The Foundation - by Dipswitch/Black Maiden
Publication: Pain 12/04 (2004)

There is one topic on which ever scener is to a certain grade schizophrenic: The notorious death of scene. At least as long as the scene exists, it's something that belongs to every scener's repertoire of utterances - to say that "it's not what it used to be", "the spirit is gone", "where's the friendship" etc., all of which can reduced to "the scene is dead or at least short before extinction". Well, nostalgia is a part of all cultures (even though I wouldn't share the pessimism of "nostalgia is the end stadium of every civilization"), and after all sum, ergo [scena] est, which could also be taken for the fact that I wouldn't sit here and write these lines if anything of the yesterdayish moanings was true.

So, scene is apparently not more dead than anything that is alive - but why? Now that's a legitimate question. On whose shoulders does our neat little subculture rest? Okay, the equalifyers amongst us might say: On everyone's. Everyone is same important. We all carry it on. Well, nice thought, but it just makes a tricky question appear simple while it's not. Seriously, just go through all those scene occupations you can think of in your mind and erase them out from the scene landscape - what would be different?

Let's not spare us, the diskmag editors - take us away and the communication inside the scene still wouldn't interrupt. We don't cause communication, we just catalyze it. Party organizers? They seem to be irreplacable, but - why? When people will continue to work together on stuff, they will always have the urge to meet, and they WILL manage to meet. Webpage maintainers, ascii artists, "leaders", swappers, professional scene boozeheads - to make it short, none of them are vital to the scene. But try to take away coders, graphicians and musicians - and party organizers will have to succumb to gamers, diskmag editors won't have anything to write about, and so on.

The production of demos and intros is the primary vital factor of the scene, just as industry and agriculture are the vital force of a society. Culture makes the society grow and develop in some way - but culture doesn't get a chance to exist when the primary needs of the inhabitants are not fulfilled. We as the authors, PR managers, poets, establishment maintainers etc. of the scene, we might think that we hold the scene upon our shoulders. What a misapprehension! We might give the scene a face, but we are not the body. We should never forget whom we must thank for the existence of the scene as such - the scene's "working class", those who who create what we can write about, organize competitions for, etc. etc.

This is a call for everyone (including myself) who think they are important because they write/organize/spread/collect. No, you're not. Or sure, in a way you are, but you would be NOTHING in a scene without coders/musicians/graphicians, because then there would be no (demo)scene at all. It doesn't mean that everyone who can't code/paint/compose is worthless. If you have a hang and a clue for scene, but no scene-relevant talent except for, as example, writing, then you can serve the scene very well as editor. And if you can't code shit, but have an extraordinaty talent for bringing people together, organizing and talking to sponsors, then you're a born event organizer and can get well-earned scene fame. It's just a call for everyone to be conscious about those who REALLY form the foundation of the scene.

Support the activism in scene by deed, not only by word! Pay maximum respect to those who are active by creating demoscene products! Condemn scene parasitism, inactivity is NO state of elite!