Yeah, penguin magic used to be popular. There would be a lot of people on the forums. Like Aj, Zach, Akirafist. Every day. And Drew.
I got a shoouuutout, I got a shooouuttout! Whoo! Yeah, the forums over there have died down drastically, even since when I joined a year ago. I remember even just back last December when I joined, there were a ton of members constantly on and contributing, and just having fun. There's a new "flood" of Penguins coming in, and I'm not sure if I like them or not. Guess people felt the same way about me when I first joined.
But yeah, just of the top of my head, these are people that are "dead" to Penguin:
-Krayik
-Zackarias
-Zachmonky (kinda sorta)
-Akirafist
-JamesJay
-Rob_Taylor
-PJH_Marine (you?)
-therealsuperman13
-fallingblood (still on a little bit)
-flight4 (nobody misses him, though)
Wow, that's quite a long list of people that have left, just that I remember. I'm sure there were a lot more. Penguin has really decreased in popularity; time to go cry! Frijid is back though, so that makes the world a happier place.
But about the whole flourishing thing: I think it's cool, sometimes fun to watch, but the cold hard truth is: it's masturbation with cards. Yes, I just said that word. What I mean by this is that it seems people only do it to please themselves or to impress other people. I feel it originally evolved from magic, which has been, is, and always will be, learned to
entertain people. Not impress other people or please ourselves. Well, ok, it does please me, but my main goal is to entertain.
I feel that flourishing is pointless, and although I was just recently intrigued by it, wanted to learn it, and tried hard, I gave up. It wasn't too hard, it's just that my true passion is magic, which I feel has a point to it, unlike flourishing.
When this site first "aired", I was all excited. A place where I could get awesome magic, learn from pros, talk with pros on the forums, but recently I've been a bit disappointed. The forums are great, but IMO, the Media Section blows. I would love to see more magic. It seems as if 90% of the videos accepted these days are flourishing, which I thought, was not what this site was originally about.
I have yet to see a magic contest here (one sponsored by theory11); I've only seen flourishing ones. If there has been an actual magic contest, I do apologize; I never saw it. It would be nice to see some magic contests; maybe even one for a Saturday Night Contest.
But anyways, back to the Media Section. I have submitted two videos to it, both of which apparently were rejected. My Schwing video, which Chris Kenner himself said was great (not trying to brag, just makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside), was never put up, and I filmed and submitted it way back in like... November. Should it have been rejected? Maybe, maybe not.
My second video I submitted about 3 days ago, and was my video of "Reset With a Hook". I have received some very positive comments on it, both on forums and in private, and although it definitely is not the best of videos, I thought it was pretty good, plus it had awesome music, so I thought it deserved to be in there, but hey, it's not up to me to decide! By the way, if you want to see that video, check out the Card Magic forum.
But one thing I don't want to see is my videos accepted now that I have complained publicly. I perfectly understand if they rejected it; they obviously didn't meet the requirements, and I'm fine with that; I just think there should be more magic videos, and considering both of mine were rejected, I'm sure there are dozens more that could have been posted and made people proud, but instead there are a bunch of flourishing videos. One that stood out to me in particular was the guy on the webcam doing a "tribute". I couldn't see anything, and it just looked like a bunch of blurs. Didn't really entertain me much.
So theory11, I may have gotten a little off topic, but please, let's get some more magic videos up! Flourishing videos, when made correctly (which is rare, IMO) are ok to watch, but I feel that magic keeps us more entertained, and will attract a broader range of "viewers"
I know many people here will disagree with me, I'll probably get bashed, but those are just my feelings towards flourishing, Penguin, and the Media Section.