If we base it on forum topics and replies, I think you are on to something. If we base it on the stats the forum collects, we’re actually doing pretty good. We’re treading water. No obvious increases or decreases in daily active users, posts, or anonymous visitors. The real question is what it would take to get more opinions into the mix.
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because the forum users are only dir en grey and the gazette fans lmao
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I think a controversial release does spark more discussion than a solid one. Most people probably feel it’s a bit pointless to just write “yeah, it was good”. It either needs to be absolutely ground breaking, absolutely terrible or controversial… For example that first BLAZE song sparked a lot of discussion because people were really split if it was brillant or terrible.
And tbh … I personally prefer peoplenot having an opinion about everything instead of having an opinionfor the sake of having an opinion.
Oh and people love polls. So if we make a poll for every new release, we would most likely see much more engagement than we would in comments.
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I think it would be a mistake to try and measure something like this solely based on JRO. Looking at internet trends in general, there’s now a damn near endless array of options for fans to connect with one another - many of which consist of the usual social media culprits, private chats, secluded and/or exclusive servers, etc. So I think it would be a difficult to assessment to make, given that the fandom is so excessively fragmented between so many different outlets.
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I would say it’s bouncing back from how dead it was in the late 2010s. A combination of older fans coming back due to the pandemic, and K-pop fans who branched out to their first real alt scene in VK.
They’re there, just not necessarily here.
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Ftfy. The GazettE threads didn’t even comes close to dir en grey thread in terms of activity. I mean dir en grey threads remains active even when the band didn’t release anything.
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of course the fans are happy and hyped (it not a negative opinion). Thats good and the point is there is no other move instead of them. But i can say about here but on tiktok there is other public that loves the new bands.
while Plastic tree added 3 releases to streaming at 08/21
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Not everyone can be Plastic Tree, but they can try.
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That’s because the Dir en grey thread is the only artist thread that is used the intended way. I am very transparent in my splitting and merging of topics thanks to Discourse features that automatically link to the new topic, but I do that splitting and merging of topics on purpose. It makes it clear stuff is happening outside of the news threads. Ideally, more artist topics would be used for catch-all discussions, reviews would be used for reviews, and news would just be for breaking news. I just move stuff around to achieve that goal.
On a separate note, maybe I’d care about all the new bands if one of them could hook me. I don’t hear anything I like in modern visual kei and that’s not for lack of trying. The idol stuff is also not for me.
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1000% agreed and correct
Jiluka played here in NJ and BK the past year surprisingly it was PACKED OUT
Also admittingly, after I caught eye contact with a few rock looking gals - which surprised me being there - saw me clearly and said “Why are there normal people here….”
I feel like this scene is gate kept like a lot of japanese stuff could be totallllly wrong
also what about tiktok trending plastic tree recently? those outfit boys use their music
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Polls would be interesting
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Maybe it’s a good thing that bands don’t tell us how someone dies in excruciating detail.
I just finished reading the report behind Brent Hinds’ (ex-Mastodon) passing. And let’s just say I’m gonna need a smoke after that one. I would like to think of myself as a pretty resilient guy, but reading the details about one of my guitar heroes splayed out on the street like that is a tough thing to visualize. I don’t think reading it brought any sort of closure, just pain. And I do think that the original reporting of “hit by a BMW” was more than enough.
Perhaps we could meet in the middle on this? Give us enough of a reason to give us closure, but don’t feel the need to go into every detail if you don’t wanna? Bands used to do this. It’s just hard to walk side by side with someone on this musical journey and then to have them up and leave you with little to no explanation. I still think about Reita and Jasmine You sometimes…
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In our world especially I think most of it is the fallout of Hide’s death. The collective trauma and speculation caused by the extreme media coverage caused a big scar in everyone that was there. So for many generations of musicians, it’s inevitable that they remember what happened there and try to avoid it. Hence the situation with no explanations and max privacy we have today.
hide died in 1998. The first time I remember a musician dying and the information being withheld is Jasmine You in 2009. So I’m not sure hide’s death started having an effect 11 years later, but I’m open to being wrong.
Rather, I point the finger at Versailles. They broke the mold. You see, I remember a time when bands used to explain everything that happened. Someone got sick? You heard about it. Someone got into a car accident? You heard about it. Someone left the band? We got a reason for it. We used to joke that “musical differences” was code for going broke because bands would use it as a catch-all excuse for when they didn’t actually want to explain the drama.
And then Jasmine dies and Versailles is very secretive about it. No one pressed them about it (obviously) and then it became the new standard: don’t explain yourself ever. Now compared to back then, we barely (if ever) get a reason behind why someone departs a band. Unless the situation is so severe that a person cannot continue, we don’t find out about any illnesses they may be fighting. Now people die and bands would rather not talk about it at all, and in my mind there are often ways of communicating what happened that don’t betray a lot of information, but does give people closure.
It’s not that fans are owed an explanation, but one would be very nice sometimes. But to a point. I don’t need the Brent Hinds breakdown, just a short one or two sentences will do.
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Idk i like things the way they are - Yomi as an example cuz he doesn’t act secretive with his name; i’m interested in anything he performs, releases, or writes about, but i have complete disinterest in the personal details of Mr. Jun Chiba’s life. I just don’t need to know any of that, y’know?
Obviously this is broken in the case of ongoing material harm like the arlequin guys.
But for more personal things like the person who plays Sakito and the person who plays Hitsugi having or not having a falling out, i really don’t care to know. If Hitsugi and Sakito want to, as themselves, share whatever then sure, that’s their call of what they want to bring into public discourse, but otherwise if it’s not ongoing active harm i don’t care to hear it.
I like the guys whose job is doing music and making art to have control over how much privacy they afford themselves.
But then in cases like Reita’s and Jasmine’s, the person’s not there to say what is and isn’t okay to share. Maybe there’s nefarious reasons, but for me it’s a lot simpler to expect it’s something more like this: they didn’t get clear consent what their coworker/friend would have been okay with sharing, so they don’t take it upon themselves to guess and volunteer.
I’m completely guessing and have no basis for any of this so don’t take me any amount of serious, as per usual
I’m on the fence about this one. For one, it feels weird to not be given an explanation, but hide’s death resulted in multiple copycat suicides in the same week.
I saw a twitter user put herself in the hospital via self harm after the news about Reita broke. One minute she tweeted about not being able to live without Reita, then 3 hours later she posted a pic of herself in the hospital with bandages on her arm and said her husband convinced her to remain alive until the next live.
And Reita’s cause of death wasn’t even made public… Imagine if it was announced a suicide, there could be many more people like her. I guess i’d rather be kept in the dark.
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According his close friend and keeper of his sns (until nowadays), JY suffered a lot his last days. It’s okay not to share details (like exact details, decease, etc.), but it’s so weird when his close person is sharing so intimate information while band keep being silent…
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I agree that we don’t need explicit Details but that a simple cause of death would help a lot.
Tbh, if no cause is given I always assume drugs or suicide. Because that’s the two reasons seem less soacially acceptable. Especially after hide’s death… even if that wasn’t even declared suicide officially a lot of people concluded that from the bizarr curcumstances.
The question is how much closer would we get from knowing these causes anyway…
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