire generation. When it comes to Org contests, you can be issued a song or a theme or some kind of source material to work with, and of course you'll have to be creative with it. But are you really being creative or just trying to figure out how to win? I don't think those are the same things!

** I don't mean this in any kind of idealistic, let's-hold-hands vision that never was to begin with. People would rather participate in arbitrary contests than bother to collaborate anymore and as an editor and an AMV viewer/fan, I think that sucks.

[MaboroshiStudio]

I would say pre 2k AMV awards were non existent for the most part... we didn't get much of anything other than recognition. I won over 50 awards pre 2k and keep in mind how many fewer cons there were then. I think I got like 4-5 material awards... so I do wonder if there weren't prizes would it make a huge difference?

I make AMVs for the enjoyment of making them... not to win awards. If I only wanted to make finalists lists / win awards I wouldn't have made 2 of my recent AMVs... but that ain't how I roll. I want to show the audience what I want... and to me is is awesome what ever percentage of the audience my AMV connects with vs always making stuff I know they will enjoy / caters to them.

[BasharOfTheAges]

I actually see a similar reaction in competitive card game circles a lot. It always ends in one important question: "Who are you to decide how I should have fun?" In essence, maybe that's what's fun for them. Maybe they enjoy it. To suggest that there's something wrong with how they choose to spend their time is like saying they're having fun wrong. You're asserting that there is a right way and a wrong way to approach a hobby. That's kinda biased, and close minded, no?

[Gene Starwind 21122]

I actually see a similar reaction in competitive card game circles a lot. It always ends in one important question: "Who are you to decide how I should have fun?" In essence, maybe that's what's fun for them. Maybe they enjoy it. To suggest that there's something wrong with how they choose to spend their time is like saying they're having fun wrong. You're asserting that there is a right way and a wrong way to approach a hobby. That's kinda biased, and close minded, no?

I agree with you Bashar, I use to play magic the gatheirng. And it was not any fun anymore. All the decks were the same and nobody wanted to come up with their own ideas. Since the internet has become more accessible over the years and the top decks being posted almost automatically after the tournament is over. People just go out and copy to win.

@seasons

I do agree with what you are saying here. I want to use whatever source footage I want and whatever song I want. I know I'm not a heavy effect using editor, if I use any at all. I would like to learn eventually, however I just don't have the though process that some of these videos you see now and days do. It would be nice to make the finals and to show something different than what the norm is now in AMV Contests. I enjoy editing the videos that I make and I have fun doing so. I love telling a story with the song, and /or having just a really strong themed video that can rely on the emotions of the characters. I also want to share my work and inspire audience members like I was back when I first saw my very first AMV.

[Shui]

I don't think that competition is destroying the hobby. If anything UNfriendly competition maybe - and I have not witnessed that within my AMV circles.
If you made an AMV you naturally want to share it - but if it isn't good or doesn't fulfill certain fandoms it's naturally gonna go unnoticed if you aren't an 'established editor'.
Entering a contest is simply a good way to promote yourself and show people what you've done. If you really think that AMVs have become more technical and focused on editing than being fanvideos - than I'd disagree. Even if it were so, that'd be a good thing

Regarding online contests - I like them better because the videos are more accessible. I doubt that people disregard creativity to win. If you think that creativity isn't a BIG factor in rating a video then I suggest you go and punch those judges.

[AceD]

Competition pushes people to better themselves, better videos are made....the downside is less videos are made arguably. Although a lot of people use Iron Chefs to fill this void now, so even saying that is negligible.

I can't really think of any major reason competition has hurt this hobby....on the contrary, it's help grow it from a viewing perspective and remove some misconceptions that amvs are just "annoying videos set to Linkin Park".

Contests are simply the best place to share your videos for them to be seen. Not necessarily because of the contest it's self, but the people watching said contest who will spread it; whether that's youtube, nico, bilibili, tumblr, facebook, vkontakte and all these other social outlets. The added bonus of recognition and a prize isn't so bad, no?. If you make something even 'for fun', you want people to see it....anyone who seriously thinks I don't care if nobody watches it, I made it for me!!11 has an odd mentality. So yeah, it stands to reason people only want to submits for contests; whether it's for seriousbusiness or just for fun.

This isn't the fault of the Org in itself. The rise of Internet contests (Akross, Big Contest, etc) has further shifted this hobby further away from anime fandom and appreciation towards editor fandom and appreciation.

Even if that was somewhat true (perhaps it is but only to a very small degree), what's so wrong with that? You're editing anime...the editing side is just as important as the fact you're using anime to do it. Good editing should be recognised, and appreciated just as much.

[seasons]

That's kinda biased, and close minded, no?

How do you figure?

If you really think that AMVs have become more technical and focused on editing

These two ideas don't necessarily go hand in hand.

[CrackTheSky]

Oh my goodness so much to address here.

Don't get me wrong, I like going to anime conventions and watching AMV contests at them. But contest-mania seems out of control in 2014 and seems to be changing what this entire hobby is all about.

First, it's important to note that AMVs have almost always been associated with anime cons. Although at first it was just about showing videos to an audience, AMV contests were in place by the late 1990s at least (I would direct you to the "The 1990s convention scene" subheading). Talking with older editors here, I've heard time and again that nothing's all that different now vs. the way it was back then. Since AMVs have been "mainstream", or at least since the Internet has made them accessible to the masses, this has been a competitive hobby. I don't know that it's any "more" competitive now than it's ever been, but I'll get to that in a bit.

On this site, The Quickening, Team Warfare, AMV Roulette, etc seem to have created a cycle where editors are encouraged to participate in never-ending competition under a series of creativity-stifling rules* that have shifted the entire premise of AMV editing from a medium of absolutely unique personal expression towards a more crowd-pleasing, tally-checking mindset that limits their freedom of expression and effectively punishes them for trying anything unconventional.

For the specific contests mentioned, I actually don't know if your premise holds any water, at least not from what I've observed. It's especially important to note that for The Quickening at least, that was not a "crowd-judged" contest, it was judged by a panel of five (?) editors, one of which was Fall_Child42, whose tastes are...unique, to say the least. And regardless of the output from those contests specifically, from talking to people who have participated in/ran those contests, I have seen people who haven't edited for years actually start new projects because of the motivation they found in being a part of said contests, not to mention the new blood that has filtered in to the .org as a direct result of participation in one or more of those contests.

Your focus seems to be broader though, and you seem to be more concerned with the culture such contests create. But I would offer a counter-argument to this, or at least something to mull over: Even if these .org-run online contests do create more of an atmosphere of "competitiveness" and sacrifice what you consider to be creativity at the altar, is it worth it to bring a little life to this place, and to bring more editors into the fold?

Depending on the season and what contests are going on here, this results in a never-ending dump of AMVs resembling half-finished drafts into the announcement forum (often several for the same song), burying the threads started by editors who're trying to get attention for their original, contest-unaffiliated videos, which compared to the olden days here, suddenly seem inconsequential and invisible, despite the fact that traffic here is about 10% of what it was way back when.

I can't deny that that Announcement forum is generally full of generic, derivative crap, but I really, really don't think that this is a new phenomenon, nor do I think that contests are necessarily to blame. I'd say that this is true of any artistic medium; the vast majority of boring is always going to drown out the works that are truly creative, just by sheer numbers. How many movies are truly groundbreaking and original? How much music really pushes the boundaries and tries something truly new? Go to deviantArt and tell me how much of what's on the front page on any given day is actually amazing and singular (maybe dArt's a bad example, but even expand that past the front page to the whole site...you're going to be searching for a while). This isn't something unique to AMVs by any stretch.

In addition, I've watched a couple of potentially cool MEPs here just totally die on the vine because editors didn't want to devote time to projects that don't have a prize attached to them or because simply trying to make a cool AMV on its own is no longer enough motivation in itself to get involved in anything.

I can't really speak too authoritatively on this because I don't really pay attention to MEPs, but I have to ask if this is something you've noticed recently, and if you can cite any specific examples? I ask because the MEP forum appears to basically be dead, and this does not appear to have happened recently. I wonder if what you're seeing is more a function of decreased .org activity than anything.

This isn't the fault of the Org in itself. The rise of Internet contests (Akross, Big Contest, etc) has further shifted this hobby further away from anime fandom and appreciation towards editor fandom and appreciation. Each year the bar is raised higher and higher and this has had a huge impact on the hobby as a whole. While this site was in a Youtube panic from 2006 to 2010, Youtube editors were paying a lot of attention to those contests and coming away from them with the idea that winning contests was the number-one goal in this hobby and that rolling out a certain kind of eye-catching effects approach to editing was the best way to do it. Of course, this is all tied in to the competitive nature of social media itself. Getting the most likes, subscriptions and "friends" is really important!

I certainly can't disagree with the fact that the focus of the hobby seems to have shifted from anime fandom to editing fandom, but again, this is nothing new, we were having this discussion back in 2007. (For the record, if you decide to read through that thread, my opinion has completely changed, 2007 CrackTheSky was largely a moron). I think this is a sad fact of the hobby and there's a lot of discussion to be had regarding it, but I just don't know that I feel comfortable calling contests the definitive source of that shift.

So what am I bitching about, anyway? I think that contests have warped the entire premise of this hobby and that there are tons of editors out there with great ideas they'll never work on because they're not conducive to winning contests.

I think there's perhaps some legitimacy to this, although no more than any other reason not to work on a video. I'll speak for myself -- I have ideas that I would love to see done, but I simply don't want to do them because they would take too much time and I'm impatient, or I lack the technical skill needed to pull them off to my satisfaction. I also think you might be incorrectly ascribing motivation to those who do make certain "types" of videos.

For example, when Nostromo came out with Magic Pad years ago, I would contend that he started a trend that persisted through the AMV community for years (and still resonates to this day, although it has morphed with the times). Smoothly-edited, multi-anime, OP/ED-heavy videos set to electronic music...how many of those have you seen in your time? Probably more than you can count. Magic Pad was kinda the source of that, I believe, but do you really think that the videos that made which followed that pattern were made just to win contests? Certainly by some, but I don't think it's right to assume or imply that even the majority were made with that in mind.

Hopefully I'm not putting words in your mouth, and forgive me if I am. I think maybe, especially if you're using the .org as a barometer, the view may be a little distorted, because the AMV Contests subforum is probably the most active one on the whole site. But I don't think that's surprising, given that many editors do want to enter their videos in contests, and since this is the only real centralized source for AMVs these days, it makes sense that they'd come here, even if they don't participate anywhere else on the .org.

Beyond that though, the heart of what you're getting at is that by and large, we do not make seem to be making videos with the same focus we used to. It's about the love of editing now, rather than the love of anime. This is absolutely true, you'll get no argument from me. And while a "contest culture" probably did contribute to it, I think that a way bigger influence has been YouTube. Consider that as time goes on and younger generations want to get involved in the hobby, YouTube is where they're going to go. People can complain and point fingers all they want at who's to blame for the demise of the .org, but in retrospect, we were always going to lose out to YouTube. And since most editors have migrated there, I think the whole "likes"/"subs" culture that we live in now is the dominant force in determining how people edit.

I'm sure that, given a large enough sample size, it would be pretty easy to determine which "types" of videos appeal to the broadest base of people. The soulless videos that you've put in the spotlight are (I would contend) a product of the desire for people to reach the largest audience. And while that's really hard to do in an age where everyone's yelling for everyone else to look at them, it makes the most sense from an economical perspective: take an existing formula and just do it better than everyone else. Yes, this stifles creativity. Yes, it's horrible for moving the hobby forward in new directions. But is it new? Is this mentality driven by contests? I dunno.

So basically, to answer your question: Yeah, competition has hurt this hobby, but I don't think it's the competition you're referring to.

[BasharOfTheAges]

That's kinda biased, and close minded, no?

How do you figure?

You implicitly or explicitly make several value judgements as starting assumptions. First is that competition != fun. Second is that editing is a hobby that's about being a fan. Both are opinions assumed to be facts if your case is to make any sense. Neither are facts. That's what bias is. It's making assumptions that certain beliefs you hold are universal truiths, and building an argument based around those assumptions.

Some people like competition. The competition is what makes their hobby fun for them. A lot of editors aren't really anime fans. It's just a creative outlet with a conveniently established audience. There's nothing wrong with this. You may not like it, but I'm having a difficult time seeing this as nothing more than an AMV moral panic.

[Centurione]

I consider myself to be competitive person in this area so I thought I shall share a bit of my perspective here.
I started making AMVs not because of being a fan of anime. I'm not really into m&a community. I actually started editing for no particular reason and accidentally I loved it. I usually watch particular series for the animation and the potential it has for the music video and I try to match scenes for my own ideas. I do make videos for myself, try new technical things etc but I also do love contest. I do win from time to time and it makes me extra happy but if I lose (especially to a video I consider average) it makes me think 'next time I shall make a video which won't leave anyone wondering who the winner is' and I enjoy that kind of mood. On top of that, I think that contests give a chance to not-known editors to show themselves in a spotlight. Someone may not pay attention to your announcement thread but I'm sure someone will check you out if you're taking part in a contest.
My response here is quite chaotic and doesn't really hit the point but I just wanted to say that to me contests are the best part of editing AMVs. I feel that someone appreciates the work I made and they enjoy watching it and even if I fail sometimes I'm quite sure that I will reach that point either way. I suppose I wouldn't feel any of these if there weren't contests. It's hard to measure 'attention' itself and winning some positions on contests that have a good reputation makes you go like : which is actually pretty helpful for your mental condition and hardhsips of everyday life