How do long-timers interpret these membership statistics?

[Keropi]

I remember one Beta member listed herself at 99 years old.

I think another one was listed at 67 or something like that. It was probably a made up age. Some of those forums that allow for three digit ages have members listed at hundreds of years old like Yoda.

[JWR]

I remember one Beta member listed herself at 99 years old.

I think another one was listed at 67 or something like that. It was probably a made up age. Some of those forums that allow for three digit ages have members listed at hundreds of years old like Yoda.

I know at least 1 person changes her birth year stats so it shows her age as 69

[duotrouble]

Through this forum, I have made some awesome friends, better friends than I have living close to me. That is the main reason I stick around.

Truer words have never been spoken. The main reason I come back is because this place is like home. I've made many lifelong friends through this website that I never imagined would ever happen from a forum. I may be in a stall for collecting now but I drop by once in a while to say hi. If I ever doubted the friendships I made here, I just have to look at the emails I received when I said I was quitting. I couldn't quit if I wanted to. There are many great people here and you know who you are.

Sure there was also competition b/c several ppl wanted the same cel or there were bidding wars amongst members, but normally it blew over and everyone was ok again. Except after awhile there were members that this didn't go over very well and the drama began, members quit and the membership changed.

This is a reason I know as a fact that several people left beta. There were some very heated discussions and personal feelings got hurt. A few members went off and formed their own forum, which several others then joined but still remained here as well.

Another beta member started a family and that changes everything. Yet another member and I both suffered deep losses in our personal lives so we both dropped out of sight for a period of time.

Tastes change but I think (and would be interested to see if the theory is correct) that we keep coming back because of the support we need for this kind of hobby. How many people 10 years ago could you tell you were into anime let alone cel collecting? Who understands why you dropped a grand on a piece of plastic? And why would you get so upset over losing an auction when there's got to be more out there you could buy? Only those collectors here seemed to know the answers to those questions.

[animeobsessed]

Tastes change but I think (and would be interested to see if the theory is correct) that we keep coming back because of the support we need for this kind of hobby. How many people 10 years ago could you tell you were into anime let alone cel collecting? Who understands why you dropped a grand on a piece of plastic? And why would you get so upset over losing an auction when there's got to be more out there you could buy? Only those collectors here seemed to know the answers to those questions.

I couldn't agree more. My coworkers and friends have no desire at all to watch it and find out. Believe me I have tried to share a series and it doesn't work. (Amazingly, some have kids that have watched anime, but they don't bother to see what their kids are watching.) My girls are the only ones outside of this forum that I relate to about anime or cel collecting. It great to come here where I don't have to explain anything...everyone already knows and has similar interests. That is a big part of why I stay a member.

[sensei]

When you see this emoticon, it means sensei is taking notes.

[star-phoenix]

My husband watched Anime and read mangas longer than I have and he does not seem very intrigued in my Anime collection (my Disney art, however is a totally different matter). When I asked him about his views on this, his response was this:

Looking down the road in 20 years, he believes that 90% of the Anime artwork (if not more), will lose its value because most of Anime never really made a historical impact like, for example, Disney's Snow White, with few exceptions being Evangelion, Myazaki, etc. So, his belief is most Anime will not be able to stand the test of time.

I also think a lot of the art collecting has significantly declined because of the worsening economy (and I am basing this factor solely on increasing unemployment rates).

So, my theory is economy and popularity/historical impact are two of the biggest factors that play roles in maintaining the value of artwork.

[iceman57]

My Husband [...] believes that 90% of the Anime artwork (if not more), will lose its value because most of Anime never really made a historical impact like, for example, Disney's Snow White, with few exceptions being Evangelion, Myazaki, etc. So, his belief is most Anime will not be able to stand the test of time.

By computing collected items and filtering the US predominant taste to have a more global overview (US drives the market, that's a fact, but consequently need to be corrected to have a vision of global demand).
There are already usable data that show 10 series as driving majority of global demand + some "local taste" variations.

I also think a lot of the art collecting has significantly declined because of the worsening economy (and I am basing this factor solely on increasing unemployment rates).

Rate of increase of cel community is 6 times lower than action figures community. The answer may not be consider as a ponctual financial crisis (that did not start in 2006, but 2008). The so called "access ticket" in marketing is 6 times more expensive for cel with $300 compare to $50 in action figures.

[star-phoenix]

Rate of increase of cel community is 6 times lower than action figures community. The answer may not be consider as a ponctual financial crisis (that did not start in 2006, but 2008). The so called "access ticket" in marketing is 6 times more expensive for cel with $300 compare to $50 in action figures.

Hey guys! Hopefully it is okay to post this. I was creeping around the net and found this unemployment chart for the US unemployment rates. It actually started increasing significantly in 2007 (according to this graph). The second chart shows the continued rates in the US until July 2010. I "heard" unemployment rates are starting to decrease now, but not sure how accurate that assessment is.



Source:
http://www.discusseconomics.com/macroec ... ed-states/



http://wwwwakeupamericans-spree.blogspo ... s-see.html

Anyway, this is why I believe there was a decline in collecting Anime art and a huge decline in the market (not to mention the CG age started 2002-2003-ish(?)). But, here is another interesting question. When lay-offs first started in 2006/2007, which groups were the first bunch to be laid off? Usually, the younger ones and post-college peeps. And according to Iceman's data for the general age of Beta members (those born 1980-1984 as being the peak), what were the age groups in Anime Beta in the 2006-2007 period? Answer ~21-26 years old, the post-college group. Interesting, no?

Iceman, I agree with you in relevance to the cel vs. action figure pricing. Cels are "generally" more expensive than action figures (with of course several exceptions).

[Deadly Whispers]

I remember reading a while back about how people communicate/argue online more easily due to not being able to see or even comprehend the person behind the text. In online communities I've been involved in, I've grown to see the people behind the posts and you tend to have a little more humility for it.

That's a major issue, and one I'm hoping to take a good look at. Cel collecting is competitive to the maximum degree, as each item is not just rare, but unique. And there is a fetish resonance around many of them, because they are not just unique but A1 END "That Scene" images. And so ownership of such an item includes ultimate power over that moment in that anime. One would expect cel collectors to battle for such a piece without considering their rivals' feelings in any way.

A virtual community of such collectors would seem to be a place fraught with drama and flamewars. You can, after all, verbally defame the cursed antagonist who sniped you for THAT CEL without fear of receiving any worse than irritated replies on a flat screen, which you can read or not depending on your caprice.

And yet it is not so. Interesting.

There was a time when Beta was fraught with drama and flamewars, as you so aptly put it. Members were discontent, we didn't have any real moderation, and we were becoming a second "Animanger" (as someone else once put it, years ago). It was awful. Even worse was when I decided to take control as the board admin and picked huge fights with loved members (Gabe and Wendy stand out the most to me - it hurt me horribly to hurt them); I did it in the name of stopping the flame-hate behavior because I saw us headed the same way Anime-Alpha went. My tactic actually worked, but I think at that time interest in Beta lagged. (Who wants to deal with gestapo-like admins??) I don't remember exactly when that was . . . 2003, maybe?

But then our members rallied. I've always seen this community as a good one, with good feelings and strong friendships. Beta pulled itself out of the hole and we've been relatively smooth ever since - not thanks to me, but thanks to the people here, who don't tolerate bad behavior.

And there were other instances of people getting hurt here and leaving. Many of our oldtimer friends left that way. The chatroom was a huge draw for people back in the day, and when it went away, those die-hards faded.

~ DW

[graymouser]

Okay, this is kind of off topic, but when did Cloud stop posting?

I agree that seeing the same questions repeated is often not as interesting, but it was always lot of fun to see Cloud randomly pop up and say something strange. It was also fun to see new people react to him. I remember when I first started I thought he was another collector with a weird sense of humor. I would be really confused by some of the public conversations he got involved with. He used to bring a bit of fun to the board. I realize his programming was not friendly to some of the site programming, but all this talk of past discussions made me think of him and his red dress.

[sensei]

Kinda what I was thinking. I was scanning some old threads and thought the randomness he/she/it brought to threads was part of the unique flavor of the forum. Based on a search, Cloud's last post was on February 16, 2010.

IIRC, there was some security issue involved in the programming language that made Cloud tick but also made the forum vulnerable to crashes.

[Keropi]

Say, did we even have a cel/sketch panel at Anime Expo last year?

Those cel panels were one of the things that kept my interest going early in my collecting days.

[theultimatebrucelee]

Based on a search, Cloud's last post was on February 16, 2010.

interesting, thats just a few weeks after I joined

[sensei]

Opened on April 13, 2002, Anime-Beta registered 54 members in the first month (eight of these remain active) and 175 in its first year (fifteen remain). According to records maintained on the Anime-Beta website, new registrations continued to come in at an average rate of about 170 a year during its first four years of existence, with 2006 marking the high point (198 new members). At that point, the rate of growth slowed markedly but stabilized at about fifty new joins per year through 2010, with the rate slowing noticeably in the last year.

I did a rough and ready series of snapshots of how many items were uploaded to Rubberslug during roughly the same period, and the results were interestingly parallel to the data I compiled for activity on Beta.

1. Active growth in numbers from 8/02 (when my figures start) to a period of peak activity in last 2005 and early 2006, when about 3892 new items were being uploaded per month (130 a day).

2. Slight decline in late 2006, followed by a stable period through 2009 when an average of about 3140 new items were added per month (105 a day).

3. More noticeable decline in 2010, with an average of 2045 items added per month (68 per day).

Two conclusions:

1. Beta's overall rate of activity seems to mirror that of the Western anime art collecting community at large rather than reflecting any factor that is unique to its membership.

2. Even if the rate of RS additions is about half of what it was at the time of peak activity, it's still a pretty robust number. It means that, on average, about three cels or sketches (or whatever) are being uploaded to that site every hour of every day, throughout the year.

Sensei goes over to see what got uploaded what he was composing this message...

[Golden Boy]

sensei, interesting topic.

fwiw, i'm currently the "elder statesman" of active Beta members at number 9. although, i think tabbykitty is a little more active at number 11 even though she's only 120 posts ahead of me. funny, that we're both under 1000 posts yet we've been on the forum for 9+ years.

my story: joined beta at the beginning. was pretty active until i took a sabbatical in 2004 sometime after i got married. stayed away from cel collecting for a year. got back into the hobby after getting several emails about selling my transformer g1 cels. well, i had to research what the fair market value was at the time. so i jumped back into beta and cel collecting. have been sorta active ever since. although most of my posts are either gripes (yen rate), sales (ebay free listing), birthday wishes (happy bday) and responding to interesting topics (current post).

oldtimer attrition: i think all the reasons stated by others make sense. the only other reason i could think of is what i call "collection fulfillment". back in the day, i met a lot of collectors who would say "once i get this, i'm done" and then would stop collecting. obviously they are a minority as most collectors i know are NEVER satisfied. but whether it was because of finances, supply, competition, etc. they were able to cap their collections.

gb

p.s. chat on beta was AWESOME...