Just want to opine and pine on a fandom thing out west, the anime music video. TL;DR is that Twitter has killed the AMV, much like how overall, social media transformed blogging, cosplay, and fandom in both general and specific ways.
First of all, I liken AMV like performance art. It’s like what you do in a very elaborate and purposeful Vine (RIP). There is always power in putting motion to music, and this is why it is only exaggeration to say AMV is dead or someone or thing has killed it. But that scene isn’t growing, at least from the consumer side. Just like stand up comedy or theater tropes in the age of mass media, those things will still continue to exist, just in a different way, not like how they were before cable TV or the internet, for example.
The big “get” in my mind is how AMV is different than, say, fan art, fan fiction, or the doujinshi, in that it is not really a platform. People make AMVs because they evoke emotions, because they are funny, or dramatic, or whatever. It’s not because the latest fad is the Emperor Penguin or the Shoebill, and Bin1’s modus operandi is to cross anything with IDOLM@STER. Or that you’re using a fan-fiction-concept content publishing platform like an actual fanfic or a slash artwork, because you thought your idea needs to be put into form.
Well, which is not to say people make AMV not for those reasons, but people don’t watch AMVs for those reasons. Instead, they go to a booru or tumblr or whatever. If you put a bunch of people inside a convention programming room and show some cool anime that solicited their emotions along with English-language (usually) music, that would be pretty neat. Just like how MST3K to, say, Lensman anime, can be pretty neat in the same setting, but it doesn’t mean people care about Lensman anime or even want to touch it with a 10′ pole.
In a nutshell, people made AMV because they were cool, not because they wanted to express something unique to the medium. It isn’t to say there are no AMVs that were made like that, or people who think differently than what I’m describing, but that’s not what AMVs were known for. Cool animation put to almost-random songs is definitely how 99% of AMVs are.
To look at things differently, in this day and age, JP MADs still exist and new ones continue to be relevant, but they too have been changed over time to fit the social medium paradigms of the day. JP side focuses largely for comedy (which is probably the main flag signaling the difference in why people created MADs vs AMVs, considering the genre gaps), and as alternative narrative platforms, a bit more like vlogging or fan videos (at least from my IM@S lens bias). But the odds of people finding relevance of a supercut loop of Toradora, in 2017, is much higher than anything Naruto to Linkin Park, just because of memetic reasons. Those reasons live on, even if nobody watches the original video anymore.
As someone who grew up as a fan with cons, in a way, I have some fond memories of AMV viewings as I used to go to them all the time. I stopped only because it took more effort to follow than what I was getting out from it, and while it’s easier to make an AMV than ever, I pursued it only as a fan of the source material. I think it’s fair to say a lot of people don’t follow AMVs anymore because of social media changing the way we consume these little things. We don’t typically put the enjoyment of such on the same level as what we are fans of. But even if you are, and you check out the AMVs to your fav works, that’s really just a recipe to find interesting narratives but mediocre works. It’s about people who are talented that keep at it and still do it to convey an actual message, not just to put cool scenes to nice songs. Performance art is fine by itself, but it is no longer relevant in this cultural economy, unless you take it a level higher.
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