Quote:
Originally Posted by Hanxue
I don't see any signs whatsoever of a declining community here, rather the opposite; it's a lot more chill, a lot less elitist and has just generally become nicer over the last few years. There's also a lot more forums and blogging activity than there used to be. The degree of involvement hasn't gone down (I think it's actually gone up), it has just taken other forms.
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I don't really see a problem with a lack of interest in becoming a fansubber, judging by this forum and by IRC.
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Our perception of what the fansubbing community encompasses must clearly differ then. Sure, the blogging community has taken off, LJ pederasty discussions are the new fad, people are making fandubs, YouTubers just can't seem to stop uploading them NARUTO episodes, there's a Wikipedia article for every anime series imaginable... but I digress. One of my U.S. buddies once described their boonies as "the land where food magically comes from". To compare, this is what your average YouTuber (the majority) thinks about fansubbing, that we're some sort of mystical force that is going to meet their every demand. I'm sure most of them aren't too explicit to think of it like that, but the fansubbing community is being perceived as a tool, even moreso than before, not as an actual community. I honestly don't think I'm overexaggerating. You know, my perception of the state of the current community may be affected by my past experiences, but numbers don't change:
- There are less people fansubbing now than they were 3 years ago (recruiting complete rookies has also become harder).
- There is less oversubbing, but not because the community became a better place, but because fewer groups manage to pull their projects through.
- Our IRC channels have grown smaller. Medium-sized channels usually held ~800 clients, today they hold ~300. Eclipse and Shinsen-Subs are on top with about ~1200 at peak times. AnimeOne had OVER 9000!!... erm, over 3000 leechers on Naruto release dates.
- The "bigger" groups of today manage to churn out approx. 3-4 different series a week, when back in 2003-2004 you had bigger groups doing 8-10 series or more. AnimeOne and AnimeJunkies were at each respective points sufficient for a whole lot by themselves (also, we rarely had problems with lack of quality subs).
This is of course a consequence of a much bigger problem, but please, don't lie to yourself that leecher involvement has increased. No, what happened was that the overall anime community had grown bigger, but it distanced itself away from the fansubbing portion of it. I'm not being bitter about the situation (I'm still subbing, last time I checked), but it's quite clear to me that things have changed for the worse. What's certain is that our own cabbage patch has grown smaller. Yeah, yeah, call me selfish for wishing our group channels and forums were more active, but honestly, what's wrong with having an actual community? Scr3wboy and getfresh are so right: All the flaming, ego tripping and old-fashioned elitism weren't the perks many of us were proud of, but at least the community felt more alive that way, enough to keep my interest over these past four years. When killshok sent that letter to Urban Vision, he shed new light on a topic that kept the community talking for years. I mean, it was a disgrace to fansubbing in general, but it produced so many lols you probably can't imagine.
The real fansubbing community today remains as a plethora of fansubbing staff channels and distro rooms on IRC. Group fanboys have fallen and most public IRC channels are just barren waste lands (the most active community on Rizon is actually Nipponsei <_<).