Ok so I'm late to this thread but I'm kinda drunk and feel like talking about replays

The first thing I feel is significant is that I think that this "idolization" of older replaymakers is nothing new to the scene. Maybe I'm just speaking from personal experience, but when I began replaymaking all I did was study older replaymakers. I would put their replays into enikesha and recreate their moves step by step. I watched every single replay I could find of all my favorite players. Once I got on irc, me and other people would edit each other's replays constantly, and I was getting helped by my idols such as Tamer0 (the max homie). Perhaps there is more help for new players today as there is simply more history to go back on, and I guess there is more materials in terms of streams and written tutorials (but I feel like most of that is just me lmao). However I think that the overall replaymaker culture hasn't really changed in any significant way recently in terms of player idolization. People idolized Rutz and NutHug back in the day just as hard as people idolize Swexx and Large now. Also, I think that these older players have been just as willing to help recently as always (that being as much as they feel like).

That being the case, I think that new players are just as likely to surpass their idols as ever. And they shall become the idols to be surpassed, and so on. I think that people don't get motivated by their desire to get better than someone else, but rather by self-fulfillment. Some people feel satisfied with their skill earlier, and some later.

That being said there are definitely fewer replaymaking events being held than there used to be, and those actually made me motivated to make replays quite often. As I progressed in skill I felt like entering them less and less, but I feel that fresher talent would like to be judged against their peers for competitive reasons, and just for fun I guess.

Maybe we should have more events, those are fun