O hai,

just for you millions of random readers out there im giving a short update on things going on right now.

So I’m still sticking to it. I have visited a lot of parties since I did my first post about things and I guess the “I’m not a real demoscener” card is worn out by now, especially since Im now an official member of the Demogroup TiTAN.

I dont really know why and how this happened but Ive been invited to a group meeting in February and eversince Im considered a member of the group.

No, I’m still not a demomaker in any sense, but I’m trying to support my mates whereever I can and see fit. Worth mentioning is Titans massive release for the Sega Mega Drive for Evoke 2013 which is called Overdrive. It really was a blast to see all these guys working so hard to make it a quite enjoyable demo, and considering its position on Pouet I guess they succeeded. Im still working at QSC, doing tech-support, I’m still living in a nice place in Bremen which still needs some cleaning up badly and I’m still a sucker for nice realtime animations, no matter the platform.

Together with some fellow scene-friends (mainly Sunspire and Sentcool) we were organizing the Nordlicht-Demoparty in 2012 and now 2013, and it probably will happen in 2014 as well (although we are currently looking for a new location since the old one sadly doesnt allow multi-day-events anymore, but thats not because of us). Things are looking good and friendships have been made so I’m sure youre gonna see some party-action of ours in the future.

But with my increasing involvement in demoscene-things I also increasingly have to deal with one other thing: elitism.

Although on the surface everybody is nice and friendly, I cant help but notice that there are some folks who seem to think people who aren’t creative and releasing stuff shouldnt be considered part of the scene at all and have no right to speak up. While I get that the situation in the 90s was different and there were a lot of peeps who just wanted to be cool by hanging with the “elite” groups I dont think that sort of attitude is justified anymore. Every community needs an audience and also people who do things in the background and the demoscene is no exception. Yet almost everytime I raise my voice on pouet or some IRC channels I can feel waves of disrespect coming my way. Guys, I’m not pretending to be an elite scener or demoscene-legend and I will never do so. I have the upmost respect for those who are doing creative work, be it newcomers or folks who have been doing this for ages, yet I feel attacked when I have something to say and all I get is (best case) funny answers or (in many other cases) am simply ignored. Two pages down the thread someone else who has more “scene-credit” repeats what I said and gets kudos for it while my post didnt spawn any response at all. But I’m sure I just cant express myself in a good way and no one understands what Im trying to bring across. Yeah right.

In my book theres two levels of respect: one for the skills and talent you show with your productions and the other for  being a human being and a nice guy in general. Also its not like I did >nothing< to support the scene: Ive been doing organizing duties, I’ve been adding stuff to the pouet database, I’ve been sharing my thoughts (although not everyone will agree on those and thats ok), I’ve done quite some social networking with bringing people together to help each other out and last but not least I spent my hard earned money to visit parties. Dont get me wrong, I dont excpect people to bring me roses or include me in their prod greetings, but some of the shit and comments (or the lack of them) I have to deal with on an almost daily basis is less than deserved. I guess I just want to be taken seriously if what I have to say is actually meant that way. Sure I’m not a saint either, I made some bad jokes and stepped on peoples toes over the years and that I’m sorry for since I most likely didnt mean it, but still I’m investing loads of time and energy into this thing and i do think if anything, I deserve a little bit of respect for doing so.

So if you happen to read this and think I’m feeding on other peoples skills, devotion or popularity: please go fuck yourself. Elitism is not a virtue or an attitude you can earn, its a bad habit. In the end were all just humans trying to do what we think is good for us and the people we care about. And if you like it or not, you’re probably one of them. This shall conclude my little rant since of course I still love the demoscene and what its all about, otherwise I’d be long gone.

I <3 you guys, TiTAN sucks.