Badskater

This is a repost from Formula’s website with the approval of Merines himself.
We, in Ryugan, greatly approve what he said in that post, so we’re reposting it.
 

As anyone who’s read our blog long enough (or far back enough), I (Merines) am a person. I try not to come across as some high-and-mighty provider. I reply with words and emotions that are what I actually feel. I don’t intentionally “troll” anyone, though we’ve been accused of it in the distant past, mostly because of our infamously sporadic speed-of-release.

But increasingly in the past couple years, more and more fansubbers don’t portray themselves as people. They are characters, a secondary net personality put through a heavy interweb filter of sarcasm, passive aggressiveness and superiority that insists upon itself. Some easy-to-point-out groups would be Menclave and gg, back when it was in its “prime” (i.e. Geass S2~Bakemono). Release posts are often irrelevant or trying too hard to be funny. Viewers not using the recommended tools (i.e. MPC+CCCP) were cruelly taken advantage of by exploiting errors in other software. Groups would seemingly spend hours upon hours thinking of “new” and “funny” ways to annoy perfect strangers.

Who does this? Sure, one user might take credit for the original idea, and another might take credit for the implementation, but who really “trolls” fansub watchers? Characters, roles that these fansubbers choose to play online to fulfill something they lack outside of the internet. Sometimes not even that–sometimes as the group as a whole (see: Anonymous).

I once was an angrier fansubber, back when Formula worked on more popular shows (or just more shows ). People demanded more of us than we could provide, given that we’ve always been lenient on our translators when it came to real life timesinks. I remember when the first ordered chapters episode of Shugo Chara was upcoming and I would F5 /a/ and wait, not for the first feedback, but for the “shit to hit the fan.” And it did. Or when another group would randomly pick it up for a few episodes when we lagged a bit–especially when we would release right after them. I even saved one of those threads. I even posted anonymously trying to defend us. I was very angry because nothing is good enough for 4channers.

Then I realized I don’t have to care. We do good work. Not great, but better than most. Also I quit 4chan, so that helped a lot, heh. Is our group boring and drama free? Yes. Do lots of people line up to download our releases? No.

 
Formula is a group respected by our members, so go on their blog as well, they are nice as well. Formula’s blog