Sofa Sceners - scening from home. Magic of Nah Kolor brakes a lance for the silent majority.
Sofa Sceners – Scening from home
Written by Magic of Nah-Kolor
A little over 9 years ago I founded the facebook page „Sofa Sceners“ the concept behind is was to have posts of upcoming parties with a livestream and information and videos about there best releases. With the pandemic in our lives the last 2 years a lot of parties were organized as online only events. The facebook page grew a lot with many more sceners as member. And much postings. But what is a sofa Scener exactly?
Sofa Sceners are there in all kinds of variations… The most extreme form is a scener who is actively participating on the scene but (almost) never visits a party. There could be several reasons for this. Take for example Mop of Essence and ROM diskmag fame. He lives on the great island of Malta. Back in the 90’s he only visited one party and all other activities like making ROM diskmag he just did from his house in Malta. Geographicly, Malta is a country that is a little far away from the main shore of the European demoscene countries. Other reasons could be you just dont like visiting a scene party.
Like which is the case with Sane / ex-Seenpoint diskmag staff. He went to just 1 scene party in his entire life and wants to keep it this way. „I didn’t feel the desire to visit a scene party in one way or another“ Sane comments and continues: „In my entire scenelife I only saw about 10 sceners in real life. I dont really feel I belong on a scene party or blend in there. The Scene mystique dissapears for me then.“ However, Sane was in the Seenpoint staff for most issues in the 90’s for example. And he is even supporting Jurassic Pack today! A true sofa Scener! Hopefully he is back for the next issue of Jurrasic Pack aswell.
So… „digitally“ supporting the scene is just as good as combining it with also visiting scene parties. In the last two years when sceneparties became rare, a lot of sceners became Sofa Sceners. For a while anyway. The scene can be divided in several digital communities. (see my „release management“ article elsewhere in this magazine for more insights on this). Litteraly, a Sofascener can also be sceners sitting on a sofa and enjoying a demo, watching a live stream or playing a game for example. Don’t we all enjoy those nights at home when you have the time to spend on your beloved scene hobby in your own mancave or whatever room and space you have for this to enjoy scene productions, browse the scene relates websites or youtube videos, using real hardware or emulator(s) or even be productive in the line of field your expertise is in scenewise?
Sofa Sceners are here to stay! The biggest event of the year, Revision, is online again in 2022, although with the possibility to officialy sign up your organized shadowparty (needs to meet the requirements on the Revision 2022 website) aka satellite Revision party. So Easter weekend this year is full of Sofasceners enjoying Revision 2022 online. Personally I would have enjoyed a full big physical edition again of Revision. I guess it’s just to early in this, potential, coming out of the pandemic phase. One of the oldest members in Nah-Kolor, Hedgehog coder since 1996 release quite a few demos and intro’s again in the period 2015-2022 but never visited a party in this timeframe. His last party was somewhere in 1997-1998. So even active coders can be sofa Sceners!
In a way we are all sofasceners. When we are not going to a party (which might be just a few times a year for a lot of sceners) we are at home „sofascening“ Internet brought ways to enjoy being a scener we all could not have imagined back in the old days of the 80’s and beginning of the 90’s. We have far more possibilities now than just wait for the postman to deliever a package with a floppydisk from your friend with a new demo or seeing your phonebill go through the roof when you are modemtrading. Another fashion in today’s sofasceneing activities are online video calls.
Discord scene groups for example. Or just from your own group or set of scene friends. Having a lot of fun with 20 people on your screen at the same time. Like a lot of sceners also have business wise in day time when they are working on there job. So in short. Sofascening, possibly a fashion word, is already going on for a long time and is here to stay! If you haven’t signed up yet visit and join up at facebook.com/groups/sofasceners. And broaden your sofascening life spectrum!
Long live the scene! Long live all Sofa Sceners around the globe!
