The Anime Music Video (AMV), was once a potent and significant component of American otaku community development and enabler of social mobility within the various strata of fandom. It has since devolved into the Toxoplasma Gondii of Anime fandom everywhere, spreading to everything, and accomplishing nothing.
Kill all the hyoomans!
Technological realities once kept the supply of AMVs down to a low stream of relatively few per year for two reasons. First, the editing skill, available anime video library, and hardware needed to actually complete an AMV used to be quite significant and unattainable for many otaku. Such limitations included age, financial reach, and most importantly, talent. This resulted in the AMV being a time consuming effort, undertaken by the few individuals who were confident enough in their abilities and resources to produce a proper AMV. Second, once made, AMV distribution was extraordinarily limited to basically the convention circuit, and a few clubs that managed to get a copy of AMV competition reels or talk Duane Johnson into making a copy of his collection on VHS. They were rare and they were unique, making the level of "otaku bragging points" they carried pretty high on the totem pole.
The AMV is still a part of otaku culture, but this art form has gone from something of high-value, to the lowest possible level of filler activity on par with fanfic writing. Sure you might find one out there that only slightly sucks ...maybe (talkin about fanfics here), but there are millions of poorly written fanfic linguistic vomitbags being churned out by high school freshmen who've got a boner for Gurren Lagann. Neotakus who are just starting to attend conventions since the day after youtube was invented will never experience the dynamic that the AMV formerly played in the social hierarchy of otaku culture.
Lets list the factors which caused this transition. While it's tempting to just write "The Internet" for every single reason behind the downfall of the AMV as a tool of gamification, we're going to try to be a bit more specific.
The 5 Reasons AMVs are Dead*:
#5) Linkin Park: There is no single demarcation line where AMVs definitively became the bad cholesterol of anime fandom, but that year where literally every other submission in the Otakon AMV contest was Linkin Park set to "anyfuckinganimeever" comes painfully close. The viewing was painful, the premises were crap, and it got so bad so fast, that within 2 years the Linkin Park AMV had degenerated into a fucking parody of itself.
What no one realized at the time, was that the rage virus was out of the monkey, and AMVs now became the battleground of emo Weaboo who brought the product of their own "deep" introversion to the anime fandom scene despite the fact that no one asked them to. Look, every generation goes through its "they just don't get me" phase, but what's unforgivable about the post-internet emOtaku crowd is that they shoved that into the AMV contest to the point where we actually hurt our asses waiting for all that shit to be over so we could watch the 5 funny ones at the end of the contest screening.
There's a part of one of the AMV Hell collections (I think) that is 10 Linkin Park songs set to Evangelion over about 30 seconds, but I can't find it. Just use your imagination.
Proper criticism at the time (2003-04): I know you feel a certain way you little emo bastard, but why can't you just read manga while blasting the music they play at Hot Topic? Don't shit into the pool of AMVs out there. You're seriously ruining this for everyone, junior.
#4) Self Esteem: The Mr. Rogers effect of injecting "you're super special and awesome" levels of self esteem by helicopter parents into their precious snowflakes, has had some devistating effects. In terms of AMVs it has allowed some of the crappiest shit to exist by rendering their makers immune to self-criticism and the ability to feel shame and disgust when they step up to the public stage with a work that is painfully sub-par. Perfectionism has taken a back seat to a self centered mentality of throwing out absolute garbage just to prove to others how big a fan of Ouran High School Host Club you are. This is in and of itself a gamification behavior, but has a muted effect due to other factors coming up on this list.
The day youtube dropped 5 star rating for thumbs up or down style was the day we lost our last chance, and past the event-horizon of fail.
AMVs stopped being special when some shithead decided that leaving the subtitles in the final edit was OK. If the subtitles are anywhere in the AMV, you suck - redo it! If there's a DIVX or TV station bug in the corner that comes and goes, you suck - redo it! If you start the video by matching up things litteraly with the song and then stop doing that half way through, you suck - redo it! Failure needs to be accessible early and often, for it leads to self-correction, discipline, and a productive sense of determination. Sadly this isn't happening in America because since 1975, the youth of America have always been told the lie that 100% of what they do/say/think has some sort of value in objective reality. Spoiler alert: That's bullshit.
There's a reason that amateurs aren't allowed to drive F1 cars, there's a reason that NASA rejects 99% of their applicants, and there's a reason why your AMV sucks and shouldn't see the light of day (but apparently you haven't heard it yet).
Proper criticism at the time (2008-Yesterday): You suck, and here a list of things you did wrong as certified by experts in video editing, rolled up inside a huge bag of shame! Yes, I know you got a whole bunch of thumbs up on youtube, but those are from 12 year olds who just happen to like Deathnote & Nickelback.
#3) "Fuck you, Japan!": No matter what happens, Japanese studios and publishers always seem to retain a fundamental lack of market understanding no matter how many times it's explained to them that things like AMVs are not piracy and that shutting them down will do nothing to protect their sales, and only generate a wedge effect, further de-humanizing themselves in the faces of American fans making them look like "faceless corporations" making lots of money and doing what they will in the face of customer input (like Apple).
In no way can AMVs really have any tangible negative effect on anime titles and brands. They are helpful indicators of brand strength, and help grow the market for a title as well as energize current customers. They don't displace sales, they don't replace the original program, no one is going to not buy K-ON because there's a 3 minute music video with a little sexual innuendo on youtube out there instead.
So what's the problem? Well, if you watched that AMV, you might notice that there were 35 different anime titles in there. How much you wanna bet that they are all from legit DVD purchases or downloads and not a single one was pirated at all? Yeah...
Studios seeing an AMV don't see a marketing tool for high-intensity and high-context customer engagement with gamification dynamics... they see a fucking bootleg of their title that someone illegally downloaded and just happened to use an an AMV! Horrible over-reaching analogy: If your child died in an accident and I downloaded their genetic code and cloned my own version using a rented uterus, it wouldn't really matter to you if you never found out. But if I kept making videos of my clone of your dead kid and shoving them in your face, you're not gonna approach things very rationally. Same thing is happening here to a lesser extreme; You're just shoving the fact that you stole their license right into the face of the writers, animators, artists, sound engeneers, directors, and office workers who make anime for a living. They're not going to see past that, and therefore continue to be hostile to AMVs.
Proper criticism at the time (1999): Gentlemen, thank you for joining me at the first international Japanese animation global marketing conference. I'm glad to see every anime studio and distribution label represented here. Now, let me tell you about multi-platform viral marketing strategies...
#2) Digital Everything: AMVs were once like hot-rod cars. People worked hard on them, stuck in very unique aspects that no one else would have access to, and then the would take them someplace where they could show them off to other people who would be impressed with their work. Otaku points would abound if you could find footage of an anime that almost no one had ever seen before, or a JPop song that was currently burning up the charts. Using multiple titles in a rapid fire mode was a pretty awesome thing to do, because it meant that this person has lots of anime and knows where to find these scenes. Almost nothing screamed "I'm more Otaku than you" louder and to more people than a top-tier AMV. The best example of this, forever and all time, has got to be Duane Johnson's "Dare to be Stupid" AMV, which at this point is pushing 15 years. Think about that.
This had incredible value, because lots of this footage wasn't easy to find at the time. It didn't even matter if you had/have no idea what those titles are, the song ties everything together in a literal sense so you don't miss out on the enjoyment factor. The elusiveness of all of the different anime titles in there, combined with the quality of the editing meant that this was worth some crazy otaku points back when there was no way your stupid ass was ever going to get a copy of this AMV for yourself.
No longer is that the case. While the digital revolution did basically create the separate but related creative forms of the"Overdub" and the "Mashup," which have as much if not more entertainment value, the damage done to AMVs was severe and irreparable. 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. To top it all off, it would already be encoded in a digital video form, ready to go for whatever low-end editing software you had. The result?
Somehow underwhelming.
Or just total shit.
Proper criticism at the time (2001): "Can" ≠ "Should" ...Any questions?
#1) The Fucking Internet: In this context I simply mean that it's now far too easy to just sit down wherever you are whip out a smartphone and have access to enough AMVs to litteraly occupy every second of every day for-fraking-ever... instantly. Watching AMVs was once something only available to convention attendees, and even then only for 90 minutes or so. They were so valuable that in the 1990's I would enter the Otakon AMV contest just to get copies of the other entries (they were always good though, my last was in 2002). We'd show them on the Anime Crash CCTVs every now and then to a packed house, and that was because these things were rare pieces of Otaku fandom. You'd never fill an anime store (let alone convention) these days by announcing you were going to show a few AMVs, because you could watch the same thing at home in your undies while doing 3 other things online at the same time.
Over-abundance via saturated distribution has caused just about every problem there is with the decline of the AMV. Some things should not be available to 11 year olds, and the internet enables them into producing total crap. Even enabling an entire generation of retards who can't tell which songs aren't actually by Weird Al Yancovic. Nice AMV but it's not Weird Al. Not that one either. No, not that other one, I don't care if it "sounds" like him. Really? Weird Al's own website says that's not his! And so on and so forth. The unreliability of the internet mixed with the notion that your opinions somehow have value (from #4) have combined to create a fan that literally thinks that their retarded tumor-baby of an AMV they've created from an anime they like and Windows Movie Maker is something other than a sickening creation deserving of only contempt. Contempt that you've wasted everyone's time on this crap.
The result of commoditized AMVs made possible only via the internet (nothing else could do it) has had two major effects:
A) AMVs are now not only abundant but tremendously accessible. Searching AMV libraries by theme, character, song, series, artist, etc, has become so easy, that the need to seek them out at conventions is no longer prevelant.
B) Development A has caused the value of the AMV as it pertains to the social structure of the American Otaku market market to deflate, leaving a vaccume in sources for "Otaku-points."
Proper criticism at the time (1998-99): WE'RE DOOOOOMED!
AMVs and Gamification.
I truly believe that the explosion in cosplay that has come to dominate Otaku convention culture over the past 5-10 years, was (in part) a result of the "points" vacuum created by the hyper-commoditization of the AMV. Otaku Wee'Bos could no longer tangibly rise further in the fandom hierarchy via the creation or possession of AMVs, because they were everywhere and anyone could make one at that point. This left the option of creating a costume better than those of the other schlubs as one of the few viable means to earn slight elevations in the pecking order.
Anime fans often socially interact in ways in which establish a hierarchy where rank is based on possession of items, fandom knowledge, important contacts, or other things with limited access. That means everyone is trying to out-fan each other a lot of the time (not always). I assign the term "Gamification" to this dynamic, but that's not really accurate, as "Gamification" is a more structured group activity where the channels of upward mobility are top-down designed and implemented by a central authority which engages in pull-marketing (think FourSquare). In the otaku social space, these channels of upward mobility and rules of engagement have developed organically, and therefore are also subject to intense fluctuations, so when you win you really win, but you also run the risk of a ton of worthless currency, such as AMVs.
As noted, AMVs formerly held a position of high value currency but are now pretty much worthless in that grand scheme of things:
For clarification: Rare means that the overall supply is a low ratio of AMVs to Otaku, where as and Limited Access means that there are only a few channels which can deliver AMVs to Otaku, regardless of how many AMVs there are. The rest other categories should be obvious. Such qualities made the possession and creation of AMVs a source of otaku fan authority, and the more you had, the more points you earned. Bring an AMV reel to an anime club meeting and you were god (or close).
But, the need to engage in the social activity and the gamification that such activity still entails, means that something must step up to fill that need. There have always been extreme sources of otaku legitimization; Industry Job, Published Artist, Voice Actor, Big Retailer, etc, but these opportunities are simply too few to contribute to the larger mass of regular otaku consumers (many of which are just too young for any of that) and fill the gap that AMVs have left with their devaluation. Enter cosplay:
AMV scores a little differently against Cosplay here. Rather than having all X marks, because this table of comparison is for a convention setting, where an obscure title is still worth something and where there's always an air of competition in almost everything.In this case, Limited access means that (unless you're Danny Choo) you don't cosplay to work on the train every day, and in order for your cosplay to satisfy your own motivational needs (and thereby create intangible value), the cosplayer requires an audience. There are two kinds of audiences, passive and the engaged. An example of a Passive audience would be passers by at the Yoyogi Park entrance off of Harajuku, who were not planning on seeing any cosplayers but, there they are. Reactions can range from mild interest to recalcitrant hostility if their path to the train is blocked... or some d-bag is dressed up like a Nazi. Then there are the engaged audiences such as those at anime conventions, who have planned to see cosplay activities and competitions. Both of these audience types create value for the cosplayer, but the engaged types are more likely to provide a kind of legitimization of hierarchy when it comes to where the cosplayer fits into the rest of the otaku universe by being better or worse than average.
To that effect, I would very much like to see something like a major and indisputable source of cosplay criticism. Not constructive criticism, mean criticism. A fountain of shameful, hateful, negative sentiment, washing away the unwarranted self-confidence that enables cos-tards with terrible costumes the ability to leave the house. The collateral damage they cause with poorly made hallway-clogging inspirations for eye-bleach must be called out as harmful by the otaku public, forcing these morons to better their attempts at cosplay before stepping out in public to inflict their lack of talent on the rest of us. This will help cosplay retain a position of being something that gives those otaku who excel at it, a higher standing in the fandom, and remain a viable gamification activity. You ever see a "bad" Japanese cosplay? No. Know why? Because the Japanese still have shame, and if they suck, they don't want other people to see that. While Cosplay Hell does exist, it really needs to create a standardized rubric of cosplay fail, then feed it into the internet hate machine engines and take a more active role in discouraging every lumpy pumpkin who likes Read or Die from going to a con in some god-awful rendition of whatever character and ruin cosplay for everyone... making it worthless and spreading it everywhere... ya know, like what happened to AMVs.
Self esteem. It's a bad thing.
Final note: Discourse continues in the comments, opposing and supporting views are welcome. Comments are moderated because I get lots of spam (check out this entry to see what happens when comment mod is off). That's the only reason for moderation, real comments will be approved as quickly as possible.
* (added July 18); Well now that the internet and everyone has seen this and taken it the wrong way, I obviously have some explaining to do. I go into this down in the comments, but just in case you weren't in the mood to slog though another wall of words, "Dead" in this case was the wrong term (high-context, which only makes sense to me, because I don't get other people to read these things before they go up). I only mean "Dead" in terms of AMVs as a high-return source of competitive gamification "points" in the otaku socual fanscape. So it's only in terms of the ability to produce a fandom silo-breaking gamification value that AMVs have fallen tremendously. The enjoyment value isn't the same as gamification value, since while gamification value exists and has a specific dynamic, it (usually) does not produce as much motivation to so something as the enjoyment value which is also very real, but just not the same thing. AMVs still produce a significant quantity of enjoyment value for participants and viewers, but inadequately articulated the way that is separate from the organic competitive gamification behavior that exists in anime fandom (or almost any fandom for that matter). Therefore "dead" is more like "dry well" or "vestigial feature" or "Zimbabwe dollar" but only specifically as the gamification mechanisms are concerned, AMVs are still fun to watch and do provide a sense of satisfaction when finished.
To go even further, "Gamification" isn't even the 100% correct term here, but that's addressed in Section 2 "AMVs and Gamification" paragraph 2.
-To go even further, "Gamification" isn't even the 100% correct term here, but that's addressed in Section 2 "AMVs and Gamification" paragraph 2.
Posts
Twitter 
7 comments:
"To that effect, I would very much like to see something like a major and indisputable source of cosplay criticism. Not constructive criticism, mean criticism."
Like this? http://omgpleasestopcosplaying.tumblr.com/
Or meaner?
This is the most vexing sort of article: intelligently written, but communicating ridiculous conclusions.
The problem isn't the analysis, which isn't wrong. It's reiterating a truism: yes, AMV's did suffer from commoditization; when it becomes so easy to create and publish something you're going to have a whole lot of people doing it and only a few will be very good at it. The same goes for blogs, websites, anything that can be put onto the internet with casual effort.
But it's ridiculous to declare the AMV "dead." No, it's just more of a challenge to identify very good content than it used to be. Quality will vary, yes, but conventions are a useful way to do that. With youtube, you're effectively browsing blind. Contests have a higher standard and often events will show off highlights and/or contest winners.
What you really mean is that it's not a sport for the elite few anymore. This bothers you. For whatever reason you fear cosplaying becoming the next anime music video. Your answer to this imagined problem is some ill-defined, vague hope that a new and better way will be invented to tell people how terrible their costume is. Because as we all know, hatred is such a rare commodity on the internet.
Putting that the reality a substandard costume likely requires a greater time investment to craft than a very lazy AMV aside, seriously: screw that. How the hell do you think the great cosplayers of today got started? Do you seriously they were fostered by a culture that did not tolerate beginners? Have you really not considered that the great Japanese cosplayers you speak of have not been at this for years? You don't want to raise standards, you vainly dream of stigmatizing cosplaying so the already-great ones are all that's left. All so you won't be "inflicted" by others.
The ultimate message I get from this article is that a much smaller fanbase is just fine so long as it perfectly suits your taste. Such arrogance and introversion is a far worse thing for fandom than incompetent cosplayers.
I doubt any sort of criticism will change crappy cosplayers, they would just ignore the mean criticism the same way they ignore constructive criticism. This people are there to party first, anything else second. The level of mean you would need to be would probably cross the line from being a dick to outright harassing. And it isn't like the cosplay community has enough drama as it is.
This is was an interesting post until it started going off on how people need to be verbally assaulted for the good of preserving the well being of the community.
seriously, LOLWAT
Anyway, this post reminded me of why I don't attend cons and avoid interacting with anime fans IRL.
YOU ARE ALL SOME SHADE OF CRAZY
And that includes me I guess.
Point by point reply to GWOtaku;
First let me say that I love AMVs. I am just pointing out that they just don’t generate the intangible currency of social mobility like they used to, especially in terms of possession, because of the way media has evolved in general (there's no going back).
The problem isn't the analysis ...
Of course the analysis isn’t wrong, I’m Awesome (no you’re not dude don’t lie). That’s only funny if you click the link. And commoditization has almost no limits to what it can effect, and those other things are good examples. However, I tried to focus on how AMVs went from a very high intensity gamification product/activity to a very low one within the entire otaku community as a whole. Obviously community segments dedicated to AMVs will still retain a lot of the original competitive dynamics which help develop new styles and higher skills. But that has remained cloistered within those subgroups.
But it's ridiculous to declare the AMV "dead...
“Dead” ...definitely was not the best choice of words. I most certainly wasn’t implying that AMVs have gone away and are never coming back. More like in the sense that Zimbabwe dollar exists (in the trillions) but is no longer capable of effecting change or creating gamification advantages in the otaku social landscape as it once did, and probably never will be again. So it’s “dead” only in that sense. Did I explain this properly? No. But it is a nice list.
What you really mean...
I hate to take the Ayn Rand route here, but there are some cases where ”elite” is not a dirty word. You want your anime programs made by elite animators directed by elite animators based on manga by elite artists. Imagine otherwise. Why are they elite? Because this kind of thing is hard to do, and they have used a considerable amount of their time to develop and hone serious skills which differentiate them from others who, although they like anime, have not made that investment either because of circumstances or lifestyle reasons. The mechanism which allows for the success for the elite in this case is the commercial market, meaning if you suck at making anime, no one is going to buy it. A fair deterrent to half-assed effort to say the least.
Without the danger of financial loss, there is only the perpetually turning gears of the fan community in which the good stuff bubbles to the top, and of course convention contests are a part of this. There are two relevant points: in otaku gamification terms, bubbling to the top carries much less stature enhancement as it once did, and possessing copies of such AMVs carries none, simply because of how media has changed. For AMVs to regain any gamification significance (I’m not weighing in on whether that’s desirable or not, or even realistically possible), the teeth of those gears need some serious sharpening. Insulting vitriol intended to cause emotional distress as a foundation of motivation for self-improvement is what I suggest because... this blog is called the Angry Otaku, not the Be nice to everyone Otaku, so I try to stay in-character. Hatred itself, being commoditized on the internet has lost its effect as well, meaning that a little crossing over into real life might just have an effect which intensifies gamification (for good or for ill. That's a matter of opinion).
...cont
I am saying that cosplaying, while it has dramatically intensified its own gamification from early convention environments possibly filling the void of AMV gamification, is still falling victim to a potential devaluation from an over-permeation which can be rectified by accessible failure. Cosplaying as an activity requires an audience of some kind whether it be engaged, passive, or remote/online (otherwise you’re really doing it wrong). As an audience exists, so does a brand identity that is associated with “cosplay.” Intensified gamification can ensure that that brand identity is associated with this rather than this, as well as create higher value in those who meet cosplay success via excellence within established objective criteria.
Putting that the reality a substandard costume...
I think that it’s important to draw a distinction between fanbase and participants in addition to differentiating beginner from lackadaisical. Fans v Participants: You can have a very large amount of consumers/fanbase while still having a relative small pool of participants or producers of what that fanbase gravitates to. American Anime fans in no way have an effect on what anime is produced in Japan, yet there is a large fanbase. What I didn’t do was effectively separate AMVs and Cosplay as activities, with different sets of rules for participants and fans from other things. This difference is important because it defines who engages in what kind of gamification, but that whole post was seriously long already. But while this difference exists, both AMVs and Cosplay require a pool of terrible ones to contrast what is actually good, those terrible ones should not exist for that sake, but should only be the temporary result of inexperience. However, all too often we see the same terrible cosplays over and over again, as if the costard under that horror is oblivious to any motivational factors of self-improvement. Non-participating fan bases are in the position to step up and create a more productive feedback system. Much as in the same way it does not take a master chef to know that a sardine crème brûlée is a bad idea, so too can a non-participant render the necessary feedback which has a piercing effect on the overconfidence bubble.
This is not introversion, this is observation, although flavored with spicey negative pessimism (because this is the Angry Otaku). These observations are simply illuminating what it would take to intensify the social value that rising to the top of these activities would have. Again, there is a lack of distinction between the gamification-generated social value, and activity-generated enjoyment value, which are different kinds of value derived from different sources, but often occur at the same time and place. Your argument that my proposed “solution” for intensified gamification value generation damages activity enjoyment value is quite correct. However gamification has a tendency to do that to anything it manifests within, therefore I am advocating a strategy of managed implementation rather than suppression, since the latter could easily cause gamification to intensify within other areas of fandom where the effects could be more detrimental.
The "problems" in this post existed a long time ago and were quite prominent on http://www.a-m-v.org in the early 2000's. (i.e. Annoyance regarding the number Linkin Park vids has been around since I got in the hobby nearly a decade ago, just to name one example...) Thankfully, they had rating and feedback systems in place that helped people locate the good videos.
I think sites like Youtube just make it easier for the general public to see these issues. In other words, I don't blame crappy amvs... rather it is the sites that don't help you sift through them that ought to be at fault. Youtube is a good way for people to express themselves, but it is not a good *curator* of art. Thankfully amv sites exist that can help people wade through the massive amount mediocre content to find the good stuff.
Good AMVs still exist. You just have to look in the right place. Here is something fairly recent:
http://bit.ly/qsyxGv
(There is a video player embedded towards the bottom.)
:)
(sorry for grammar english isn't my first language, I'm French)
While I agree some of your points I don't necessarily agree with conclusions. There are more AMV makers out there which create a oversaturation of AMVs out there. But there has always been bad AMVs and lazy editors only difference is their work is more accessible, but there are communities/forums/youtube channels (amvnews, akross, a-m-v.org etc.) out there that filter out these average or mediocre AMVs and editors from the great and elite ones.
Not everyone can be like Nostromo, Iliea, Shin, Chiikaboom, Padre, or KainxSpirits, to just name a few great editor out there. Or part of studios like AuN, Soul's Team, or Re-Evolution studios. All of these editors and studios stand out in the current environment of AMVs. While its different from the past when people like past great editors like Koopiskeva, Kevin Caldwell, etc were premiering their works. I think the AMV community overall is still very vibrant and in some ways the bad videos really emphasize how high quality some of these great editors are. I mean, when was the last time a video like Pencilhead by Qwaqa was released?
Post a Comment