Very online feelings

About the author

Crystal Abidin

Crystal Abidin is an anthropologist of vernacular internet cultures, focusing especially on the Asia-Pacific region. She has published six books and more than 250...

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Non-fictionThe DVD format – the Digital Versatile Disc – was invented in 1995 and reached the peak of its popularity in Australia in the 2000s, before the rise of streaming platforms in the 2010s. During those salad days, Australian entertainment companies started producing and selling DVDs at a rapid rate, building a library of local and international films. The Melbourne-based company Madman Entertainment were competitive players... The extras on their DVDs – making-of documentaries, deleted scenes, audio commentaries – allowed producers to have an active role in the historicisation of film; audio commentaries typically featured directors and actors rewatching and reminiscing together. But companies like Madman (and Criterion in the US), which distributed ‘art-house’ cinema, were more likely to invite film theorists and historians to provide an analytical reading of the film as it played.

An image of a lush forest at sunrise. The tall, thin trees are cast in shadows as the sun rises in the background.

From the hills of Killea

Non-fictionShe lived alone with five horses, five dogs, three cats, three geese and two ducks. She had escaped Manchester under Thatcher, gone off the grid in Tipperary and never returned. She said mass suicide was the only answer to climate catastrophe. She was the most interesting person I had ever met. Before dawn, I would write. By daybreak, I would find a pair of wellies and then muck out the stables, wheeling huge barrows of horseshit across her yard to a pile the size of a fire truck. There was little time to rest. The stove needed to be fed, constantly, with bricks of peat to keep the house warm. The horses needed to be given hay five times a day. The geese needed guarding from the foxes. I learnt to care for animals, to give them my attention.

Less than human

Non-fictionWhat elevates Miku and makes her significant in our cultural landscape is her accessibility. Unlike traditional celebrities, who, even if they want to be accessible to their fans, only have so much time and can’t be perpetually available, Miku is software that anyone can buy and use. It only costs $200 and doesn’t require particularly advanced technical skills. Most of the people who produce Miku music are self-taught. One of the enduringly popular things about the concerts is that everything you see essentially comes from fans – the music, costuming and dance routines are all drawn from the expansive ‘Miku community’, where the lines between amateur and professional are deliberately blurred by everyone involved. You’re as likely to hear a song produced through a record label as you are one that was popularised by YouTube.