A lot of the stuff in this article is the same as the one posted above, but a little more specific. A added a little more about biting and how it can happen without you even realizing it. Added a bit about promoting GS.C and being honest. Some hints for first time submitters. Some hints about video critques.

Video Submitters:

It's a good idea to be honest and let people know your inspirations. It can be done in the video or in your thread. It's a good idea to let people know where you learned from: That's the difference between learning and biting. Learning is when you use moves from other people's idea. That's in fact about 99% of your actual routine. Biting is when you tell everyone that you have your own style and when you tell other people that you are the only one who has ever done this and the first to ever do something without being honest with others and possibly yourself of your influences.

Be aware of subconscious biting. Sometimes in a video you will do a move that was done before in a previous vid you watched without you realizing it. If you are like 95% of the people on GS.C who basically grew up your style and skills on GS.C, then you MUST be respectful.

That is why it's a good idea to watch other peoples vid that you watched before before you submit a video. Who knows, maybe by accident you copied an entire routine. When in doubt, ask people on glowsticking.com before you release a video.

That is NOT to say you must list every single vldeo that you ever watched as your inspiration. Usually, older videos need not be mentioned, because they contain concepts and moves that everyone uses now. For example, paul was one of the first to showcase tutting (actually if you relly want to be specific, i believe yosho's vid was the first, but he definately wasn't the first one ever to do it), the helicopter-8 and some other moves in his videos.

Usually, you should mention a recent video if you did learn from that video or got inspired from it. It's just good etiqutte, that's all, and will reduce harmful feelings and make you more respected in general.

If it's your first vid ever you are releasing, people don't know you that well, so it's a good idea to credit as many sources as possible.

If it's your 3rd or 4th video, people will know that you have credited people before-- so you can credit less as time goes by, because you have creditted and made people aware of your sources and possibly even sessioned with these people. In short, you gain credibility as times goes by.

It's NOT a good idea to jack 10 videos or people in real life and not mention anything of the sort then release the video after you have learned all you need to know.. You may get some respect from newbies but you will be seen as a biter by people "in the know". For example, a certain someone has done that and his video is still respected and liked by a lot of people, but he failed to let anyone know of his inspirations-- not even putting any kind of credit in his videos-- and therefore earned a lot of criticism and antagonization from all of GS.C's "people in the know"

When you critique a video:

It's a good idea to have both a good comment and a negative comment. Try to keep both the comments around 50/50. It's more helpful that way.

At the same time, unless you worked with someone on a video, do not assume someone took your moves. Other people might have invented the move before you did.

It's NOT a good idea, unless you have garnered some credibility, that they need to "learn style now" or some other pretentious remark. It's BETTER to be specific. However, if you have a lot of credibility with people on GS.C (not just your local group of friends), you can be more blunt or honest about your feelings to the people you know you have watched glowstick a lot and they have watched you glowstick a lot.

In general, the more you have "made your mark" on GS.C that people will take you seriously. In general, even if you release a good video, remember that in this video you may be doing everything right and being flawless, people will not be that respectful if it's just a rehash of things done before or you haven't really come up with anything new.

at the same time, trust the opinions of other people on GS.C, especially some of the veterens, because they will know if you really have come up with something new.


In General

I have mentioned this a lot, but respect is earned. If a lot of people don't like your video or think the same way you do, it's not their fault necessarily. For example, there was this glowsticker back in the ILR days that told everyone his friend was a bad ass and coudl glowstick everyone out of the water. A lot of people, upon seeing this person in real life and in videos said he was pretty decent but certainly not a master. The person said everyone else was stupid-- failing to realize that in the end, it's all about opinions, and glowsticking as an artform, and like all artforms, is totally about opinions.

That's one reason why I don't like the IDEA of crews (not the people in it, of course). People in crews tend to clap for each other because they want to be loyal. That in it of itself isn't bad at all, but it tends to be self-reinforcing, and tends to lead to opinions which are usually antagonistic.

In terms of who invented what moves, the most I will ever say is something like, "In terms of glowsticking.com, the first person to do move XXXX on GS.C is XXXX"

and GS.C has pioneered a lot of concepts, and GS.C does have a lot of credibility in terms of who invented what, because unlike a lot ofpeople, we got definate proof starting from 2001 and on.

But i also recognize individual moves, such as the handstall which i'm proud of, or combining funk styles and glowsticking (which I tried to show case as much as possible), may have been done by other people before. So in the end, I'm careful to say things like, "in my opinion" or "to the best of my knowledge," or "the first person on _GSC_ to do move XXX"

So here is to critiquing videos as fully as possible. And here is to your rinfluences.

My influences are all the ILR heads (too many to mention), and the new school heads like Chen, Wes, RG, Varun, Dragonglow, even some of the newer folks llike the east coast people, such as Rai, Ginseng, even some people not many people will consider "great" like Rusty, and even some people no longer with us, such as Brian.

I'm prolly leaving out some names here but that's because I've prolly mentioned a lot of people before regardless. Because when you critique a video, you are saying that, "I watch this video, not only to watch it, but to try to learn a little something about what you are trying to say, and I understand that when I do a job of critiquing, I cannot help but be influenced by what you do, whether it's good or not, because I understand that good or not, I will be influenced in someway, no matter how small that influence is".

My Pet Peeves (the other side of the debate, and a bit more about biting):

- When people talk about other people who are the bomb glowstickers bettter than anyone else in the world. whove been glowsticking for 3 years that have never heard of glowsticking.com yet their friends have heard of it. that pisses me off because glowsticking.com have been influencing glowstickers who never even heard of glowsticking.com.

the reason why is that a lot of times, you got some pretty selfish people who take from GS.C but don't tell their group of friends about it because they like being in the know and like impressing the girls in their immediate group

Please don't do that. I've seen this happen a lot of times. People who stole Gio's entire routine and they prolly never seen Gio's vid but it makes me pissed because they learned from someone who is really fucking things up by being selfish. It pisses me off because I can't really blame the guy, but it makes me angry and whoever taught him that without teaching him where he got the moves.

It makes me happy as hell when someone says, "Yeah man I heard about your site from a friend who learned a lot of shit. he does some of the same stuff as you"

It makes me sad as hell when someone says, "yeah you got a pretty good routine, you must have copied off my friend because he does some of the same moves as you do". this is when i do some helicopter-8's and a stomache trace, which obviously means that "friend" didn't do any crediting.

in the end, try to be as honest as possibie when you teach someone. don't withhold where you learned from, if it's from GS.C, or maybe some other glowstickers not on GS.C, or maybe even if you got the idea from something not to do with glowsticking, like hackeysack people.

~Cynicdave

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