paradoxal

have an extract from my snapchat story from a couple of days ago feat eye makeup > <

Selfie with XAA-XAA's Roji at their oneman on Wednesday.
We did better this time at the taking a picture together thing.
I should note that I pulled atari cheki so this was my ~prize~

Been ages since I last posted here (not exactly the self-pic taking type xD)... got a new shirt, yay~
 

The way sexy men take photos lmao
 

I'd do it.....
but it probably won't look anything like this

This question comes up again and again like there's going to be some new revelation that's going to change everyone's opinion. There is no new revelation. File sharing and the culture surrounding it has not fundamentally changed. File sharing continues to have its positives and negatives. In our little sphere of the world, there are markedly more positives than negatives when it comes to piracy. This is literally the only reason why this site is still active.

First off, there are not that many sites in the upper crust of J-music piracy. This site is one of them. J-MP3 and jpopsuki are the only other two I can think of. The rest of the piracy scene (in Japan) is hosted on private servers or over a distributed, decentralized network like soulseek which means it's monetarily intractable for record companies to track and shut these operations down. If these record companies really wanted to get serious about stopping piracy, we're the first or second place they're likely to find. And just because this website is in English doesn't mean these companies and these bands don't know about us. They most definitely do. I can think of at least two or three times where a band has either shouted us out or linked to an article on this site. I'm also pretty sure YOHIO stalks this website and that NOCTURNAL BLOODLUST's passive-aggressive "no piracy" comments are really aimed at us.
 
Now you see, there are reasons why I think they let us be. The most important is that our primary language is English. Trombe singlehandedly does all the promotion for the entire visual kei scene for the entire world and then some on the side for other scenes. The record companies would be absolute fools to stop that flow of information. They may not aim to capitalize on it but it's free exposure that they need to do nothing to maintain. And in the off chance that a band in Japan does make it internationally, we know about the news almost instantly. Because of this, they need to do the bare minimum advertising to reach us. That's actually saving them money in the long run.
 
Next, the entire international community for visual kei is in one place. Separated and disparate, we would not be able to organize effectively. But since MH serves as a meeting place for all of us, we can organize ourselves into "street teams" and ask bands to tour internationally. The amount of j-bands alone that have toured in Europe over the last ten years (2010~2015) is more than the amount of j-bands that have toured Europe in the five years (2005~2010) before that. To me, that's proof that we're partially responsible for this increase. I think we're so responsible that you can gauge international interest in a band by checking how popular they are here. Our silly posts are an invaluable resource of information for these record companies. The bands that get the most hype here tend to keep an eye on promoting themselves internationally, if y'all also haven't noticed. For example, I'm pretty sure KAMIJO wouldn't have organized a US tour if we didn't hype his album throughout all of 2014.
 
At the end of the day, piracy is a matter of perspective. Piracy is also symbiotic. It is great when it gives more to a band than it takes. But when it starts taking more than it gives, bands and record companies suddenly start expecting more. Half of these Japanese bands that complain about piracy need to remember that the alternative to piracy is no piracy, and no piracy means no exposure, no international tours, no leverage points for signing a major contract, and most importantly no money. The average person won't buy music from a band they don't know about, doubly so if this band speaks in a foreign language. This isn't whitewashing; this is fact.
 
Perhaps I can demonstrate this fact in real life by suggesting everyone not download the next NOCTURNAL BLOODLUST single and await the band's reactions to our non-reactions to their new single?
 
Or perhaps I can even prove this point by asking another question: if I were to shut down the forum permanently right now, what would be the next most efficient way for indie visual kei bands to reach out to us? Where would a fan go to get news? Where could you sample music from a five year old Japanese rock band?
 
The answer is nowhere.
 

Damn, that's a pretty nice MV spot

Why I haven't seen the preview?? It sounds so awesome. Yes, I'm buying this too.

let me try to revive this thread XD
so.. the preview for their new single has been out for a while:


any thoughts? anyone else planning to buy?

That's by far one of the most common defenses for sharing. The reasoning goes along the lines of: 1) sharing is bad; 2) however sharing has some good consequences; 3) therefore, on balance, sharing is ok insofar as the good consequences outweigh the 'wrongness' of the act.
I can't agree with this argument because it falsely casts sharing as the precondition for people to find out about new bands and presumably become interested in buying CDs. Some users say that well yeah it's 2015, so filesharing is inevitable (which is true, although its inevitability has no bearing on whether it's the right thing to do). What these people also fail to point out is that precisely because it's 2015, the ease with which a band can advertize themselves and raise awareness of their music, and the extent to which this has already been done, is unprecedented. On the consumer end, it used to be the case that the only way to get to know a band is to rely on word of mouth, rent CDs from Tsutaya (or your friend), or low-quality illegal rips on the Internet. Fast-forward to 2015 where there's Youtube and Twitter and Facebook. Most bands today upload previews for their releases way before they go on sale, and some even upload the full title track and PV in 1080p. Like Owl mentioned there's even Trombe's news for all of us who don't know Japanese or are too lazy to scour Twitter. It's ridiculous to think people who still buy CDs make purchases by randomly taking a stab the dark and find new favorites by buying arbitrary releases from new indies bands they haven't heard. So the more pertinent question for me is: are these materials not sufficient for one to make informed judgments whether a CD is worth buying? If they are, then it's untrue that without filesharing the vk band will fail to gain appreciable reach to international audiences. The alleged "good consequences" credited to filesharing can now be achieved through numerous other means. If no, then said person probably won't buy the release even if someone shares a rip with him/her--in which case this entire position collapses into a poor excuse for not paying for a commodity one desires. It's surprising how some people cheerfully ignore the potential of these social media avenues for supplanting piracy as convenient (and hopefully morally more acceptable) ways to know about a band, but are always more than happy to adduce their emergence as rather dubious 'evidence' of how piracy is now ok "because it's 2015."
I also have issues with the third premise because the problem of magnitude is tricky. It draws all our attention to the miniscule gain in sales the band enjoys from the handful of people who, apparently, couldn't make up their minds whether to buy their CD after watching the band's youtube preview and had to listen to the FLAC to make their final decision--and sweeps under the rug all the losses in sales that band suffers as a consequence of this. Even if we grant that not everyone who downloads free music would have bought the music had it not been available for download, it isn't difficult at all to weigh the scales; for if it's indeed the case that piracy benefits the band in the purported way, we'll have to seriously wonder why bands bitch about illegal downloads every few days. As such it's probably less appropriate to think of the inadvertent losses incurred as some kind of 'collateral damage' that accompanies the larger good of getting international fans to buy music, than it is to conceive of the small gains in the latter group as being incidental to the harm piracy inflicts on overall band sales.
Anyway, before I'm accused of being hypocritical: obviously I'm one of those who download sometimes since I can't afford to buy every single CD I want to listen to (nor can I find all of them), and I've have been complicit in sharing a fair bit of my music. Honestly I don't think the situation now is ideal because there are a lot of things vk bands (and the industry in general) can do and should be considering to mitigate the problem. So there's still work to be done. All I'm just saying here is that I'm not convinced by the usual self-righteous rhetoric that attempts to justify unregulated filesharing, and hopefully fans can endeavor to do a little more to support their favorite bands.
Tl;dr: The pseudo-utilitarian argument of 'small harm is justified because of bigger good' fails because (1) the good can be brought about, or at least reasonably approximated, via other less damaging ways today; (2) it's highly suspect if the harm is in fact smaller than supposed good.

should have made a pv for liar with twerking

Welcome to round 1 of our Karaoke Contest 2015! Please check out the entries and pick your favourite!
 
You should vote purely based on vocal skills, not the choice of song, recording quality etc.
 
The order of songs here is the order in which I received them. Of our 9 contestants, the first 5 will advance to the next round. If one or more tracks are tied for fifth place at the end of the voting, there will be a tie-breaker vote. The vote will close Wednesday 24th at 11 pm (CEST).
 
 
Ma Junior
東京ヒーローズ (Tokyo Heroes) - 冬唄 (Fuyuuta)

 
BLAME
D'espairsRay - MAZE

 
Dayu
lynch. - ecdysis.

 
Jinki
D - Dearest You

 
Jadey Rage
Idina Menzel - Let it Go

 
XiL
DEAD END - Serafine

 
NL
Phantom of the Opera (Japanese version)

 
IfYoureaCutegirlPlsLikemyvoice
Plain White T's - Hey There Delilah

 
Nori
2PM - Take off

 
 
 
And, as a reminder:
 
Please do NOT ask your friends on social media etc. to vote for your song, or advertise your entry here! One of the reasons we use pseudonyms is to avoid friend voting! This contest is about your vocal talents, not mobilizing people on Facebook! If we notice that someone is trying to rig the voting by asking for votes, that person will be banned from the contest!

Moderator Message:

Moved this to the Art Showcase.

Wow @Original Saku, your GPU looks awesome as fuck.

I am really against people changing their usernames. Usually when people change them two times I already get confused who they are.
 
I WILL CALL YOU BENI FOREVER, NO MATTER WHAT.

I am really against people changing their usernames. Usually when people change them two times I already get confused who they are.
 
I WILL CALL YOU BENI FOREVER, NO MATTER WHAT.

I am really against people changing their usernames. Usually when people change them two times I already get confused who they are.
 
I WILL CALL YOU BENI FOREVER, NO MATTER WHAT.

Hello,
I discovered this online store http://v-keicollectors.ocnk.net/ and I wanted to know if some of you have ever ordered from this website?
They sell some cool stuff but I want to make sure it's not a scam before buying from them.
 
Thanks in advance

Just got this bad boy in the mail
 

 

 
I was a amd guy but with the release of the 900 series I seriously was having a hard time staying faithful and then to find out that the 300 series was pretty much a rebrand from amd, that really was the last straw and I couldn't stop myself from making the switch although the fury and fury x are totally new cards they are way to pricey for my budget xD
 
I'll post more pictures later after I get this monster into my system

look at these nerds

Amazing moment when me and Pretzy have been butt buddies since Dir en grey's debut.
 
We make love while explaining their music every night (I say we go at it to Uroko tonight, bro).
 
Been hip to dat Unraveling ass before Tinder.
 
Beat ya 2 the punch

9 Quality Time
7 Acts of Service
7 Physical Touch
7 Words of Affirmation
0 Receiving Gifts
 
Yeah, I don't really need any gifts... XD I love spending time with my fiancé, even if it's just something completely normal - like cooking or folding the laundry together. I also love hugging and kissing, and of course it's nice to hear him say how much he appreciates me. Also as we live together, it's nice when he does a task for me, like does the dishes while I clean something else. There's no better way to show your love than do the dishes