I took this as a sign that, during finals week, I was meant to write 1200 words on weird musical anime videos.
Part of the beauty of the internet (for all its ugly features) is how its many oddities and curiosities can exist online and nowhere else, only venturing outside into the real world once they’ve been shared as a meme enough times. But what might be considered just a weird cyber trend in some circles may be a huge cultural phenomenon in others. Take Japanese game shows, for instance. Or, another transplant from Japan: anime music videos.
Oh, so like Gorillaz? Or that Daft Punk movie? Not exactly. Often referred to as AMVs, these videos that can be found all over YouTube are not “official” by any means. They aren’t made or commissioned by Japanese animation studios, nor are they promotional videos for the songs/artists featured in them. By their definition, AMVs are 100% fan-made. And yet, for some, they’ve ascended to the status of high art.
My frosh year I was an overachiever and wrote two Procrastination Destination posts. According to the intro blurb of the first, I was, apparently, stressed about a government paper, which I just dug out of my files and turns out to have been about measured optimism re: a peaceful world. Now I am a jaded pessimist who thinks we should get our kicks where we can, even if that happens to be a hastily put together archive of the Internet’s sad, tackily-web-designed past. This Procrastination Destination is truly just a list of bad html websites I have seen at some point, badly formatted, with no commentary and no organization. Good luck on finals, folks. May you come as far as the internet has.
