Spreading the word about the scene

The extremely weird XYZ

"The demoscene". Not only the little world that we all love to spend our time in, but also the topic of Hugi's first-time writer-compo. Hmm, thank you guys for such a broad topic, how the hell are we supposed to write something specific about that ? Finding a good narrow topic is half the work for an article ! Anyway, let's give it a try...

TV, newspapers and stupidity for the masses

Not so long ago I visited the rather small demoparty X in Y. (Excuse me for the previous sentence, but the almighty editors of this compo are a bit paranoid, so I'm not allowed to say anything that can reveal my identity. Bad luck, FBI.) Anyway, the organizers of party Z were also at X, and I had a nice talk with one of them. I asked him how the TV-crew, that was at Z last year, had learned about the event, and he said that they were in fact invited. Actually the Z-orgos had invited several other stations too, because it seemed an excellent occasion to promote the scene, to let the general public know about the fabulous things we can do.

Now if I remember correctly from the party (which is not so evident, grin), the TV crew has filmed only the first night, while the compos, by tradition, take place the second. Also they paid more attention to the gamers, the pile of hardware and the people sleeping under the tables, than to the real demo-related events! I don't see how this kind of freak-show can promote the demo-scene, as not a single demo or intro was shown.

A real-life friend of mine, which I had told about X, sent a JPG'ed newspaper-article to me with the question "Is this the party you attended ?" Well, it was yet another party, Q (this is starting to read like a bad spy-story), and Q was a LAN-party. The articled explained what a LAN was, and that hundred of freaks (sic) used it three days to play games and exchange programs. Nothing wrong with that, I couldn't care less about those glamers. But then the orgos mentioned that they organized Q because "this year, they could not visit the big LAN-parties like The Gathering or TakeOver". Excuse me !?! I know that the average visitor of those big parties is not an active scener, but for me, they are still primarily *demo* parties, with demo compos and several good releases each year, so I felt a bit upset.

At the end, the article stated that a few compos would be held, like a hack-compo (become root of a penguin-based machine), and also a demo-compo. "Demos are really amazing programs, showing real-time graphical effects!" Aha, some justice at last :). I had the feeling (also from a Q-flyer I got) that the Q-orgos actually wanted to organize a demo-party, but that they avoided the difficult task to explain to a reporter what the demoscene really is. Even your grandma knows by now what a videogame is, and most people can understand what a LAN is: "something like a small internet". So why not going the easy way, give the public something they can understand... Sigh.

Respect, and how not to get it

The more I think about it, the more I realize that such "demoscene for the masses"-explanations are bound to fail. Even if the orgos go through a lot of pain to explain exactly what the scene is, the journalist will simplify things, put quotes out their context, and link the scene with gamers, hackers, piracy, Microsoft and everything that ever went/goes/will go wrong in the computer-world. After all, he's making an juicy article, not a dry, objective book.

I wonder what happened to the "underground" attitude. With that I don't mean belonging to a very small elite and maybe illegal group. That time is definitely over, with the advent of the WWW, FTP archives and IRC channels. No, what I mean is the feeling of being independent of the outside world. Why isn't it enough if you are know and respected by your fellow sceners? Why does everyone needs to know that we, demosceners, are the best programmers/musicians /graphicians in the world? Do you really want your neighbors to stare at you in awe when you tell them you won the democompo at The Party ?

Let's face it, that will probably never happen! While computers are used more and more at work and for entertainment, someone using them in their spare time for non-gaming activities is still suspicious, a freak, a nerd, a weirdo. I think that if you really want to give autographs to fainting girls, and be interviewed for glossy magazines, and die on a heroine overdose, you should go for a rock/movie/football career, and leave the demoscene alone.

The dinosaur lesson: don't become extinct!

But, I hear your frightened souls cry, how will the young blood find the scene? How will we get fresh newbies to replace the retired oldskoolers? Well, definitely not by advertising ourselves as a bunch of nerds. Besides, I don't think we lack newbies: just check some random party-results! What we lack is more quality-groups, the newbie-groups seems to give up too easily, but that's a different topic and belongs to a different article.

If you really feel the scene is endangered, you shouldn't leave the task of recruiting newbies to some anonymous mass media. That will indeed attract people, but mostly gamers, MP3-leechers and such. Granted, some of those might get caught by the demo-virus, and will eventually make a valuable addition to the scene, but IMHO this is way too indirect. It's pure luck if someone turns out to be a future scener, and the number of such people is too small to compensate the bad side-effects like a bad image, too much lamers at parties and the consequent wrong results.

Diversion: note that I don't want to throw all gamers/leechers etc out, it's just I don't want the balance to shift even more in their direction. And the ones that do come should realize that a demo-party is about demos, and show a bare minimum of respect for that, like shutting down your speakers during the compos. End of diversion.

So what's the better way to get people enthusiastic for the scene? Easy: when your friends ask you what you do with your computer, don't mutter something like "hrm, gaming and such" or another lousy excuse. Put them in a chair, turn off the lights, and show them State Of Mind, Moral Hard Candy, Wonder, Chronologia and all other demos you find impressive. Tell them about the scene, the groups, the parties. Give them a diskmag (Advert: Hugi might do the job) that they can read it at home, and then no one will be able to get them out of the scene again. If everyone does this, the scene will boom like it never did before. And those newbies will at least know what the scene stands for.

Crawling from under your rock

That last paragraph probably scared the bejeezus out of some of you. The scene is your secret little world, that you share with some brothers-in-arms, but not with the rest of The Real World ( probably (C)opyrighted The Matrix). They won't see the point of being creative with bits and bytes, they'll find the MTV-clips much better, and they'll laugh at you for spending your time with weirdos that you haven't even met in real life.

What can I say? Some will, others won't. Start with someone you trust, and see how he/she react. Often, the reactions are more positive then you would expect. A few friends of mine now regularly ask if I have new good demos, and whether they can watch them at my place (I've a better PC :)). They are in no way active demosceners themselves, but they know what the scene is about, and they understand its culture. I'm sure that no amount of TV-progs and newspaper articles could have had that effect. Too bad I can't get anyone of them into learning to program ("I'm too old to learn that"), but I'm looking out for other potential newbies...

And about the "friends" that laugh at you for being a scener: let me tell you my favorite quote (also applicable to non-coders). It's from the excellent book "Programmers at work", with interviews of several pioneers: the man that invented the spreadsheet, one of the founders of Apple and such. One of the questions posed to each programmer was (more or less) "what are the qualities you must have to be a good programmer?", and the answer that I liked the most was "Don't mind if people think you're weird." Maybe I take it a bit too much as a personal motto :), but I think that's a useful advice all through your life, and especially in the demoscene.

Have fun in the scene, and spread the word!

The extremely weird XYZ