»CL6:-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- »CL0: Motivation - What Keeps Us Going? »CL6:-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Written by »CL5:Adonis »CL6:of »CL5:IRIS »CL1:I have been in the scene for a year or maybe even two. I have often asked myself this question. What keeps YOU going, why do you stick with the scene? »CL8:Why does the scene deserve to have people like YOU spending time on such a weird thing as the scene? »CL1:Some has seen the light, or the dark you might say. They actually left the scene and never returned to see if they made the wrong choice. Is the scene somewhat of an illusion? Is the scene just a fata morgana, which some poor people cannot expose? Do we really have so little common sense that we cannot see through such primitive illusion? »CL7:This is one way to look at it, but I guess that I am one of the poor creatures who are lost in the desert trying to find the oasis all people are searching for.»CL1: I found my way back in time and my oasis was called Scene. Let me introduce you to my illusion. What did we have and what do we have today? I will try to explain what I think we had and what we have now and I have tracked down some sceners to see what they think about the idea of the scene as an oasis. This is what the scene is to me. »CL8:I entered the scene because a friend of mine had been sniffing to the scene for a while and he dragged me into the sphere of elitism and hunt for fame,»CL1: which was what the scene was about back then. It was much harder to find the oasis back then, because you had to know someone known before your new "friend" wanted to have any contact with you, which took time, but slowly I gained more contact and after a while, I had no problems with saying that I was part of the scene. »CL7:The oasis continued to be like that for a few years, but then suddenly something changed and the "new sceners" turned their back on the elitist style and made their own style. »CL1: This style was friendlier, but still nothing like what it is today. You could still see, who were better than others. You were either in a good group or a bad group. There were no semi good groups back then. However, with time this changed, many of the old sceners left and others came trough the desert, noticed the oasis, and entered it. With the flow of sceners, the perception of it changed and it became even friendlier. Today we have a scene that we all know and love more or less. »CL8:The scene is based on friendships rather than productions. I do not want to say based on friendship rather than scene, because that would be wrong.»CL1: The word scene contains several things and friendship is included. However, what keeps people motivated? They have all opportunities to make something better on bigger machines and showing their work to more people instead of just a minority. So, what keeps a coder going? He has to do a lot of shitty work and his code will punch him in his face often before his work is completed. A musician can work very hard without ever even getting his module released because no one can use it, since he has a special style. The graphician spends hours making an awesome picture and yet the first comments that reach him are accusations of it being scanned or using photoshop. These things could seriously demoralize people, so why not think a little about the comments you give to people. I am not telling you to lie, not at all, but you might provide some constructive advice instead. »CL7:I know what keeps me going. I would never want to loose the friends I have gathered through the years. »CL1:Not only the members of IRIS whom I know personally (I hate all of you guys :), but also my contacts around the world. Some of them do not feel the same way, and they have left me/us without saying anything. I would never leave without a word and a good reason. Okay, I not sure that I will ever leave. I cannot see the point of leaving. You might be very busy in your daily life, but you do not have to spend that many hours in front of your screen to be a part of the scene. »CL8:Therefore, I would really like to know what keeps YOU going, »CL1: meaning that I must enter the minefield and seek some answers from you sceners, those who have the answers. »CL5: What keeps you motivated? »CL1:I went out into the dark and gloomy night to find some individuals who could share their deepest and darkest thoughts about the word "motivation" and what it has to do with the scene. »CL7:I have decided to make a summary of all interviews, because most of them contained the same questions, so no need to waste bytes on that and then you will not get bored that fast, I think.»CL1: »CL1:These are the sceners I found sneaking around in the night: »CL7:Kure»CL1: of »CL7:RNO »CL1:& »CL7:Whelpz »CL6:Finland »CL7:Slummy »CL1:of »CL7:Spaceballs »CL6: Norway »CL7:Chromag »CL1:of »CL7:Haujobb »CL6:Germany »CL7:Moon »CL1:of »CL7:Raww Arse »CL6: Russia »CL7:THG »CL1:of »CL7:Dual Crew Shining »CL6:Finland »CL5: Kure »CL1:I am Tuomas Lehtinen, also known as Kure, 22 years old. I am the musician, graphician, webmaster, and organiser of po-RNO, and also a musician in Whelpz. I started scening in '94 or so, although I had seen some demos before that. The first party I visited was Assembly'95. I got my first computer, an Amiga500, at Christmas '87 and used it until the late '90s. Then I got an Amiga 1200 that I still have and last summer I bought my first PC ever. I first heard of the Scene when I attended comprehensive school. I met some like-minded friends and we founded a 'group'. »CL8:Back then the scene was mostly downloading demos from local boards and learning to use 'Tracker for my part. My friends were not well-skilled coders so we did not manage to make any productions. :)»CL1: It was not until Assembly'95 that I started scening properly; I started swapping and taking contact with other sceners. As I only had an A500 back then, I was not able to watch many productions, so I was still kind of "out" from the scene and did not have a very good view on it. The friends from the school were not that interested in the scene anymore, so I was alone and did not know any sceners from my town, which probably made the beginning of my scening-carrier rather bad. »CL8:I joined RNO in 1996 and I got in touch with some sceners nearby somewhat later.»CL1: We used to go to parties together and so I started to meet more and more friends. What has changed? Hmm, the amount of basically everything; productions, sceners, parties and.... motivation? Although it seems that nowadays there are more quality prods in relation to the quantity back then, I think. Everything moves forward and changes. You just have to live in the moment and enjoy it for as long as it lasts. »CL7:People are what keep me motivated. I know so many great people from the scene.»CL1: »CL5: Moon »CL1:My name is Andrej Petrov. I am 23 years old now, and I am from Russia. I have had an Amiga since 1998, and I have been part of the scene for about a year. I have known about the scene for many years. »CL8:The first thing I saw was zx-spectrum cracktros, where a speccy cracker wrote "Amiga rulez" in the running lines.»CL1: Lately, in 2000 I got Internet access at the institute and I began to talk with Amiga sceners on #amigascne. I had only had contact with Russian sceners who had Internet connection. When asked what the scene is about, I have to say that it is difficult to formulate the exact answer. »CL7:The scene is like a form of life for me, a kind of subculture, underground, and that means very much to me. »CL1: Demos, magz, and scene productions are important, but friends are the most important to me, and I am firmly sure that people will stay and kick the scene back to life. »CL5: Slummy »CL1:My real name is Remi Pedersen, I am a Norwegian, born in '78, and I visited my first scene party in '93. I started coding asm the same year, and I am now the organizer of Spaceballs. I am from the same town as most of the founding members of Spb (Lone Starr, Major Asshole, Yoghurt etc) and knew some of them before they got into the scene. »CL6:When I started getting interested in the scene, (after watching c64- and Amiga-demos), I got a bit of asm-tutoring from the Spb-coders and other people I had contact with through bbs'es. »CL1: Well, I always meet new people, and as long as I enjoy visiting parties & coding, I will stay in the scene, and that is all that the scene is about, is it not? Partying with cool people & kicking their arses in competitions. »CL8:I do not think the Amiga-scene will expand much in the future, maybe a bit when the economy in some of the poorer Eastern European countries improve,»CL1: but it will probably live on for several years to come, like the c64-scene which is still alive & kicking. I guess many people will move to PC or simply quit the scene altogether, but I do not think it will die all of a sudden. As long as I enjoy it, I will keep doing it, and I hardly ever visit a party without bringing a release. »CL7:If I look back and compare the parties from the past, then The Gathering 93 was a lot "cleaner" in several ways.»CL1: Even though it was a LOT more scene-oriented than it is now, a lot of the visitors were rather young, and it got quite a lot of media-coverage, so the organizers were quite strict on alcohol etc. »CL6:The visitors were mostly, (more or less), normal kids with an interest in computers, whereas 90% of the visitors at Mekka are weirdo's,»CL1: who travel long distances to praise their dark gods. Mekka'01 actually reminded me more of music-festivals like Roskilde and Hultsfred than any other (large) computer-party I have ever visited. »CL8:Those who visited parties earlier will probably have some of the same opinions as I have, »CL1: and this is of course also a consequence of the fact that we have gotten older and have other lives besides our scene-interests. Parties therefore become more of a holiday or "normal" party than it used to be. For me demo-parties sum up many of the things I like most: meeting fun people, getting wasted, and even being a bit nerdy. »CL5: Chromag »CL1:I am Chromag of Haujobb, 27 years old and I am a teacher in German and sports. I still make some music, but have not done anything on the Amiga for years. I still use fasttracker on the PC, though. Actually, it is funny to see that I am even ranked in the Eurocharts. :) »CL7:I got in contact with the scene, because a guy called Ucom of Spreadpoint lived in my town, and I used to swap disks with him. »CL1:After a while, I started doing music and released my first track in 1990, in Exult's megademo II. Unfortunately, I have not had the opportunity to do many demo tunes, only when I was in rebels, because I had not been in touch with the coders too much. »CL7:Doing diskmag music was easy, because it had to be background music without anything happening. »CL1: As I am a member of a group that still produces demos for the Amiga, I still consider myself part of that scene. Infact I never really made any differences between the PC and the Amiga scene, but my heart just belongs to the Amiga. The love and happiness of a community. social freedom.... love.... tears... »CL6:Mainly it is the boozing that keeps me in the scene... and friends. »CL1: The most important thing in the scene is to meet people and compare your products. It feels more relaxed nowadays, though... when I started, I looked up to my heroes of red sector etc., but nowadays there is no such cult for scene-personalities. »CL8:The scene was much more fun with that elite thing and the wars between the big groups. Remember Paradox :)»CL1: We should try to settle something. (I will have to ask my organizer about.. Haujobb vs. IRIS) Anyway, most people think that Haujobb is arrogant but they have probably never had a beer with us. The friendship aspect is quite important to us. When someone wants to join Haujobb, he normally has to be a very good friend. »CL8:We are very democratic and do not really have organizers. XXX is doing a lot of communication, also Jazz, Droid, Melwyn and many others. »CL1: Everyone is welcome to take part in such a debate via the mailing list, if someone does not want to, he cannot complain. »CL5: THG »CL1:I am The Hooligan/dcs, 25 years old, and have been on the scene since 88. Before that time I used Spectrum (still a fan ;) and vic-20. I used to be a swapper, but after quitting that function, I have only been a musician. Occasionally, I am keeping dcs together by holding meetings and involving in projects if required. This usually means spanking some members to do something :) As we all know, this is not the scene that was 10 years ago, or even 5 years ago. It has gotten smaller and smaller. There is no competition anymore. The activity is all time low, mainly concentrating on parties only. »CL7:Anyway, the friendship is still there, and of course lots of talent. The whole purpose of the original scene has changed however. »CL1:We do not have many small parties where people come to meet each other. It has become (everybody boo) commercial. Friendship is the word. I have gotten tons of fabulous personal friends and enjoy hanging with them, and also it is a bit hard to stop since it has been there every day for more than half of my life, but I have thought of quitting many times and this year is the final year for me :) I said it two years ago, and I said it last year. However, now I mean it. »CL8:Actually, I was supposed to quit the entire scene, but I was only able to quit swapping. Call it commitment or lack of strength to say, "this is enough for me, I am off" »CL1:About 20 people seriously tried to stop me, but really, I would have liked to continue but it did not make any sense. There WAS still stuff to spread, but the quality was not what I used to maintain. What is the point in sending mainly cracked upgrades of utilities or an occasional non-party production? »CL6:A good swapper knows what to send, not just fill the disk to the last byte, and I was not able to keep that line anymore, sadly. »CL1: I also want to add that I respect the few swappers left even today - you are doing a good job. But most of you do not know how nice it used to be. »CL7:I am not leaving my friends. For sure, some of them will be left out or perhaps I will see them once a year or so. »CL1: I mainly mean about scene activities. Just a note, I have not bothered to watch demo- or intro compos for the past three years at any of the bigger parties. This tells something about the interest, and what I am really going to do at parties (drink alcohol, & meet the people :), but some friends are grown too close and we stay in touch quite often. »CL8:As miserable as it seems, I still hope to see some quality productions, and I want to add that the scene is not dead, YET, but it is dying - fast. »CL1:Let us try to hang on one more year and see if I have to break my promise once again. ;-) Honestly, MS will be my last foreign party, this I have decided. (Ah, let us see if you can keep that promise :) I also have to slow down on going to parties. The current rate of 10-12 parties ... phew, one party or meeting a month. Now it is time for the conclusion of the statements we have heard above. I must admit that I would have liked to interview some sceners from Poland too. However, none of them were available at the time I was out in the dark and gloomy night. Therefore, I might write another article that will have another point of view. Nevertheless, I think that the picture is clear. »CL7:The sceners keep the scene alive, sceners are friends with other sceners, and friends are one of the main reasons why sceners do continue after all these years. »CL1: People are enjoying the friendships they have with people who have the same interests as themselves. Some even travel long distances to make sure that they keep this way of subculture alive. »CL8:It is not the machine itself that does it, but the people using it. I am not sure that all of us are aware how positive a thing this is, but it is surely something we should protect and keep alive. »CL1:You do not have to be the world's most active scener to participate with some fresh energy, you only need to be interested and support as much as "you" can. That is the only thing that the scene needs. »PIC:3.iff»