Momotato Is…
Some things in life are just hard to put into words. Momotato is one of those things.
Sure, for most people, Momotato is this guy who used to blog (although technically he still does) about anime, Japanese pop music, and some random game stuff. And being one of the earlier anime bloggers who wrote about proto-news, his influence on the fledgling online blogging community in English-language-land is actually more far-fetched than one would imagine an owner of a dead blog.
But to me, he’s a friend I’ve known for some time. And he’s a pal. Despite his eccentricities, there’s an undeniable charisma about him which makes his opinions somehow always better than most people’s opinion about the same thing, even with the same opinion! He did not need pretty pictures or a 12th grade vocabulary to convey heartfelt ideas, even if he had those. There’s a trace of humility entwined with experience in every wisdom-laced review he posts on a humbly designed, pre-Web 2.0 homepage. It was admirable, and to me he’s managed to accomplish something that few I know was able to do so–to cause ruckus out of building bridges between fans who share the same passions, rather than divisive drama spoken from some ego-filled hot -air-balloon/soapbox.
Even so, I don’t think I’ve gotten close to capture the essence behind why a small group of people are so hyped up on Momotato. He’s just a fan much like you and me, after all.
Perhaps he is the everyfan?
I’d like to take this opportunity to (try to) embarrass him, but also to let him know how many of us still appreciate him. And also for me to get a better idea just how many people who appreciate him. You can do this by leaving a comment on a blog. Any blog. Like this Anime Blog Award vote thing that’s going to end today. Just post “Momotato” in the comments.
Anime Blogging Nonsense
For once, I feel compelled to do something about the state of anime blogging.
Would anyone be interested in hosting a panel with me at Otakon? This is a somewhat serious commitment and the deadline for an application is the end of the month. I am in the process to evaluate if this is a worthwhile idea or not so I can accordingly decide the next step.
I realize while anime conventions are a part of the fan culture, the mixing of that and anime blogging has not really come to focus in the fore. One of the issues that could be discussed is exactly the scope of anime blogging. The everyday blogger writes about daily circumstances, and it’s not totally uncommon for someone to talk about or review an anime once a blue moon. Or manga. Or any other subject matter the usual “anime” blog scene cover. How is that different than an “anime blog” as we know it?
Should we talk about the style of blogging? Personally I take a very relaxed approach; a major advantage of blogging is the way it allows for the expression of individuality; at the same time, it is worthwhile to discuss the nature of such things in order to provide insight into how to get the most out of a blog as a blogger. As long as we can convey to people that ultimately a blog is whatever you make it, and defined categories are not all there is to anime blogging. At the same time, I am interested in how people think about this issue, if you have given it some thought.
Discussing such topics at a con also runs into the issue to get the audience involved, and I think that is why the idea is compelling. For one, a lot of con panels are really just pow-wow sessions for people on the internet to say hello to each other. Also how to entertain people may very well be an issue. I suppose I can start stretching and practice learning the crane kick. Anyways, I think this is only a good opportunity and worth all the potential work if other people can play both as panelists and audience.
At the same time, all this thinking makes me realize I’m pretty under-equipped with some of the basic blogging concepts. How do we discuss aggregation portals, scrubbing, or the technical ends of things? Managing traffic and generating it? Advertising? Well I guess I’m not clueless about all of those things but I’m certainly not confident and knowledgeable enough to host a panel. This is just another reason why I will need help.
And … yes. Help. If you are interested in this project (even if you may not be able to come to the panel), I can probably use it. Just ping me, email me, or otherwise leave a message.
Speaking of that, anyone else up for epic karaoke this Otakon?
Huggles Boggled
Blogging and journalism are like salt water and freshwater; to some anyways. Today, they are mixed; you can see the afternoon newspaper dying in the streets and reborn online with the likes of industry, pro bloggers and journalists who release bits of news in a blog format.
But are they suppose to? I guess this guy probably doesn’t think so. What surprised me was my own reaction about he being surprised at ANN’s relatively new tack in regards to internet reporting.
Undeniably true, however, is that ANN is getting more traffic the more they dabble in this so-called “huggle” readership. If you read the comments in that In Search Of post, one of the commenter mentioned this and, well, that’s what blogs are all about! At the same time, unlike other news blog sites that we might be familiar with, ANN is sort of in mid-transition between a more traditional news website to a news blog.
As one of the first major anime fandom company on the internet, I didn’t really pay ANN any mind because it utterly failed to serve my needs (mainly protonews and a source of industry hubbub which was primarily what AoDVD was for). At least, until their mighty encyclopedia started to gain momentum. As a factoid, the first anime entry in the database is Angel Links. That should give you a clue to its vintage.
[Coincidentally that was one of the first series that I’ve had the joy of watching the digital raws while the series was airing. (And the subsequent joy of dropping it.) Anyways.]
So, yes; if we took a look at what fan blogs are about this day and age, we’ll see how things break down:
- Episode reviews, previews, retrospectives
- News - Both straight-up news and entertaining news. Does Mainichi Daily News counts? But I was thinking more like, say, akibablog or Canned Dogs.
- Special features - Like a March madness tournament. Like blogging about your company’s Blu-Ray strategy. Like a sound clip from Yukana. But usually just reports from cons–the home of the huggles.
A lot of blogs mix them up, including this one. But I think that just lays out the things you will see ANN do more of. Being a commercial entity they already have a leg up on getting special interviews, so as a potential reader I hope they can do more of those.
The role of editorial bloggers and editorial blogging, however, is something else. To an extent, the power of blogging comes from the ability to do whatever you want with disregard to any kind of professional standard. If quality writing, professionalism and speed are important things for any publication, why is ANN getting the readership it gets?
Perhaps a better way to see the big picture is to understand how people gather information using the internet. And quite simply put, as long as it isn’t a time intensive and otherwise pain in the neck kind of a thing, people are quite content reading the words of a recent ESL person versus someone who has been writing professionally for decades. What is important is the information within, and does the information in the format presented serves the needs of the person looking for it. Or at least that’s how I judge the quality of information.
But that’s just how I see ANN, as a source of information. Different people perceive ANN as different things, after all.
That’s blogging in a nutshell IMO. After that it’s just a long sliding scale from awful to awesome. We are here to serve our huggling overlords, and many bloggers double duty as both. It doesn’t matter how we call ourselves, our readers can tell the difference (so we believe).
After all, it is the non-Serious-Business nature of internet blogging that makes amateur production feasible; there may very well be no incentive for a person to improve his or her blog if there is nothing to gain from it…much like how ANN has no incentive to improve the quality of its services?
It might be healthy to be obsessed with your blog’s traffic after all?
Election Year
If Saimoe is like the US Presidential campaign (it sort of is, and it even ends around November!) then we’re sort of doing something like the Primary here. Except for another country. And it is irrelevant for the most part, with each other. Plus, we’re about March Madness.
It’s sort of off topic, but I just want to share a few insights about moe elections and, well, this kind of fan activity in general.
1. Purpose.
One thing I really like about Saimoe is how it is impeccable in terms of getting a large group of people on the same page and voting for what they want. I guess that’s the Japanese for you. However it’s a terribly poorly designed contest even compared to its Korean counterpart. But that’s really only half the story. The purpose of Saimoe is somewhat tangential to the purpose of Korean Saimoe in that the latter is really just a popular vote-off. The former is almost a community building event as there is a standardized platform (2ch) where the fan community on the whole recognize as “official.”
When planning something like a moe election, you need a clear goal as to what you want to accomplish, and design around that goal. I like fun, fresh madness. I don’t care so much who wins. I do care about heated competition and excitement and entertainment generally. YMMV, I guess. I think it’s good to have a selection of stuff like this, Touhou Saimoe, SaiGAR, whatever.
2. Design
This is something that’s a little harder and require people who think it through, with experience. But it’s not hard–just get a good feeling as to who are your participants and take their interests into account. Usually after doing it a few times, you get pretty good with it.
3. Promotion
Don’t even bother. Just pick a group of people you want to do this thing with, and do a darn good job. People who enjoy it will just get others to join you. Maybe you want to throw the good word to the people around you just so they know it’s happening, but that’s really all you need.
4. Rules
It’s good to have well-communicated, clear rules. It doesn’t have to be fair, even, but it can’t appear to be partial. In fact even with sucky rules, if people playing the election game think it’s fun, they’ll do it anyways. And usually when their favorites are at stake, there’s plenty of motivation already. Don’t be afraid to take people’s suggestions freely, and freely reject them too. As long as you think it through before committing.
It’s a different bag when it comes to moderating the actual polls. It’s good to be familiar with what technology can offer you, and find people who can work with you. It’s great if people know what’s going on, that there’s transparency in the process. People like fair contests, and they’ll enforce things themselves if it’s made possible that way.
5. Incentive
It’s good to have incentives beyond the mere exercise of the contest. It’s optional for the most part, but sometimes it just makes life a little more fulfilling, even if what you get at the end is a bunch of fanart doodles you don’t like. The way I see it, if people are going through the motions and effort to make it happen, you might as well ride it as much as you can. For the little contest we’re running, we have some used goods. YMMV.
LOL Copyright
I just have to do this every once in a while.
This post is brought to you by killing time with William Patry’s blog. Patry is better known as a leading copyright (and I guess also copyleft) guru working as Google’s chief copyright attorney, and he keeps a pretty fat blog. And as you may expect, I’m going for somewhat Longcat here too. TL;DR warning! And most of it won’t have much to do with anime, so feel free to skip towards the bottom.
