Review: Schwugi #2
"If you ever stumble across a magazine called Schwugi #1: This is a lame fakemag with code that was ripped from Hugi #6, graphics taken from Hugi #12, and music from Legend Design. The author is unknown; several clues point to a certain person but we have no evidence, so we won't mention any suspicions. Anyway, the articles may be good for a laugh. If you bump into that maggy, have fun."
(from the Hugi #15 Editorial)
A few days ago I received a send from Variat, with whom I've recently begun to swap again after many months without any mailswapping. I'd sent him a CD with diskmags, and along with his reply he sent me a couple of mags which I seemed not to have yet. When I checked the list of files on the disk I spotted a curious filename: Schwugi2.rar.
There was a second issue of Schwugi! As it turned out, it was released just a few weeks after its predecessor. While the first issue deals with Hugi #13, this one is a parody on Hugi #14. After two years, the criticism expressed by means of caustic satire has finally reached its destination.
First of all, Schwugi is without doubt pretty offensive. That's why my public reaction on the first issue was this harsh. On the other hand, now that more than two years have passed since the release of the two issues, during which both Hugi and me have developed, I've gained distance enough not to take the heavy personal attacks on me seriously. On the contrary, I can digest the more sensible points raised, and even smile about some of the jokes.
So what's valuable about of Schwugi? Let me analyze it.
"Are we one scene? Maybe! But not much longer, hehehe! I, the almighty A-Duck, are taking out my ultimate scissors now and here we go: -cut!- Now we are two scenes! And again... -cut!- Hehehe, now we're not two but three scenes!"
("A-duck/Schwugi")
Analyzation
The main themes Schwugi deals with seem to be: unjustified elitism, lazy and uncreative sceners, ego-centrism and narcissm, lack of interest in the German-language section, and sex.
It is important to mention that the target of Schwugi's criticism is not just Hugi but the Internet/IRC scene, which the author regards Hugi is a symbol of. He thinks that the members of the scene represented in Hugi have either long forgotten or even never known what demoscene really means; they spend most of the time chatting on IRC instead of creating artwork and programming, cannot imagine a scene without Internet and define themselves as "elite" just because they know the customs in the IRC channels.
"But then when I finally got my internet access and by that became the absolutely No.1 austrian elite scener boy everything changed immediately!"
("A-duck/Schwugi")
To understand this, you must know that the person I suspect to be the author of Schwugi (he never admitted it, but there are so many indicators that point to him that I would be very surprised if it wasn't him) had limited Internet access. Due to this, he felt locked out by the manifold allusions and links to the Net that appeared and still appear in Hugi's articles, indeed.
From today's perspective I also agree that especially the German section contained too many texts on IRC. It might have given a stranger the impression that IRC was what constituted the scene, while in reality it was only one of many communication tools used by demosceners. But as we know, the scene already existed in days when even professionals could not relate to the term "Internet".
However, I think that the claim that the scene represented in Hugi were unproductive was unjustified. Perhaps we should have published more "making of" reports and focused on technical questions in the interviews. But the news corner and the large coding section showed that the primary activity of the demoscene was creating demos and related art, as it should not only be in the eyes of the person behind "A-duck", but also in my opinion.
"Is there a need to be Elite? SURE THERE IS!!! Ok, I guess I mustn't tell this to anybody in front of the screen here, because I think it should be clear that our elitarian discmagazine is only read by Elite-Sceners and not by some stupid lamer!"
("A-duck/Schwugi")
Passages like the one quoted above appear in Schwugi several times. To be honest, I don't really know what I'm supposed to think about this. Sure, it's a certain elitist and arrogant attitude that is criticized here, but where did it appear in these Hugi issues? In fact Hugi was sometimes criticized for being too openminded towards non-sceners and newcomers. I received quite an amount of feedback in which readers expressed their disagreement with the selection of people interviewed in Hugi (because they were not "famous" enough), criticized me for including an Introduction to the Demoscene in every issue or said that Hugi should only publish articles from well-known sceners. The majority of our readers, of course, did not agree with this, which is why I didn't change the democratic attitude expressed in Hugi.
Still, I have cared a lot about quality of contents and grammar, and I haven't shunned mentioning this clearly. Maybe that's what left the Schwugi editor with this impression. Anyhow, we must be realistic: The demoscene is a very specialist subject, and its magazines cannot be understood by everyone immediately. Diskmags do have a distinct readership, it's also a matter inherent to this medium. That's why a slightly elitist touch to them is inevitable. Yet I'm trying to avoid this in my articles wherever I can and make Hugi interesting for people who are not yet members of the demoscene, too.
"To make things straight: From now on Schwugi is an English-language DEMOSCENE-ELITE-MAG. Finally got it, you bloody Germans??!!"
("A-duck/Schwugi")
Hugi #10 was 100% in German language. All of a sudden, this drastically changed: In the next issue, two thirds of the articles were in English, and what used to constitute the contents of Hugi was wrapped up in a comparatively small "German Section". In spite of the fact that this section grew with the total amount of articles and for a short period was almost as large as a standard issue before Hugi #11, attentive readers such as the editor of Schwugi sensed that it no longer played a major role.
I admit that the concept and appearance of the whole mag virtually changed from one day to another, which certainly shocked many of our old readers and writers. Their platform was still present, but obviously the editors did not consider it to be of great importance any more. I can imagine that many felt angry, disappointed and deceived. I must have also had a pretty bad conscience, and if the "new" Hugi had not been that successful, I would surely not have stopped reproaching myself for many years.
On the other hand, the future of Hugi, had it stayed in German language, did not seem very prosperous back then: It was a zine about everything under the sun, from gamecoding to skating - a good exercise for students, but nothing serious. To make it become a real magazine it had to become strong at a special topic, and it clearly appeared to me that this had to be the demoscene, the root of diskmags. But a German demoscene magazine would have had a very limited target group, and that's why I decided that Hugi had to become an international mag, in English language. Although it was painful, I do not regret having taken this step.
Perhaps I should have written that I regarded the German Section as a serious and essential component which definitely had to stay in Hugi. At this time I didn't. It changed later. In Hugi #16 and #17, I made a great effort to ensure that the German Section was as interesting and entertaining as the international one. But the number of contributions in German language had declined, which is why I was unable to include a German Section in Hugi #18; later, when I had received enough articles, I released it as a separate magazine, Hugi.GER #1. A second issue followed, and basically, Hugi.GER is here to stay - it's just that nowadays I'm getting fewer contribs in German language than ever before. (Although I'm not getting fewer contributions from German people!)
"I'm elite! I'm hot! And I'm just far away! But not far away enough for you, hot sexy babe! I cannot wait to come nearer to you, whoo!"
("White")
Schwugi contains many sexual allusions (even the name of the magazine is one, as German-speaking readers have surely realized at once). I wonder where this comes from. Probably this is more related to the people on the IRC channel #coders.ger (with their recurring cry: "ficken!") than to Hugi. Or did Schwugi's editor interpret our title pictures, which often contain drawings of women's faces, as an attempt to attract male readers by means of sexual stimuli?? At least that's the only explanation related to Hugi I can think of. The texts in Hugi are, as far as I know, free of sexual allusions - apart from a few artistic short-stories that appeared in Hugi #16, but remember, Schwugi was released before Hugi #16. The jokes about sex contained in Schwugi are, however, very rude; they do not have any spiritual or aesthetic value. That's kind of a sign of immaturity.
Conclusion
So that's what I managed to dig out of Schwugi. As mentioned above, some of the criticism (e.g. regarding elitism) is understandable so try to take these few pieces of sanity seriously if you're making a mag. In any case Schwugi is a very nice document for me personally. When I'm old I'll look at it to see how various people perceived the big magazine I was involved in when I was young.
Adok/Hugi - 06 Apr 2001