Amiga Plus Leser 15/Amiga Plus Leser CD 15.iso/Scene/Eurochart44/Articles/MotivationWhatKeepsUsGoing.txt

Text File | 2002-03-12 | 18KB | 546 lines

»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.











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