User:Randomatribute20k
*bzzt* *bzzt* *kssssssssssssshhhhhh* ...llo? *kshhhhhh* ...ou..e.r...e? *brrrrrrrr* Hello? Can you hear me? Great! Hi! I'm Randomatribute20k or Amerimaki. The former name is a double meaning with a callback to how usernames were back then and how I don't really intend to stick to one topic on youtube and the latter is a combination of "Amerimaki" and "Futomaki". Futomaki is a roll you eat it for good luck around New Year and it's one of my favorite rolls of all time. Fuck that artisan "poke" shit. Amerimaki also has a double meaning: my real name is Maki and I'm [half] Japanese American. I'm coming down from a planet called "Los Angeles" and before you tell me I'm revealing too much, LA county is as big as your teeny tiny European country, so if I said I was from LA, it might be Gardena, Lancaster, Burbank or Los Angeles. Even if I say I'm from LA, what part? Not joking, there are cities within the city. My fam is from Hiroshima (most of 'em, anyway) and we love our Carps. Buuut T'be brutally honest, I'm as Japanese as Pepperoni is Italian. Don't get it twisted. Many stereotype me as some political breadtuber/commie sympathizer because I'm from LA, but to be honest, politics bore me and I at least know how to live in a chaotic world whereas these poor fellas afflicted with political brain rot will be hella unprepared when the chaos comes to them.
I like to call myself the Fred Durst of this community; a total asshole and I usually wear anything nice n baggy, but I make myself to be a nice person (and my ego is paper-thin; HE IS LITERALLY ME). It doesn't help that my patience is immense when dealing with others, but if you keep waste my time by barraging me with your sub-room temp IQ comments, It'd only be a matter of time until I show my true colors. What else is there to write here... Oh yeah, I'm like one of two women who collect this shit and one of only a handful of people over 18 in this hobby, which is pretty sad. I've also been the first to use a dehydrator to dry out tapes in this trade, which is pretty neat. One more thing, for some reason I'm the first member in the trade to get boomers to comment on my digi uploads. It happened when I started uploading stuff to my channel, too. No bot buying or anything, the algorithm just loves Americans. USA! USA!
Tips 4 the Bestie (That's you)
The best piece of advice I could ever give is that this is NOT a beginner-friendly hobby. Sure, it's cheaper than my last couple 'a hobbies, but man, this is no walk in the park. The upfront cost is high as there's some overlap with the audiophile community. You can't use a Walkman, Crosley, or some cheap player made of Chinesium for this hobby. Only refurbed, respectable, old ass decks that can go as high as $600 if you're not careful. You need a scanner for your shit that can handle minimum 600 dpi. I've heard talks that entry level might change to double that! Your scanner might wash out the color for your scan, so you might need Photoshop or something similar to change the levels. Audacity is a no-go for audio editing. You need to invest into something like FL Studio or Adobe Audition. Optional, but I always push it: audio headphones matter. So you might need to get only the best headphones like a Sony MDR-7506, not some run-of-the-mill Skullcandy earbuds. It's just to ensure that you aren't missing out on anything while editing. Don't get me started on the silica chambers and other equipment! After you acquire that (which is about a $1k investment at minimum), then you can start acquiring a collection. I've seen many collectors put the cart before the horse and it always pisses me off.
Before I forget, while I'm not the spokeswoman of the war tape trade, I am the leader of my own community. My motto is the same as one hidden website: Look, do not touch. Found the fb page of some obscure war singer? Awesome, don't bother them. What's that? A war music studio CEO is actively answering questions from randos all over the internet? Cool, but don't dogpile on the poor guy by asking more questions. He's probably being nice, but deep down inside he wants to be left alone. Seriously, some kid ended up getting a channel deleted because he wouldn't shut up. Don't sweat about getting intel, I got a team that'll divide 'n conquer for you. Seasoned veterans will pick 'n choose who asks who, but we get the intel we need and give the interviewee a chance to disclose if it's confidential info or not. Sure, the process can be slow and disappointing, but do you want to learn more about these figures or nah? That's what I thought.
Tha D33ts
Unlike the maple G and that chetnik knucklehead, I've come from many hobbies before this one. From... oh yeah I can't out right say it, so we'll say "foreign media" (we're talking stuff like Winx, Little Britain, and Godzilla) to retro video games, my profile is quite diverse. This hobby is actually a lot cheaper than my other hobbies, but it's honestly not saying much. Actually, hot take: these crazy prices were an inevitability. Seriously. If I didn't contribute to the current climate, the infamy of this content would've done the market in. As a matter of fact, these private buyers would accelerate the market faster than I ever could. Fun fact: Baja tapes and their rise in market value is like the situation of secondhand Pokémon games. They sold plenty, but for some reason sellers are pricing these puppies for exorbitant prices. I seriously dread the day where I see these tapes for the equivalent for a good-looking well-articulated Godzilla soft vinyl.
Not only do I have my experience with collecting to help me determine what is and isn't a good price, I also make videos in my spare time as a hobby. When I was relatively new to the hobby, I started eye-balling information in YouTube comments and old articles that you really couldn't find on Wikipedia. S'matter of fact, the genre and the artists involved had little-to-no-documentation on 'em (in English at least). I saw what the investors here call a "gap in the market", and I made it my mission to compile the info on the site and share them with the West. I've made some great acquaintances in this community and I'm astonished at how tight-knit we truly are. I honest-to-God never knew how centralized the community was. It turns out that when you weed out the people taking up space, it's incredibly small and honestly, it should stay that way. With how many people want these tapes, I think it's safe to say that we're full. People can get into war music and preserving it, just not with this particular conflict.
Now to the elephant in the room: why do I call BalkanMapper a "chetnik knucklehead"? Well, I'm stubborn as a mule and when I think what I do is correct, I butt heads with him no matter if his advice is beneficial to me. From what I gather, this poor guy doesn't notice it so God bless you. As for "maple G", it's a shitty pun for "maple leaf". All I can say is that the guy is a Canadian (iykyk). I've still been trying to get his poutine recipe, but the woodchuck of a Canuck straight-up refuses to tell me.
Disclaimer: no matter the name calling, it's in good fun. Seriously speaking, I was impressed with BalkanMapper's work and I looked up to the guy. I mean, the guy's got so many rarities and I've even had the privilege to see his setup and pieces of unseen collection. And G, the Big G as I call him is like this audio wizard of some sort. Pondering his audio orb in his tower... and being a total Canadian, eh? The fact that I even met these two in a short amount of time as well as other enigmatic figures of the community has been a pleasure.
3DEEP5ME LORE
So, how did I get here? It all starts back when I was four. My uncle had a GameCube and I really loved the games on there. I think he had more, but I mainly remember a Mario Party installment, Mario Kart Double Dash, and Godzilla Destroy All Monsters Melee. Unfortunately, due to a misunderstanding, he sold the GameCube and all but one game. I also had another uncle who had a treasure trove of GameCube and Wii games. Years later, I found myself at Target wondering what I'd get with my birthday money. I had my mind set on a Lego Octane gas truck and when going to the video game section, I was at a crossroad. Either I buy Metroid Other M or Super Smash Bros. Brawl. It was a tough decision because I really wanted to try out Metroid, but I ultimately chose Brawl. That decision changed my life. They had characters from all sorts of franchises and old consoles. I got flashbacks of seeing GBA games on a GameStop display case and seeing an ad for Pokémon Mystery Dungeon Red Rescue team for GBA. I discovered let's players that covered games from the old days and the ones I had in my collection. The drive to seek out old things was because of that game. Finally, the music industry. I grew up listening to Nine Inch Nails, Marilyn Manson, ohGr, Frankie Vali, BeeGees, Paramore; I was even around for the anti-Bush stuff playing on repeat on the radio! However, after the industry's blunder with the direction of Synth-Pop, I was sick of the new shit and stuck to the old. No more Phantogram or Kimbra; it was time to look back into the past!
Now I wouldn't call myself gifted by any means, but I inherited a special gift from my mom: looking back into the past and go down their respective rabbit holes. At the time, that gift went towards my journey into game collecting, but it would diversify over time. It went to cartoons I watched as a kid like Shaolin Showdown, Teen Titans, Courage, He-Man... And it was thanks to the infamy of 4kids. Kinda sad how good we had it back then. In 2020, peak pandemic, I became interested in old audio formats. After looking at my mom's collection and hearing her reminisce of the collection she used to have, cassettes were my main mission. She was also the reason why I gave vinyl another chance, so thank you, mom. Uh right, cassettes! With my mission set, I nabbed a Sports Walkman as my medium of choice and bought a sealed Stone Temple Pilots Core cassette. While I admittedly had no clue on how to prevent sticky shed or "warp" as I call it, I was infatuated with the format and at least knew a thing or two on how these work.
The next year, I was scrolling through Instagram and I saw this account I really liked. It was a page that would get an image of a plush toy of Rei Ayanami from Neon Genesis Evangelion and they would just photoshop stuff on it. One post I couldn't stop thinking about was one where the Rei had a šajkača, a Serb flag, and rakija. Why? 'Cause the music on that post was a banger (also they eventually apologized for it)! The music in that Instagram post I initially thought was just some random disco Balkan song that was probably played at some point or another. When I looked it up, however, it was a completely different story! This was music made during wartime, which kinda wasn't new because of the anti-Bush/anti-war-in-the-Middle-East stuff I listened to as a kid. And would ya look at that, music for a war I never learned about in school (and when I did, I thought it was buried because of the ME wars). Unlike what these terminally online 4chan wannabes think, I'd say that learning about the war beforehand would have been a detriment. Honest to God, I hated school and would look up anything controversial to share to friends. We're talking actual war crime denier stuff.
Naša Srpska Arhiva was where I had my real entry point. I found that song, Panteri and a slew of other war songs via his channel and I realized that these were mostly on cassette. Unlike most kids (and regrettably my own generation), it wasn't a surprise to me considering how Europe and Japan treated certain formats. Now my own mission had a goal; start acquiring and archiving. While my video making-skills are stuck in 2008, my scanner wack and my audio-restoring skills are average, I'm doing my best to get this history saved.
TL;DR: Super Smash Bros. Brawl helped me tap into a special gift I never knew I had and Neon Genesis Evangelion is what made me discover Yugoslavian War music.
Rant: Fuck them Kids (and Why We Can't Have Nice Things)
Can I rant for a sec? I hate children taking up this hobby. I get it if you're family was affected by the war or something, but these fucking LARPers buy this shit purely for bragging rights. Some of these idiots have tapes without a scanner, without a good tape deck, with little-to-no knowledge on preserving decaying media. Newsflash, pipsqueak: haul your ass back to pre-K and get your macaroni art project done. Stick with the folks over at the retro gaming community. At least you can get an emulator and play the old games you're interested in before you decide to let it collect dust on your shelf. I'm sick and tired of your underdeveloped brains being influenced by media that was a coping mechanism for the loss of ancestral homes, loss of close friends and family, and politicians taking advantage of racial tensions. I'm not a moralfag, but the fact that I have to act like one should show you breakfast-eaters how bad it has gotten. I've even seen these kids throw tantrums if you mention any aspect of suffering that happened in the war because they feel threatened. If the aspect of being told that this is no laughing matter feels like your mommy telling you to clean up your pigsty, you're not mature enough to be in this trade. I refuse to make a video on properly preserving tapes until every minor in this community has been purged. People like you are the reason why we can't have a serious research project regarding sensitive topics like APZB or even secure interviews with former CEOs and singers 'cause all y'all do is huff sharpies, snort pixie sticks, eat glue and harass the fuck outta people until they go offline indefinitely. Go home, be a normal, functioning, beneficial member of society, and get your parents to buy you a season pass to play Fortnite or whatever the kids are into these days.
In conclusion:
A lesson learned (Epilogue)
[Please play Show Me What You Got by Limp Bizkit on another tab when reading this. I don't think I'm allowed to upload it here for copyright reasons.]
So now we're here. I've learned a lot over the past couple of years. I've learned so much about the war. I've learned aspects that my own friends who were taught this in High School don't really know about. Doing this shit is honestly super fun and this became not only my entry point into learning about the war, but also discovering Yugoslavian folk (albeit Serbian for the most part). I'm not bullshitting people when I say that I keep my collection focused to one side because of collection size limitations. However, I've made some sort of unintentional alliance with my fellow Asians and they seem to be taking up the latter two sides of war music, so either way, that side is occupied.
I have the absolute privilege to meet actual Serbs, though some are unfortunately kinda... retarded. Sorry :(. My words can be harsh, but hey, "don't meet your heroes" is a saying for a reason. Ironically, I've come to love the love songs more than I do the war songs. Especially since they tend to be so creative and unique to my ears. Hell, one of my favorite songs is Zbog izgubljene ljubavi and those lyrics are SAPPY AF. I wonder if it's because it's my own demographic?
I've been trying to acquire books about the war, though most are in Serbian. Those are notoriously hard to buy because most sellers don't ship outside of Serbia. I'm determined to get them 'cause it'll help me practice reading Cyrillic and get to know the language more. Unfortunately, learning the language here is pretty difficult since I'm more of an in-person kind of learner. One book I'm currently on-and-off about is Unholy Terror: Bosnia, Al-Qa'ida, and the Rise of Global Jihad and thankfully, it's in English. Simple premise, but chock full of information you might want to consider. I'm always challenging what I believe and it's good brain food to do so, so you should do it to.
I know a lot of people complain about sellers pricing up the ass, but I'm a veteran in this shit so I'm more sympathetic. I'm talking to you, Dejka! Your prices are crazy, not gonna lie. Compared to what I've spent on soundtracks to video games and other memorabilia, tho, your prices are good for the foreign market. I respect the grind, not only to you, but to tha other crazy mofo sellers I've encountered in this hobby! Y'all do so much for us, it's insane!
Special thanks to the foos from around the world, to my uncle and to mom! Hold your heads up high, we're saving history, babey!
[Open Your Heard by Crush40 starts playing with credits rolling]
FAQ
What is your current set-up?
Current Digi Loadout:
Audacity (initial recording)
Sony TC-WE475 (deck of choice)
Izotope RX (noise reduction, eq, etc)
FL Studio (noise reduction)
What are your top 3 favorite albums?
Ooo, that's a hard one! Uhhh I wanna say, Stone Temple Pilot's Core, SOAD's Steal This Album! and Limp Biz-
Huh? Oh you meant turbofolk? To be honest, I'm not too familiar with that stuff. I've heard Lepa Brena and Ramb-
Wait, you meant regular Yugo folk? Sorry for the misunderstanding! I like Dragan Šaulić's Nigde ništa nemam, Željko Panonac's Plavo oko, and Božo Vorotović's Ko će da te čuva.
What!? What do you mean I didn't answer your question!? So this whole time you were asking for war music and you decided to not specify that!? What kind of interviewer are you!? Okay, fine. I like Baja Mali Knindža's Pobediće istina, I also like Lepi Mića's Republiko Srpska and Ranko Spajić's Oda Zavičaju.
What is the rarest cassette in your arsenal?
Man, what a tough question... I did get a limited run Circle Jerks Wild in the Sheets red cassette recently...
For Christ's sake, please specify if you're talking about my Yugo war stuff. Didn't you read all my lore!?
Honestly all of those patriotic/war cassettes are precious and rare to me. Except for the Baja stuff. Don't let those scummy prices on Discogs and eBay fool you! I got my Rat i mir cassette for ten bucks. If you paid more, I'm sorry, you got scammed.
Do you know Serbian?
Nope. I know how to parse through what is and isn't a war song, though. I can also parse through some material via pattern recognition in lyrics. I also know how to make ćevapčići, ajvar, and lepinja too.
Do you know any Serbs prior to this hobby?
In my close irl circle? Nope. I did hear of someone known as "Marina Abramović". She's... really something.
You mentioned being half Japanese, is the other half Serbian?
Nope. Mexican and white, like the rest of LA.
Since you're from LA, do you like Communism?
Fuck no. Why do you think Komunjare is a song that speaks to me?
Most of 'em preach about giving money away to the poor even though they're all nepo babies. Hey, you snobby little grifting shithead! Pay my motherfucking bills and put me in your dad's trust fund! It's hard making ends meet with my current job!
Which side do you root for in the Yugoslav conflict?
None. I wasn't born yet.
All jokes aside, this isn't a horse race, doofus. Politicians took advantage of the people. Civilians who were caught in the crossfire had their own cries unheard. You think any of these governments truly cared about their people? Fuck no. No matter who won or lost, there was a fat paycheck waiting for these racketeering leeches. It's a tale as old as time.
Do you have any regrets since being involved in this hobby?
Several. They keep me up at night. One of the biggest regrets I have is trashing Srpkinjo, Majko, Rađaj Sinove. Not because it was true, but the Dover Boys ended up ruining it.
How do you get contacts to buy tapes?
Well first, you need to dump loads of cash into this hobby. Then you'll get a plug. I got a good amount of plugs, but I don't proxy buy on behalf of others because I need to girlboss, gaslight, and gatekeep, so tough luck!
Do you beef with anyone in the community?
Lol, no. I know I made the National Radio video and all, but I made it and left it at that. Genuinely think that people who beg for an update video won't even watch it. Britannica too. I don't hate him and I'd waste my time orbiting the guy since there are other people who do content better than him.
...hmmm actually now that I think about it I have beef with someone and that fucker's name is [SITE ADMIN MANUALLY REDACTED POST]
Who is the character in your YouTube pfp and why won't you change it to your self insert?
Um... for legal reasons I can't say where she's from. Besides, why would I change it? What, you want me to power level because information needs to be spoon-fed to you?
What is your self insert and why does it not look like you?
Ah-ha! I knew this was gonna be asked at some point! It's a stain from the past that I decided that I can't truly get rid of. It all started back in middle school. I always loved to draw 'n let the imagination go wild! I also was into- oh right, can't say it. Even though I'm [half] Japanese!? Can someone call up HR for a racial discrimination complaint? Thanks.
A-anyways, I was into... cartoons, we'll say (and video games of course, but that story is for another day). It affected the way I drew myself. The first time I drew myself, it's like my current self-insert, just a little more rectangle-y, the "no eyes showing" design and no shark fin on the hair with a cigarette in hand. Yes, I really saw myself like that. It keeps me up at night.
I would then go a little closer to the style and added that shark fin because I thought it was cool. I think it was something to the affect of being influenced by Silver from Pokémon Silver/SoulSilver, but at the time I really didn't know where the idea came from. When I was making videos some time in high school (these are not online btw, so don't go looking for them), I needed something to fill in dead air. That's right, the versions you see now aren't the first iterations believe-it-or-not. The first ones I ever did was back in freshman year in high school (I'll see if I can dig them up from my old HDD). When I got into the swing of uploading things on YouTube a couple years ago, I redid the character stand-in and made it black and white because coloring in stuff is my kryptonite. I used MS Paint and a base I labeled the "artboard" and I use the spray can brush because I love the pattern. And that's how my self-insert came to be. I was planning to make RA20k the self-insert and my live action appearances to be Amerimaki, but I ultimately scrapped the idea because it was very stupid.
Do people copying you/being inspired by you bother you?
Nope. I notice and poke fun at it with friends. I'm more bothered by National Radio clones since they tend to oversaturate uploading war stuff and if one of them uses badly worded information or just misinformation, it'll spread tenfold. My genuine response to those fakers are [03 Counterfeit.flac]. Wait... why is that not working? Uh.... How about this? [03 Gimmie The Mic.flac] dammit! Do your own research and look into these songs. Let the songs speak directly to your sorry ass!
Will you ever do a war edit video?
No, I find that it commodifies tragedy and spreads conflicting messages on my channel anyways. The only exception is if someone dropped $10k on my ko-fi. Not cumulative, I'm talking one all-in-one-go payment that doesn't bounce.
Why do you not do digi requests?
Because I know if I did it for one person, they'd spread false gospel on how I'm kind enough to do it for a thousand more. Besides, what if the tape I have turns out to be not liked by the artist because of shame? I would never live down disrespecting someone's wishes.
Why are you inactive on YouTube?
I'm not. If I'm not making videos, I'm scanning stuff and acquiring more tapes. I've been dedicating my time here too and lemme tell ya it's time consuming. I'm always chatting with someone on the 'cord and I'll make occasional appearances in my server's voice chat room. Either that or I'm watching YouTube on shit no one cares about.
Are you trans/non-binary?
Lemme guess, it's because of my appearance? Nope. Not doing any of that shit. I'm a tomboy through and through. My voice is like that because genetics and I don't really like it because it sounds like I'm a teenage boy when in reality, I'm in my 20's. My style is unconventional and comfortable and I wanna keep it that way.
Do you LARP?
No. I love to sing, talk about my hobby to my close irl circle, I love to wear milsurp because it's comfy, and making videos is a great pastime, but actively LARP online and/or irl? Not really. The pic of me with the VRS get-up was for silly costume reasons and living in LA, I just got people looking at me weird. It only happened once and I don't really plan on doing it again.
Do you collect anything else other than old things?
Yes! I love itemlabel merch. You see their newest drop? I want 'em all! I love streetwear too. Empyre's gotta be one of my favorite clothing brands. I also occasionally collect patches and rarely VRS camo (tiger stripe FTW!). I also I like researching conspiracy theories in my spare time because I like to see what crazy merits they stand on. I also enjoy trying new food products corporations release. Yeah, all sludge tastes the same, but I still want to try it.