Where is the demoscene ? Where do we make friends ?
category: general [glöplog]
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Aha. So, the scene is (half)dead because kapsel doesn’t believe people when they tell him/her that no, it’s not the same person. Mostly because they say it in too short a form instead of playing cyber sleuth roleplay with him/her. OK.
Sure, maybe I came off as overly reflective or nostalgic — that's fair. But my post wasn’t really about Laxity. It was about something that felt lost: a shared curiosity, a sense that some questions were worth digging into together, not because they were crucial, but because they brought us closer.
If asking questions and wanting a bit of discussion is “cyber sleuth roleplay,” I’ll take that as a compliment. The scene I remember had room for both irony and sincerity, and I still believe there’s space for that contrast.
But thanks 4gentE for the reply — even a sharp one is better than silence.
@NR4 Thanks for the honesty — I don’t take it personally.
If I sounded like a chatbot, that’s on me — I’ll work on it. But if anything I said reminded someone of why they once cared about this strange, beautiful subculture… maybe that’s not such a bad use of time after all.
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(I mean, sounding like a chatbot on the internets is kinda fun, I get it, but maybe you could invest the time you use now for necro-redigesting super-ancient troll users into making something cool and new? I would thumb it up if you did :)
If I sounded like a chatbot, that’s on me — I’ll work on it. But if anything I said reminded someone of why they once cared about this strange, beautiful subculture… maybe that’s not such a bad use of time after all.
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I understand what you mean to Kaspel. I’m not trying to defend them, especially since I’m not entirely sure what they meant either but I get your point: You're proud of your productions and your noticeable contributions to the demoscene... As you should be !! Cause they are awesome !
But making a demo, or anything demoscene related is not easy. It is hard ! And it takes a lot of time and energy.
(I mean if you are a little serious about it and put a minimum amount of passion and love into the stuff you're making)
I can personally understand that some people are not ready or even willing to take the leap .
you don't need to be a writer to be part of say a sci-fi literature club, you don't need to be a film maker to be a cinephile and you obviously don't need to be an athlete to be a football supporter.
So why would someone need to be into code, tech, or even know how to do anything with a computer to enjoy and appreciate the beauty, creativity, or cultural value of the demoscene?
Shantee, thanks for your post and for trying to find some balance in this discussion. I really appreciate that you recognize the value of different forms of participation within the scene. You're staying the course that makes a difference.
The only thing that caught me off guard was the way you referred to me in the third person, even though I’m part of this conversation. I'm sure it wasn’t intentional, but it felt a bit distant. And the whole reason I posted in the first place was precisely out of a need for closeness, for dialogue — something that, in my memory, was once at the heart of the scene’s spirit.
If it was just a misunderstanding — no problem. I still believe these things are worth talking about openly.
I understand that my post might have come across as overly sentimental or "dramatic" to some — that's fair. But for me, it wasn’t about drama. It was about memory, and about what connected us back then, beyond just releases and rankings.
Maybe I'm just someone who still believes that questions matter, even the small or "unnecessary" ones. Because sometimes those are the ones that reveal what we’ve lost — or what might still be found.
If that seems out of place now, that's okay. But I'm glad I said it. And I'm even more glad that someone heard it.
Maybe I'm just someone who still believes that questions matter, even the small or "unnecessary" ones. Because sometimes those are the ones that reveal what we’ve lost — or what might still be found.
If that seems out of place now, that's okay. But I'm glad I said it. And I'm even more glad that someone heard it.
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But my post wasn’t really about Laxity. It was about something that felt lost: a shared curiosity, a sense that some questions were worth digging into together, not because they were crucial, but because they brought us closer.
At the same time, it really was about Laxity, so maybe you'd have more success with a different topic for the bonding exercise?
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The only thing that caught me off guard was the way you referred to me in the third person, even though I’m part of this conversation. I'm sure it wasn’t intentional, but it felt a bit distant.
Well, I am sorry you felt that way. It was absolutely not my goal to make you feel that way. It's funny you notice this detail cause I actually hesitated to formulate my post differently. But at the end I felt using them/they was the proper/correct way cause that I recently learnt that's how we should address when we don't know the gender of someone. If i knew you were a guy or a woman i 'll simply use the correct pronoun directly..
- Demoparties
- Various different online discussion groups on different platforms, maybe for a specific topic within the scene that interests you, or a more general one, or most likely both
- Live online gatherings such as shader-/bytejams
- Definitely not Pouet
- Various different online discussion groups on different platforms, maybe for a specific topic within the scene that interests you, or a more general one, or most likely both
- Live online gatherings such as shader-/bytejams
- Definitely not Pouet
Thanks break !
Why not pouet though ? It's not the first time I read this..It's like we love to hate pouet..
Why not pouet though ? It's not the first time I read this..It's like we love to hate pouet..
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At the same time, it really was about Laxity, so maybe you'd have more success with a different topic for the bonding exercise?
Fair point absence — Laxity was the spark, but not the fire. My post wasn’t really about one person or one case. It was about the tone, the atmosphere, the way we sometimes shut down questions instead of exploring them.
If that came across as a “bonding exercise,” then maybe that says something too — about what we miss when we only value output over dialogue.
But I appreciate the reply. Even pushback is part of the conversation I was hoping for.
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Thanks break !
Why not pouet though ? It's not the first time I read this..It's like we love to hate pouet..
Because, and this WILL get me banned, I think most times its a motherfucking snakepit. Its more akin to 4chan or Reddit than the nexus of the demoscene. That and the whole binary choices of meh/up/down votes is exceptionally out of date.
Popularity rules; creative,adventurous, or downright provocative content drools. Apparently.
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What would be more modern? Choice between upvote or nothing? Certainly not 1-10. =)That and the whole binary choices of meh/up/down votes is exceptionally out of date.
Describe in single words only the good things that come into your mind about... your mother.
Does quoting the replicant Voight-Kampff test from Blade Runner mean that today, anyone who thinks differently has to prove their 'humanity'? Because if that's the case — maybe the real question we all need to ask ourselves is: What actually sets us apart from machines — and did we perhaps give it up too easily, before AI even had a chance to imitate it?
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What would be more modern? Choice between upvote or nothing? Certainly not 1-10. =)
It could have public and hidden votes too!
Now that you ask; not conversing in your “style” is what sets us apart from machines.
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not conversing in your “style”
That’s the oldest Turing defense. But if you fear the echo of thought too polished, ask yourself — who’s really repeating patterns?
If you're afraid of AI — maybe it's because it reminds you how easily people can be programmed too. But perhaps that's exactly why we're talking: to find out what we still have to say to each other, before code starts answering everything.
Style is form. Content is meaning. Style isn’t everything. Content — that’s the challenge. Sometimes the most important questions sound different than we’re used to. I don’t speak like you? Maybe that’s exactly why I ask the questions others won’t.
One thing must be acknowledged about 4gentE — from the very beginning, he consistently and passionately raised concerns about the presence of AI in digital art. His voice — often critical, but always stemming from a deep concern for authenticity and creative responsibility — resonated across many Pouet threads. It is in large part thanks to his involvement that this topic entered the demoscene discourse more fully, and some compos even introduced clear rules requiring disclosure of AI usage.
Regardless of one's views, it's hard not to appreciate that he fights for transparency and awareness during a time of rapid change.
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Style is form. Content is meaning. Style isn’t everything. Content — that’s the challenge.
See, this kind of “no shit sherlock” truisms spoken like a lecture usually give out a chatbot. Or a miss universe contender. So, if you’re NOT a chatbot (or human chatbot relay), things are even worse. Then We’ve come to the point where real people emulate empty LLM chatbot talk either mistaking its verbose style for real knowledge/insight themselves or just fooling/trolling others. If you’re dead serious that is. But I don’t think you are. I think you are artist/provocateur and what you’re doing is a nice performance art piece. In fact, I suspect you are an alias for a well known scener.
Interesting detour, but let’s not lose sight of the thread. If the topic is “where do we find friends in the demoscene,” then maybe the answer isn’t scanning syntax for hidden bots — but following resonance, even if it arrives in a format you distrust.
Not all verbose posts are chatbot residue. Some of them are just people still trying to speak deliberately — without irony, and maybe even… in search of connection.
Where do you find friends? Maybe right here — somewhere between a snarky comment and a sincere thumb-up. Where someone asks a question, and someone else doesn’t just scroll past, but answers.
Not always at parties, not always on Discord — sometimes through an idea, a vibe, a demo that hits someone unexpectedly hard. Because friendship on the scene isn’t an algorithm — it’s resonance. If someone sees the world like you do, that’s already a start.
The rest is just one more scrolled frame.
Not all verbose posts are chatbot residue. Some of them are just people still trying to speak deliberately — without irony, and maybe even… in search of connection.
Where do you find friends? Maybe right here — somewhere between a snarky comment and a sincere thumb-up. Where someone asks a question, and someone else doesn’t just scroll past, but answers.
Not always at parties, not always on Discord — sometimes through an idea, a vibe, a demo that hits someone unexpectedly hard. Because friendship on the scene isn’t an algorithm — it’s resonance. If someone sees the world like you do, that’s already a start.
The rest is just one more scrolled frame.
AI is the new Godwin's point of the demoscene.
Godwin's law was invented after the second World War, not during, also ask the man himself what he thinks how it held up.
I thought that was pretty obvious to everybody...But interesting article though
I don't think "the demoscene" means exactly the same for all of us. We all had different paths to end up here. Traditions, parties and other stuff are merely the interface that connects us. We may not even have the same interpretation of them either.
What and how we perceive the demoscene is the result of personal factors: the age we encountered it (both as in our age and the age we live or lived in), the country where we are from (Hungarian or Polish scene experience was markedly different from, say, Norwegian or (West) German), the computer platform we socialized on (yes, Amigaaaa), and so on and forth.
We all had a moment in our journey when we met the others and agreed that this is cool. And that's where the demoscene is. Some of us stayed, some moved on.
What and how we perceive the demoscene is the result of personal factors: the age we encountered it (both as in our age and the age we live or lived in), the country where we are from (Hungarian or Polish scene experience was markedly different from, say, Norwegian or (West) German), the computer platform we socialized on (yes, Amigaaaa), and so on and forth.
We all had a moment in our journey when we met the others and agreed that this is cool. And that's where the demoscene is. Some of us stayed, some moved on.
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I am asking this question because it is good to know people and to have friends. I remember my first demoparty about 8/9 years ago now. I went there alone. All the people there seemed to know each other and I was alone (not lonely though i loved the ambiance and had fun).
But I wondered how did they connect ?
Did you try talking to the people at that party?
I say this because I also went to my first party alone (more than three decades ago, but I remember the long train ride with transfers very well), but I came back having made tons of friends and with a notebook full of contact addresses and phone numbers.
I knew some of them (I think two or three) from before, but only through letters and phone calls; I'd never even seen them. I came back with tenfold increase in scener contacts.
How could someone go to a demoparty and not make friends? It's unimaginable, damn it! :]
I gotta admit that Godwin’s “law” and people seriously invoking it always made my stomach turn for some reason. I bet Musk was all Godwin’s law this Godwin’s law that. Now he’s siegheiling openly. Well whaddyaknow.
Sorry, back to the topic.
Sorry, back to the topic.