Is the top 40 the new rec.juggling?

back when the international juggling database was still around, rec.juggling was the largest unifying factor of the juggling community online. in the years since that’s been gone, it seems the top 40 is the closest thing i can think that has come close to matching the hype which surrounded rec.juggling. and just to be clear, rec. wasn’t that hyped, don’t get me wrong. and the top 40 is certainly popular, but the online juggling community is so fragmented these days that i’d guess the top 40 is no where near a unifying online presence that rec. was. or do you think its bigger?

i’m kind of guessing the top 40 is more popular with jugglers than jugglingrock, just because that facebook group has made a few enemies over the years and top 40 kind of rides above all of that for now?

I’ve only become an active member on rec.juggling when it’s decline already started, so I can’t comment very well on it’s cultural relevance compared to top40… but a comment about top40:

Two years ago I lived in Toulouse. I was juggling with some friends who are semi professionals, big fans of Wes and members of jugglingRock. I mentioned the top40, but they had simply not heard of it before! It seems like in some, especially non English speaking areas, it has really not caught on yet. Where an international fb group which focuses on posting videos can be more relevant, perhaps.

To me, the first unifiying place that comes to mind is EJC. I’ll value anything that goes on there above what happens at jRock or top40!

i was specifically referring to things that are online so i wouldn’t consider the EJC in this discussion, but for sure EJC is part of a larger cultural center point. you bring up a good idea in that jugglingrock is more on an international platform than the top 40 due to language issues perhaps. i’m just trying to think about what might be the “new rec.juggling,” that is, the biggest online congregation of juggling opinion/discussion/unification, and then take a step back and start to think: now that we’ve identified this reference point, is there a way to leverage it more? what are its politics and it healthy and/or can it be improved? how is this cultural phenomenon influencing the next generation of jugglers? etc. etc.

This year, Karl-Heinz Ziethen’s book on juggling history was published. Arguably the most important work on our history ever written. It will be interesting to see if that is reason enough for him to get votes. One can of course ponder over the outcome of that and if it says anything about the legitimacy of the top 40s list.

It’s the top40 most popular people of the year, not the top40 most valuable contributions of the year!
I don’t think the book is very popular…

I struggle to follow your reasoning here. Are you saying that there is no correlation between the liking of a person and that person’s contributions to the community?

Wether or not the book is popular, was my question and what it indicates about the community.

Of course there might be some correlation, but the point of the top40 has never been to find the most valuable contributions!
You are suggesting that Ziethen deserves votes, and that if he doesn’t the top40 is possibly not very legitimate.

Since the top40 is near free of any goals (Luke usually only recommends voters to stick to jugglers that impressed them in the past year), as long as all votes are counted and every person only votes once, I think it is extremely legitimate independent of it’s outcome!

Who would win a world wide popularity contest, a member of the Kardashian family or a Nobell prize winner? And who’s contribution to the world do we tend to value more? I’d say they are pretty unrelated, yes.

At last, among my friends who I know to have a copy of the book, I assume most of them do not vote in the top40. The people with interest in this kind of material are probably not very well represented in the top40, but as the top40 doesn’t claim to be unbiased or universal this doesn’t seem to change the legitimacy to me.

I would guess that the Kardashinans would get a higher vote of the two, and I would also guess that the Kardashians contributions to the world were appreciated by more people, than that of a nobel prize winner. Which brings me back to my initial question. Does that say something about the world? Do we have our head on straight when it comes to what we value? It is a sincere question.

I don’t see how the top40 would be an online place for “opinion/discusion/unification”. it’s mostly just about some juggling communities/friends voting themselves. The votings usually go in packs. There’s the “DOCH/Nordic pack”, the “British Pack”, the “Jewish pack”, the “Mexican Pack”, the “Flow Pack”. etc
There is very little representation of southern Europe Jugglers, since they mostly don’t speak english, and the top 40 probably doesn’t appear on their youtube feed, nor are they connected with the anglosaxon juggling communities, which are the ones who usually promote and feel so excited about this particular juggling pageant.
It’s awkward to see how so many jugglers work on videos just for posting them before the votings start. It feels like a potlitical campaign. Last year (or maybe two years ago), Jorge Vilchis went on an agressive campaign to promote himself for the top40, posting videos nonstop everyday on every facebook group there is, begging out loud for people to vote him. and then thanking personally and pubicly to everyone that voted him, and it worked!!, He made it to the list, and I can’t think of anything so far away from the way I feel about juggling.

Luke puts an amazing work and effort every year on creating the most amusing/creative video posible, and I always enjoy watching it, but lately I’ve noticed so many jugglers making demands or criticizing Luke for meaningless details, like they were entitled to…

Some say it’s a good way to get to know new jugglers, since you always check out on some guy you liked and never seen before, But I actually feel like it works the oposite way. Half of the jugglers are just there because they were there the year/s before (like Eric Longequel: it always amazes me why he’s the only one from Cia Ea Eo who apears on the list on and on…). and many of the new entrances are just friends of popular jugglers who were already on the list (and I’m not stating in any way that they don’t have merits as jugglers, just that the way to the list usually goes through nepotism.

There is no point. It never had a point to begin with, and it’s never had a point for its entire existence.

DanielSimu seemed to think there was a point, and I was curious to hear what it was.

A point that I could see of the top40s, is which jugglers are popular to the people that decide to vote. Another point would be to see which type of jugglers (if there are any?) that decide to vote, and seem to care about the list.
A third point would be to see what these people that vote, seem to value, and what kind of things have impact on their decisions.

These points may not be the reason to why the list exist, but it serves them nevertheless.

The point is to have fun, like in all aspects of life. It makes jugglers push their boundaries and limits. While at the same time creating far more entertaining content online at least.
Lets just appreciate Luke’s hard work and dedication surrounding each consecutive year.