shiroihana

Man this whole corona stuff is wild. I'm still taken aback by how much it's changed our culture, and how abrupt it all happened. Yesterday I went shopping at a Japanese marketplace and suddenly found myself encumbered by a very long line of people waiting to enter the store. We had to spend almost an hour on line to enter the store as they were admitting a small handful of people at once. Of course, no one was actually social distancing. I had to travel to a different store real quick to use a restroom to which I could only be admitted if it was an emergency. I answered yes and he allowed me in, gave me hand sanitizer, and told not to touch anything or something. I appreciate these safety protocols, but as a person generally fascinated by society and culture I was pretty intrigued by how suddenly this societal shift has happened. Feels like I'm in the midst of a some apocalyptic dystopian scifi movie scenario and it's absolutely fascinating, yet weird as hell and terrifying. And I remember before this all happened, one particular friend of mine had followed the story in china since its inception and during that period it didn't even enter my mind that the virus would escalate into the pandemic that it is today which would significantly alter everyone's lives. My friend knew since the very beginning that it would, and he was right. Sometimes you can be so used to seeing other people drastically exaggerate things — which is in part why I think so many people took this for granted. But this isn't just some ephemeral mishap that'll be easy to forget in a decade from now. This is a very sudden global catastrophe with far reaching consequences that hardly any of us anticipated. It's also a good example of how being paranoid rather than being overtly optimistic is sometimes the better option. Also some food for thought. A very significant chunk of people taking surveys have said they either wouldn't plan to get a corona vaccine, or declined to state. In some polls, this number reaches about half. I think that's terrifying. https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/06/just-50-americans-plan-get-covid-19-vaccine-here-s-how-win-over-rest

Oh man CAT5 and chem discussed a topic that's very relevant to me. Despite being a mixed race black guy myself I remember falling down the stupid reactionary rabbit hole back during my teenage and early adult years. These were the days where the skeptic reactionary community proliferated on Youtube and such, to such an extent that these sentiments basically dominated the platform. Videos bashing feminism, black lives matter, mixed market capitalism, and pro LGBTQ content would receive around 95-100% approval ratios from the community, inundated by circlejerk reactions, where lefties often fell prone to being too timid and afraid to express their voices, and high quality lefty content would be heavily censured and bashed simultaneously by the community. I was involved in it, to an extent, and while I was still fairly open minded compared to many of my younger reactionary companions (this is how I managed to get out of that shit) I was definitely one of those typical reactionary centrist types you'd see on Youtube , debating with people in comments sections, often to the extent of seeing views heavily backed and supported by spectators, while the 'social justice warrior' types would receive the short end of the stick due to the disproportionate ratio of reactionaries to lefties that persists within the social political Youtube sphere. Seeing my views validated only encouraged me to continue engaging with people. I even uploaded a few videos here and there, and had even engaged with Lauren Southern several times (before she exploded in popularity). I could easily see why so many Youtubers became grifters. While I certainly did believe that racism was a valid issue in the united states, even during that time, I still failed to see the extent to which it persisted, despite bein a brown person myself. At my worst, which thankfully didn't last too long, I believed that black people were disproportionately targeted by cops because they simply committed far more crime. But eventually I realized some of the nuances involved. You cannot make excuses for racial profiling, because racial profiling is fundamentally wrong. It's not something you can so easily justify and it's a dangerous belief to have. This can lead to innocent people being persecuted, and even beaten or killed. Unarmed black people are murdered at a rate much higher than unarmed white people. There are also better ways to handle criminality. Rehabilitation, investing in social programs, infrastructure, etc. This may sound incredibly dumb but there is some truth to it - But I also believe that one of the reasons so many people 'swallow the red pill' is because they're young and somewhat rebellious kids who feel suppressed by a left leaning society. I say this because I felt that way, and I knew others who felt that way. When you feel like you're not allowed to express or believe certain things because it'll 'trigger' others, and you see the way that people flip the fuck out as they hastily label you as prejudiced for expressing your views, whether ignorant or not. This is harmful. You can't teach someone the proper way simply by calling them names and refusing debate. This is part of what shaped my views as a 19 year old. There are better ways to open someone up to more healthy and utilitarian views. I could have benefited from that.

Welcome person I totally don't know 🐸

This might seem strange but I probably walk for about 5 hours per day on average right now (no job) while listening to videos and music with my bluetooth wireless noise cancelling headphones. I'm trying to learn some songs so I can do vocal covers so I spend a lot of time listening to music to get a feel for how to sing the lyrics, because otherwise it takes me forever to learn them. I really don't like sitting because it makes me feel incredibly unproductive, unless I'm in class, at work or something, but even then I hate it and might fidget in my seat. I know that's pretty unusual though. I want to get into more physical activities such as weight lifting but I really need to find the motivation to do it. It's definitely worth it, and I commend anyone here who's able to find the inspiration to stick to arduous regimens like that, so hopefully I'll be able to get there myself.

Apologies for the necrobumps (if it bothers anyone?) I have a couple of conditions, although the ironic thing to me is I didn't consider any of these as pertinent to this thread until suddenly. I have asperger's syndrome, which I don't honestly consider a disability, but more an abnormality. The reason I say this is because most of the negative characteristics associated with asperger's can be overcome with training, and many neurotypical may not be aware to the full extent of it, and might succumb to the tendency of believing that autistic people are cognitively capable than neurotypical people which annoys me lol I have tinnitus, from listening to so much damn vk and metal/rock music at loud volume. I've always preferred my music loud because it's more euphoric for me. I get incredibly amped up by music and I feel like at a young age I should have gotten myself involved with bands. Sappy ballads also break me, and I often cry when I listen to them because of how emotionally involved I am with music. I listen to ballads at a loud volume too, but rock and metal typically at 100db easily, and I'll listen for many hours a day. Music is absolutely my biggest drug. I also have a rare condition called cholinergic urticaria which causes me to 'break out' in hives when my body temperature rises from energy exertion (think sweating as an example). This one annoys me, because if I go a few days without exercise (I don't lol) the histamine levels in my body build up to where if I exert energy the hives will be incredibly uncomfortable, and can feel like I'm being stung by a bunch of bees for around 5 minutes straight. It's not fun at all, so I exercise every day in part to keep that from being an issue.

Visual kei aesthetics are so deep that it's both a visual and written (verbal) phenomenon. Do edgy names count? There was a visual kei band called 'Nazis' and one of their members is the vocalist of umbrella, a pretty good recent VK band.

People seem to care a lot about bitrate. When I first joined this server the bitrate of releases was a central concern for people. I both did and didn't understand it. I can understand the concern for high quality audio if you prize high quality audio for novelty reasons. However in my mind, high quality sound is actually less convenient because of size, and if you're like me and you're obsessed with music, this can easily equate to many gigs of music, which ain't nice when your listening device is restricted by total GB. In my mind, bitrate is an extremely trivial matter to be worked up about, as it hardly makes a difference in terms of sound quality depending on the bitrates compared. As someone who owns a Hifiman-400 set, along with an ODAC 02, I feel I have both empirical evidence as well as data to back this up. 128 KBPS doesn't sound very different from lossless unless you have a really good ear. I could hear slight differences if I pay close enough attention, but for casual listening the difference feels negligible. Even with a powerful setup, an untrained ear will rarely be able to effectively make out the differences between 192 KBPS and 320 KBPS or lossless audio, which has been confirmed by studies. Furthermore, if you're listening to your music with a pair of apple earbuds rather than high end equipment, noticing this difference would be even more challenging. It's called the placebo effect, and it's very real. Personally, I feel that CD rips are generally high enough quality to suffice, unless they're being ripped below 128kbps. It's Youtube rips and sometimes transcodes that ruin a music file for me. Generally speaking, the production quality makes a significantly greater difference in sound quality. Do you value bitrate? If so, why? Are you an audiophile who believes that the quality difference is significant? Do you just care about quality regardless of whether or not you can make out the difference? Do you think I'm wrong about anything I've stated above? Or do you agree that people make too big a deal out of bitrate? I have no idea if I'm going to get criticized for this thread or what but I just wanted to share some thoughts.

There was an oshare? band called 夢色♪FU☆SHI★GI☆団＠CArroT. The drummer of Gaara (pretty good band imo) was their vocalist. Needless to say their sound was as frighteningly terrible as their name would evoke.

I know that this sounds whiny to some, but life sometimes terrifies me. The thought of growing old and slowly decaying, and there's nothing that can really be done about it. The thought of being nearly immobile in old age, due to the natural atrophy that occurs as one grows older and loses more and more of their muscle tone. The thought of experience cognitive decline, vision loss, hearing loss, and other forms of degenerative impaired function which occurs naturally as one grows older. It appears in order to cope with this insidious bodily decline, people are tasked to find life fulfillment, eudaimonia, self actualization etc. Many find this fulfillment by raising children and establishing families, which isn't easy for everyone. Aging sucks. I first joined this forum in 2011 during the tail-end of TW, you can guess that I'm now reaching my late 20s. I feel the same way I did 10 years ago. The only thing that's changed is I've become slightly more well rounded in general knowledge. All of my friends from a decade ago whom I've kept contact with haven't changed either, it would appear people's personalities typically cultivate around their mid teens and from there on it's only a matter of learning and experiencing. My point here is that aging sucks and there's little good about it unless you're capable of constantly improving yourself, but that's difficult when you struggle with motivation. I know that we are all capable of overcoming all of these hurdles if we stop making excuses and allow ourselves to. We limit our potential because we limit ourselves.

Apologies for the necro bump, but I found this thread on google randomly while trying to find the band "Cannabis", which wasn't mentioned anywhere in this thread. Cannabis is literally the most 'nu metal' sounding visual kei band I have ever heard, and I will post two of their songs below to give an example of what I'm talking about. Apparently the guitarist would later go to 6 ft down, which is kinda cool I guess. lol

I'm sure many of you older VK fans have also noticed this, unless I'm imagining things, but I don't think I am. What I noticed is that the indie bands of the current VK era are playing at a level that they didn't about a decade ago, and I mean in terms of sheer skill. Bands of the present day are blowing bands from about 10 years ago completely out of the water by this metric. They are playing faster, heavier, and more complex riffs. Vocalists have become much more polished singers, and the ability to growl has become much more common in a vocalist's skillset, whereas 10 years ago there weren't many decent growlers in the indies scene, and most of those who were, still didn't perform at the level of guys from bands like Deviloof, Nocturnal Bloodlust, DIMLIM, DEXCORE, D.I.D, etc. I'm wondering if anyone has noticed this, and what the reason may be? Has the VK scene just gotten much more competitive? Are all the average bands simply not being noticed? What's causing this massive skill increase? Another thing I've noticed is that band members don't have zillions of past bands in their resume anymore. It's as if they've reached a high level much more quickly than they used to. Back about a decade ago, the best musicians would usually work their way up to reach a high skill level, having played for years in previous bands before finally reaching a more major status, and continue to improve from there. Nowadays, it's very common for musicians with little to no known band history to play at the level of those with years of history behind them. So I'm just curious to know what you all think, but I'm sorry if this has been brought up before. I have no doubt that this has been on people's minds, especially jaded fans who have been involved for a decade or longer, and have noticed several shifts in the scene within the current era. Lastly, I don't think the skill increase is a bad thing, although I did enjoy the slower, simpler sound that bands used to have. It wasn't as impressive, but the tunes were fun. I don't think bands with my favorite type of sound will ever emerge again, but it doesn't bother me. I still have those bands, and they still exist as a part of history, with music that can still be obtained. Everyone has different taste and I'm happy w/ the scene. Here's a random song I just dug up to show off my taste, just for the fun of it.

So I've been watching La:Sadie's videos on Youtube, and I couldn't help but notice all of the KISAKI vs Toshiya comments. Many people over there really do not like KISAKI and the two bassists are often compared (obviously in Toshiya's favor). I chose to write this thread because I was genuinely curious whom the community feels is a better bassist over a medium where I could more hopefully gauge productive conversation. We all know that KISAKI is a shit person, and that's not what I'm aiming to talk about in this thread. I'm simply curious to know which La:Sadie's/Dir En Grey member is better on a technical and creative level, or any other relevant metric to discern proficiency. Now first of all, KISAKI has been a professional bassist since the early 90s, and has played bass consistently. I believe he is quite good on a compositional level, I've always enjoyed his style of visual kei. I think he is a good example of what you look for in a visual kei bassist, loud and harmonic playing. He plays the bass like a bass, not like an electric guitar, and he wants you to hear him. Toshiya plays a completely different style of music - although I have to to admit, I haven't really listened to much of Dir En Grey's recent stuff so I can't offer much of my own opinion on Toshiya's playing, but I hear he's gotten real good over the years (which of course makes sense, given that he's been playing bass for such a prominent band for over two decades now). KISAKI on the other hand probably hasn't dramatically improved in quite a while.

Hey guys! It's been quite a while since I posted here, and I hope people hear me out and read this whole thread. First I'll introduce myself, I'm known by some people here as Yasu, and I was a moderator quite some time ago, briefly, by the name of Yasupon. I wouldn't say I was the best moderator of all time, but I left a mark on the community during the time I was around due to my activity within the social aspect of the site (mostly within the minichat, last.fm, and tt.fm areas). I was probably well known for having written comments on every indie band on last.fm, but yeah enough about me. So as you all know, the visual kei scene is extremely niche; I can personally say that I've never met a single visual kei fan irl by pure chance. The reason I joined this forum many years ago on my former account was because I wanted to meet other visual kei fans, because of course, meeting them in person is almost impossible. I really enjoyed this forum, and for a while I was a minichat regular, as that was the best social outlet for me to make friends and express myself as a part of this community. We had many regulars whom would use the minichat actively, including myself, Biopanda, Haunted Jealousy, Senedjem, Zesshoku, CAT5, Furik, and plenty of others. So somewhere around 2013, drama struck me, and I left this community while I still held a moderator position. It was honestly ridiculous, and I don't want to talk about it because it was truly quite silly, but I left without a word (what an immature teen I was), and two years later I returned to see that the minichat was no longer what it had used to be. The minichat was barren, and it wasn't as active as before. Soon afterward, I discovered that MH actually had its own discord server, which had been started by OriginalSaku (whom I believe is still a moderator here?), however that discord group wasn't promoted very actively, and ultimately went inactive. I am writing this thread because one of my biggest passions in life is to make friends with other visual kei fans, and with the minichat being inactive for quite some time now, the discord group not really being a paramount cornerstone for the community, and no other discord groups filling the void that I sought after, I took it in my own hands to create what I had been so desperately looking for, so I did. I run a server which is currently called "J-Music Community" which is focused primarily on two things: visual kei, and social interaction. Our goal is to bring people together to discuss the music, and just have fun together. We have custom roles, custom colors, voice channels, a j-music and general radio, and many 'channels' for members to use as a means to discuss various topics of interest, and I would be extremely honored to have members of this community to join, and try us out. Our members are friendly, and most are quite mature. We currently have 175 members, and most of them joined only within the past week alone. I have been advertising very passionately all over the internet because that's how much I care about bringing visual kei fans together. If anyone would be willing to at least give us a shot, I'll supply the link right here: https://discordapp.com/invite/wE56xDx If this thread is considered advertising, then of course, I apologize. I intend to create conversation, so this is not solely about driving traffic to the server. A dialogue concerning visual kei fans and unifying them is the premise of this thread as well, because it appears that we're a very niche group, yet we're quite divided from my perspective, and it saddens me a bit. Last.fm has died down over the years, and other community websites dedicated to VK I feel have died down as well, so my goal has been to basically attempt to change that single-handedly to revolutionize things a bit.