Forum - View topicHave online downloads changed anime fans?
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miao_ji
Posts: 6 |
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Hi everyone, I am doing a research paper on the topic, and would love if everyone could help with my survey.
http://qtrial.qualtrics.com/SE?SID=SV_8dzpiowOEx0SSeE&SVID=Prod I am also very interested in hearing everyone's thoughts on how different anime fans nowadays (online and offline) are different or the same as before internet fansubs and downloads became available. Thanks you. PS: I would also like to be able to do a few in-depth AIM or email interviews with people who can share their experience with me. Please message me your SN or email address if you are willing to help out! 
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Teriyaki Terrier
 Posts: 5689 |
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Here is a wacky, out of this world thought; why not read a actual book about illegal downloading? I am sure you'll be able to find more actual facts and information in book rather than word of mouth from people who may or may not be telling the truth.
Its not hard at all, all you have to do is go to a library and check out a book about illegal downloading and what effects it has caused. |
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DomFortress
 Posts: 751 Location: Richmond BC, Canada |
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Also, what you're doing is actually a form of soliciting via online survey. Which I'm pretty sure it's not allowed here. So...
Before a mod beats me to it, happy locking! 
Edit: however, since Cloe did allow this thread to continue, I'll tag along for the ride. Last edited by DomFortress on Tue Apr 28, 2009 8:34 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Mushi-Man
 Posts: 1537 Location: KCMO |
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I'd suggest listening to podcasts like AWO. They like to randomly talk about the days of anime fandom before the internet age and they do interviews with "old school" anime fans in which they often talk about this topic. I can't think of episode numbers to look at off the top of my head but they're there. good luck.
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SalarymanJoe
 Posts: 468 Location: Atlanta, GA, USA |
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I don't recall the episode numbers either but you can google "Anime World Order + Guest" and find them; the episodes with Tim Eldred, Dave Merrill, Walt Fenelon and Joe Vecchio are gold. For a more poor schmuck's view (ie, we weren't the target 'fandom age' to be on an AWO guest spot like these fine folks), we discuss the topic on our podcast here.
Actually, judging by the questions asked on the survey, that's not the point of the paper. Instead, it's a lot more about the aspect of fan community and interaction than an examination of economic and legal impacts of copyright infringement. Any text on that subject really wouldn't be of any good use. |
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Cloe
Moderator
 Posts: 2728 Location: Los Angeles, CA |
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We normally don't allow personal solicitation on the forums, but I don't mind keeping this survey open for now, provided this thread generates some useful discussion. I'm curious to hear some responses, myself.
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Mushi-Man
Posts: 1537 Location: KCMO |
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I just took the survey and I think it was very well put together. The questions actually seemed to have reason and focus to it (unlike some surveys that I have taken of the same nature). I think you did a good job witht he question about different media types and how long you've used them. I also liked how you were asking who the internet age might be changing the amount of communication in the anime world as well. I hope you get all the info you need. You should post your findings after it's done, I'm very interested in seeing what might come from this.
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miao_ji
Posts: 6 |
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Thank you so much! I will take down the link on 10 May, because the survey will be closed by then. But I hope the discussion will continue. As to the effects of illegal downloads, I am less interested in that. Or I should say, I feel that illegal downloads of anime affects the anime industry differently than how it affects the movie, tv, or music industry due to completely different industry structure. Also, there are very few literature written specifically on how anime downloads. Thanks for the link to the podcasts! I am definitely going to check into that. !!===Please help with the survey before reading on cause I don't want to influence the results  ===
My paper will be focused on how online downloads affects the interactions between anime fans. A big part of it is on clubs because of my own experience. I joined an anime club in college (2004), and have noticed since then an increased interest in anime, partly due to the popularity and accessibility of series such as naruto, bleach and one piece. However, there is also a decline in the number of members who came to club solely to watch and discuss anime because it can now be done online. Most of our members are joining the club to meet friends (which I agree is a big function of the club), but people with more diverse interests have stopped coming because they can enjoy anime in their own room and hang out with friends outside of anime club. I have know many people who have stopped attending anime club, because they can now download anime at home. In the days when fan subbed VHS tapes limited the availability of anime, I personally felt that it also created a closer group of people who got together to share resources and thoughts. As I attend more and more anime conventions, it is difficult not to notice that the number of attendants have increased dramatically since anime was available online. So I am also interested in looking at whether the availability of anime has also helped bring people together. It will be great if everyone can provide their experiences, and how online downloads have changed their consumption of anime and anime fans interacted~
PS. And am I the only one having trouble replying and posting? or is there really a lag? |
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Xanas
Posts: 2058 |
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I disagree with the line of reasoning you are promoting here. What's the reasoning behind it first of all? Surely you can't claim that the written word is somehow more substantial merely because it's printed on paper. So I'm going to guess that you believe it to be more accurate because you think those writing books are less biased than those who write articles online. Do you have evidence for this? In order for a book to be printed it has to go through a publisher/editor/etc. Publishers/editors want to keep jobs, so they have little reason to promote any kind of mentality that desires to cut out middle-man distribution. This isn't to say that there aren't publishers who will let someone publish what they want, but it has to achieve enough economic viability (the book has to make money) for it to overcome their bias against the subject matter. There is really only one reason I can see, given the relatively low popularity of the subject, that the industry would want to have books like this, and that's basically "propaganda." They want to have books that sell people on what they believe. The industry loves telling all the "facts" like "100 billion dollars was lost to software piracy in 2007" and all other sorts of nonsense that if true, would mean we miraculously would have generated x billion dollars out of thin air had people only followed the law. Online you have lots of bias too, no doubt about that. And I'm not going to tell you people don't lie, but do you really think they don't in books? I know you can't believe that, and yet it's exactly how you said it. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- miao_ji This forum does sometime's lag, it's not solely on your end. Of course I'm on hotel wireless at the moment, so for me it may partially be that. Anyway, about your other points I think you can compare the trends in downloadable anime and people getting together to many other areas. I think a lot of people have asked the question about whether all this technology that allows people to communicate more really brings people together. We have cell phones, internet forums, instant messengers, etc. and yet in many cases these things are driving wedges between people. Online communities develop, but sometimes people go to these online communities at the expense of developing local relationships. This is much more common among more introverted types of people, who tend to have to try much harder to function in public. Those who are strongly social I don't notice having this issue quite as much, because there isn't really a reason to go online when one has no problems communicating with their peer group. I think the affect on anime and other things like this may be stronger because the social people weren't really coming to your groups to interact with other fans, so much as to watch. This is because, while it may be interesting to discuss anime with other people, watching anime isn't really an interactive/social thing. I think you could say that this lack of connection to other fans decreases sales. You probably have more of a desire to collect when other people are collectors around you. There is a kind of "peer pressure" in communities to do more when you are part of a fan community. I know that has had a lot of effect on my own purchasing. |
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Cloe
Moderator
Posts: 2728 Location: Los Angeles, CA |
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OK, this is exactly the type of posting that will get this thread locked. Please address the topic at hand. I have seen definite changes in the anime community since downloads became popular. I'm of the the older, curmudgeonly view that fandom felt more close-knit back in the VHS days, since a lot of fan interaction was done in small groups like club meetings. Conventions were more about swapping rare titles and merchandise rather than shouting out the latest internet memes. As fansubs became popular, the community shifted online--which isn't a bad thing, don't get me wrong, I think ANN's forum users are great--but it's also created a distance between the way fans interact. And with this, of course, we get things like flame wars and more general vitriol mixed up in the general discourse, and it feels way more negative to me. There's also that pesky entitlement issue that a lot of the newer fans seem to have picked up, but I'm not sure if you even want to open that can of worms. There have definitely been good changes, too, though. I've met lots of great people online and had the chance to hang out with them in person. Conventions are kind of a fun opportunity to meet up with other fans from all around the country and online friends. In that sense, while that sense of a "close-knit" small group community has faded, anime fandom as a whole has become more accessible to many more people, thanks in part to anime's online availability. That doesn't mean I'm going to stop complaining about it, though. ;p |
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fighterholic
Posts: 9193 |
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It's changed in good ways and not so good ways. At the same time people have gotten a little more elitist and hard headed about getting their anime for free, but at the same time online downloads have evolved because companies are offering them for free to try and take out the whole reasoning of fansubs in the first place. And it allows for online communities to grow and be connected to each other.
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DomFortress
Posts: 751 Location: Richmond BC, Canada |
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PetrifiedJello
Posts: 3782 |
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Back in the days of VHS, it was difficult to find anime for purchase unless contacts were made. I generally did this via rental shops, as several owners were anime fans themselves. I did purchase a few titles, but my spending was limited. When the shift to DVD came about, I stopped buying anime because I wasn't happy VHS quality was simply being copied to DVD. From this, I simply just rented a few series every once in a while. Three years ago, I discovered anime figures. Yes, I know, they've been around longer, but the mass of them for sale was shocking to me. Moreso, the costs were also significantly lower. I started buying figure after figure, not even knowing what series they were in. But who cares! They're awesome works of art! Last year, I started surfing the internet for fun things to do, and ran across a website which showed so many anime shows for free! I started watching episode after episode. This site is what returned me back to anime purchasing. Imagine my surprise when I come to find this website is called a "fansub" site and anime fans have passionate feelings about them. Originally, I did feel a slight bit of guilt in reading these fans' replies (anti), but then realized how beneficial it was regarding my circumstance. I know I probably represent a small portion who views for free and buys later, but the site is invaluable to me. I still prefer it over "legal" sites, simply because I don't like advertising. It gives me a great feeling knowing I can contribute and view prior to purchasing. Despite all the negativity this type of site generates, I can personally and honestly state I'm glad it's around. My viewing is now between purchased DVDs and streaming websites (both types). As a fan, it gives me fantastic options to enjoy the content. It helps me decide what purchases to make, both in DVD and merchandising. Because, to me, anime is an obsession again. Long gone is the old system of having to spend money to view it. Even with a $3 rental, this adds up over time, and now this money can be spent on other things, including DVDs. The digital era has opened anime up to everyone, and that is a wonderful thing. While I know people out there contest the "non legal" sites, even they are beneficial at extending the anime fan base. I'm hoping the future of digital distribution will allow us to burn our own DVDs to help reduce costs to every entity, not just consumers. While the cost of anime has dropped significantly over the decades, the worst aspect of it remains the delay to get it over the Pacific. Once that barrier is removed, I see a fantastic future for anime and its impact (both financially and culturally) to the entertainment industry as a whole. Regarding the survey, please take no offense to this, but I don't visit sites I don't trust. However, feel free to post the questions to me via PM. I'll be more than happy to answer them in that regard. Good luck with your studies! |
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SalarymanJoe
Posts: 468 Location: Atlanta, GA, USA |
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Let's put some perspective on this - by "older, curmudgeonly view", you mean that you're someone who's been into anime for quite a while and you're probably in your mid to late twenties.
I think for me, personally, this has been the most disconcerting and disheartening is the shift away from Japanese cartoons, comics and a community around that. Instead, cons are becoming the 'Nerd Party Weekend'. There's nothing wrong with letting loose and having a good time with some friends; it's just that conventions overall seem to be making shifts away from anime and instead substituting it for all sorts of generalized nerdery. But even in the early days of Internet fandom it was different. Remember when the hands down best anime resource website was AniPike? And even then, if you were communicating through e-mail or Usenet, most people were still more civil (hell, people even used their real names, which I am supportive of returning to) and if someone was a dick on Usenet, they were probably the real deal. I think as anime gained popularity on the Internet via wider distribution channels and began hitting aspects of mainstream society and more people became more interested in it, that's where we get a larger diversity of personalities. So, I'm not sure if you were intending it to sound like this, Cloe, but I don't think that as long as anime existed on the Net it's been like it is now but more that anime's existence on the Net, as a social demographic, has shifted on the net like it has shifted off of it.
Me neither 
There's a ton of things that I could touch on - like my lament of conventions becoming too general rather than specialized or my borderline tin-foil-hat-theory that the social demographic shifts in anime fans in North America as discussed here are parallel to those shifts in Japan and are overall, detrimental to fandom and industry or that pesky entitlement culture is an overall generational and societal failure not limited to just anime but to the later Generation X and the following age demographics. Of course, all that is kinda out of scope for the OP's research and the discussion of this thread. |
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Cloe
Moderator
Posts: 2728 Location: Los Angeles, CA |
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Hahaha, guilty as charged. I'm in my mid-20s, but can't shake the feeling that I come across as having a sort of "Hey you kids, get off my lawn!" mentality when it comes to anime. ^^;
AniPike, hell yeah!! Ah, so many GeoCities fansites from back then. I remember getting fansub tapes through fangroups I found thanks to AniPike.
Of course. I should have clarified that I noticed the changes beginning around the time anime torrents became popular. Before that the net still had a very close-knit community feel to it (you mentioned using real names, and I'd almost completely forgotten about it. Even though it wasn't that long ago it seems kind of remarkable). I think, though, spending increased amounts of time on the internet has changed fandom both online and off. That goes for society at large, though. This article mentions an interesting statistic about a social "third place" away from home and work, like a bar or coffee shop or club, which use to be a staple in people's lives decades ago. But now American society has by and large forgotten about third places as they commune online instead. You can interpret this information however you want, but it personally makes me feel a little wistful inside. |
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