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[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model_(person)] | [TOKENS: 9384] |
Contents Model (person) A model is a person with a role either to display commercial products (notably fashion clothing in fashion shows) or to serve as an artist's model. Modelling ("modeling" in American English) entails using one's body to represent someone else's body or someone's artistic imagination of a body. For example, a woman modelling for shoes uses her foot to model the potential customers' feet. Modelling thus is different from posing for portrait photography, portrait painting, and distinct from other types of public performance, such as acting or dancing. Personal opinions are normally not expressed, and a model's reputation and image are considered critical. Types of modelling include: fine art, fashion, glamour, fitness, and body-part promotional modelling. Models are featured in various media formats, including books, magazines, films, newspapers, the Internet, and television. Fashion modelling is sometimes featured in reality TV shows, such as the Top Model franchise. Modelling often is a part-time activity. Artists' models Artists' models pose for any visual artist as part of the creative process. Although sometimes friends or relatives, artists' models are more often paid professionals who provide a reference or inspiration for a work of art that includes the human figure. The most common types of art created using models are figure drawing, figure painting, sculpture and photography, but almost any medium may be used. Although commercial motives dominate over aesthetics in illustration, its artwork commonly employs models. Models are most frequently employed for art classes or by informal groups of experienced artists who gather to share the expense of a model. Fashion modelling In 14th-century Europe, fashion had been displayed in miniature form to (often royal) clients by fashion dolls, before the clothes were made in human size. Modelling as a profession was first established in 1853 by Charles Frederick Worth, the "father of haute couture", when he asked his wife, Marie Vernet Worth, to model the potential clients for the clothes he designed. The term "house model" was coined to describe this type of work. Eventually, this became common practice for Parisian fashion houses where such women were called mannequins, a meaning of that word adopted and retained in British English in the 1880s then used less commonly after World War II. There were no standard physical measurement requirements for a model, and most designers would use women of varying sizes to demonstrate variety in their designs. The modelling profession expanded to photo modelling with the development of fashion photography. Models remained fairly anonymous, and relatively poorly paid, until the late 1940s, when the world's first three supermodels, Barbara Goalen, Bettina Graziani and Lisa Fonssagrives began commanding very large sums. During the 1940s and 1950s, Graziani was the most photographed woman in France and the undisputed queen of couture, while Fonssagrives appeared on over 200 Vogue covers; her name recognition led to the importance of Vogue in shaping the careers of fashion models. One of the most popular models during the 1940s was Jinx Falkenburg, who was paid $25 per hour, a large sum at the time; through the 1950s, Wilhelmina Cooper, Jean Patchett, Dovima, Dorian Leigh, Suzy Parker, Evelyn Tripp and Carmen Dell'Orefice also dominated fashion. Dorothea Church was among the first black models in the industry to gain recognition in Paris. However, these models were unknown outside the fashion community. Wilhelmina Cooper's measurements were 38"-24"-36" whereas Chanel Iman's measurements are 32"-23"-33". In 1946, Ford Models was established by Eileen and Gerard Ford in New York, making it one of the oldest model agencies in the world. In the 1960s, the modelling world established modelling agencies. Throughout Europe, secretarial services acted as models' agents charging them weekly rates for their messages and bookings. For the most part, models were responsible for their own billing. In Germany, agents were not allowed to work for a percentage of a person's earnings, so they referred to themselves as secretaries. Except for a few models travelling to Paris or New York, travelling was relatively unheard of for a model. Most models only worked in one market due to different labour laws governing modelling in various countries. In the 1960s, Italy had many fashion houses and fashion magazines but desperately needed models. Italian agencies often coerced models to return to Italy without work visas by withholding their pay. They would also pay their models in cash, which models would have to hide from customs agents. It was not uncommon for models staying in hotels such as La Louisiana in Paris or the Arena in Milan to have their hotel rooms raided by the police looking for their work visas. It was rumoured that competing agencies were behind the raids. This led many agencies to form worldwide chains; for example, the Marilyn Agency has branches in Paris and New York. By the late 1960s, London was considered the best market in Europe due to its more organised and innovative approach to modelling. It was during this period that models began to become household names. Models such as Jean Shrimpton, Tania Mallet, Celia Hammond, Twiggy, and Penelope Tree dominated the London fashion scene and were well paid, unlike their predecessors. Twiggy became The Face of '66 at the age of 16. At this time, model agencies were not as restrictive about the models they represented, although it was uncommon for them to sign shorter models. Twiggy, who stood at 5 feet 6 inches (168 cm) with a 32" bust and had a boy's haircut, is credited with changing model ideals. At that time, she earned £80 (equivalent to £1,639.1 or US$2,037.32 in 2023) an hour, while the average wage was £15 (equivalent to £307.33 or US$382 in 2023) a week. In 1967, seven of the top model agents in London formed the Association of London Model Agents. The formation of this association helped legitimise modelling and changed the fashion industry. Even with a more professional attitude towards modelling, models were still expected to have their hair and makeup done before they arrived at a shoot. Meanwhile, agencies took responsibility for a model's promotional materials and branding. That same year, former top fashion model Wilhelmina Cooper opened up her own fashion agency with her husband called Wilhelmina Models. By 1968, FM Agency and Models 1 were established and represented models in a similar way that agencies do today. By the late 1960s, models were treated better and were making better wages. One of the innovators, Ford Models, was the first agency to advance models money they were owed and would often allow teen models, who did not live locally, to reside in their house, a precursor to model housing. The innovations of the 1960s flowed into the 1970s fashion scene. As a result of model industry associations and standards, model agencies became more business minded, and more thought went into a model's promotional materials. By this time, agencies were starting to pay for a model's publicity. In the early 1970s, Scandinavia had many tall, leggy, blonde-haired, blue-eyed models and not enough clients. It was during this time that Ford Models pioneered scouting. They would spend time working with agencies holding modeling contests. This was the precursor to the Ford Models Supermodel of the World competition, established in 1980. Ford also focused its attention on Brazil, which had a wide array of seemingly "exotic" models, which eventually led to the establishment of Ford Models Brazil. During this time, the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue debuted. The magazine set the trend by photographing "bigger and healthier" California models, and printing their names by their photos, thus turning many of them into household names and establishing the issue as a hallmark of supermodel status. The 1970s marked numerous milestones in fashion. Beverly Johnson was the first black woman to appear on the cover of U.S. Vogue in 1974. Models, including Iman, Grace Jones, Pat Cleveland, Alva Chinn, Donyale Luna, Minah Bird, Naomi Sims, and Toukie Smith were some of the top black fashion models who paved the way for black women in fashion. In 1975, Margaux Hemingway landed a then-unprecedented million-dollar contract as the face of Fabergé's Babe perfume and the same year appeared on the cover of Time magazine, labeled one of the "New Beauties", giving further name recognition to fashion models. Many of the world's most prominent modeling agencies were established in the 1970s and early 1980s. These agencies created the standard by which agencies now run. In 1974, Nevs Models was established in London with only a men's board, the first of its kind. Elite Models was founded in Paris in 1975, as well as Friday's Models in Japan. The next year Cal-Carries was established in Singapore, the first of a chain of agencies in Asia. In 1977, Select Model Management and Why Not Models in Milan opened its doors. By the 1980s, agencies such as Premier Model Management, Storm Models, Mikas, Marilyn, and Metropolitan Models had been established. In October 1981, Life cited Shelley Hack, Lauren Hutton and Iman for Revlon, Margaux Hemingway for Fabergé, Karen Graham for Estée Lauder, Cristina Ferrare for Max Factor, and Cheryl Tiegs for CoverGirl by proclaiming them the "million dollar faces" of the beauty industry. These models negotiated previously unheard-of lucrative and exclusive deals with giant cosmetics companies, were instantly recognizable, and their names became well known to the public. By the 1980s, most models could make modeling a full-time career. Patti Hansen, one of the top earning models in 1980, earned $200 an hour for print and $2,000 for television plus residuals; it was estimated that she earned about $300,000 a year in 1980 (equivalent to $955,917 in 2024). It was common for models to travel abroad and work throughout Europe. As modeling became global, numerous agencies began to think globally. In 1980, Ford Models, the innovator of scouting, introduced the Ford Models Supermodel of the World contest. That same year, John Casablancas opened Elite Models in New York. In 1981, cosmetics companies began contracting top models to lucrative endorsement deals. By 1983, Elite had developed its own contest, the Elite Model Look competition. In New York, during the 1980s there were so-called "model wars" in which the Ford and Elite agencies fought over models and campaigns. Models were jumping back and forth between agencies such Elite, Wilhelmina, and Ford. In New York, the late 1980s trend was the boyish look in which models had short cropped hair and looked androgynous. In Europe, the trend was the exact opposite. During this time, many American models who were considered more feminine-looking moved abroad. By the mid-1980s, big hair was made popular by some musical groups, and the boyish look was out. The hourglass figure, a fashionable trend from the late 1940s to the early 1960s, made a comeback. The high fashion models of the late 1980s dominated the early 1990s. In 1990, Linda Evangelista famously said to Vogue, "we don't wake up for less than $10,000 a day". Evangelista and her contemporaries, Naomi Campbell, Cindy Crawford, Christy Turlington, Tatjana Patitz, Stephanie Seymour, and Yasmeen Ghauri became arguably the most recognisable models in the world, earning the moniker of "supermodel", and were boosted to global recognition and new heights of wealth for the industry. In 1991, Turlington signed a contract with Maybelline that paid her $800,000 for twelve days' work each year. By the mid‑1990s, the new "heroin chic" trend became popular amongst New York and London editorial clients. Kate Moss became its poster child through her ads for Calvin Klein. Moss' friend, socialite Annabelle Neilson, was becoming increasingly well known at this time. With the popularity of lingerie retailer Victoria's Secret, and the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue, there was a need for healthier-looking[citation needed] supermodels such as Tyra Banks and Heidi Klum to meet commercial modelling demand. The mid‑1990s also saw many Asian countries establishing modelling agencies. By the late 1990s, the heroin chic era had run its course. Teen-inspired clothing infiltrated mainstream fashion, teen pop music was on the rise, and artists such as Britney Spears, Aaliyah and Christina Aguilera popularised pleather and bare midriffs. As fashion changed to a more youthful demographic, the models who rose to fame had to be sexier for the digital age. Following Gisele Bündchen's breakthrough, a wave of Brazilian models including Adriana Lima and Alessandra Ambrosio rose to fame on runways and became popular in commercial modelling throughout the 2000s. Some have tied this increase in Brazilian models to the trend of magazines featuring celebrities instead of models on their covers. In the late 2000s, the Brazilians fell out of favour on the runways. Editorial clients were favouring models with a china-doll or alien look to them, such as Gemma Ward and Lily Cole. During the 2000s, Ford Models and NEXT Model Management were engaged in a legal battle, with each agency alleging that the other was stealing its models. However, the most significant controversy of the 2000s was the health of high-fashion models participating in fashion week. While the health of models had been a concern since the 1970s, there were several high-profile news stories surrounding the deaths of young fashion models due to eating disorders and drug abuse. The British Fashion Council subsequently asked designers to sign a contract stating they would not use models under the age of sixteen. On March 3, 2012, Vogue banned models under the age of sixteen as well as models who appeared to have an eating disorder. Similarly, other countries placed bans on unhealthy, and underage models, including Spain, Italy, Israel and France, which all enacted a minimum body mass index (BMI) requirement. The French law also requires digitally altered pictures of models to be identified as such. In 2013, New York toughened its child labour law protections for models under the age of eighteen by passing New York Senate Bill No. 5486, which gives underage models the same labour protections afforded to child actors. Key new protections included the following: underage models are not to work before 5:00 pm or after 10:00 pm on school nights, nor were they to work later than 12:30 am on non-school nights; the models may not return to work less than twelve hours after they leave; a pediatric nurse must be on-site; an adult chaperone must accompany models under sixteen; parents or guardians of underage models must create a trust fund account into which employers will transfer a minimum of 15% of the child model's gross earnings; and employers must set aside time and a dedicated space for educational instruction. Catwalk or runway models, also called live models, display clothes from fashion designers, fashion media, and consumers. During runway shows, models have to constantly change clothes and makeup. Models walk, turn, and stand to demonstrate a garment's key features. Models also go to interviews (called "go and sees") to present their portfolios. A runway model can also work in other areas, such as department store fashion shows, and the most successful models sometimes create their own product lines or go into acting.: 191–192 Top runway models travel around the world to attend fashion shows. The most prestigious events are held in New York City, London, Paris, and Milan. Second-tier international fashion centre cities include Rome, Florence, Venice, Brescia, Barcelona, Los Angeles, Tokyo, and Moscow. The criteria for runway models include certain height and weight requirements. The British Association of Model Agents (AMA) says that female models should be around 34"-24"-34" and between 5 ft 8 in (173 cm) and 5 ft 11 in (180 cm) tall. The average model is very slender. Those not meeting the size requirement may try to become a plus-size model. According to the New York Better Business Career Services website, the preferred dimensions for a male model are a height of 5 ft 11 in (180 cm) to 6 ft 2 in (188 cm), a waist of 26–32 in (66–81 cm) and a chest measurement of 39–40 in (99–102 cm). Male runway models are notably skinny and well toned. Male and female models must also possess clear skin, healthy hair, and attractive facial features. Stringent weight and body proportion guidelines form the selection criteria by which established, and would‑be, models are judged for their placement suitability, on an ongoing basis. There can be some variation regionally, and by market tier, subject to current prevailing trends at any point, in any era, by agents, agencies and end-clients. Formerly, the required measurements for models were 35"-23.5"-35" in (90-60-90 cm), the alleged measurements of Marilyn Monroe.[citation needed] Today's fashion models tend to have measurements closer to the AMA-recommended shape, but some – such as Afghan model Zohre Esmaeli – still have 35"-23.5"-35" measurements. Although in some fashion centres, a size 00 is more desirable than a size 0. The often thin shape of many fashion models has been criticised for warping girls' body image and encouraging eating disorders. Organisers of a fashion show in Madrid in September 2006 turned away models who were judged to be underweight by medical personnel who were on hand. In February 2007 a Uruguayan model, Luisel Ramos, died from heart problems secondary to malnutrition. Her sister Eliana Ramos also was a model and had died immediately after a runway show several months prior. They were amongst the three fashion models to die of malnutrition in a six-month span. The other victim was Ana Carolina Reston. Luisel Ramos died of heart failure caused by anorexia nervosa just after stepping off the catwalk. In 2015, France passed a law requiring models to be declared healthy by a doctor to participate in fashion shows. The law also requires re-touched images to be marked as such in magazines. Fashion modelling also includes modelling clothing in fashion magazines. In Japan, there are different types of fashion magazine models. Exclusive models (専属モデル, senzoku moderu) are models who regularly appear in a fashion magazine and model exclusively for it. On the other hand, street models, or "reader models" (読者モデル, dokusha moderu; abbreviated as "dokumo" for short), are amateur models who model part-time for fashion magazines in conjunction to school work and their main jobs. Unlike professional models, street models are meant to represent the average person in appearance and do not appear on runways. Street models are not exclusively contracted to fashion magazines. If a street model is popular enough, some become exclusive models. Many fashion icons and musicians in Japan began their careers as street models, including Kaela Kimura and Kyary Pamyu Pamyu. Plus-size models are models who generally have larger measurements than editorial fashion models, and are not necessarily overweight. The primary use of plus-size models is to appear in advertising and runway shows for plus-size labels. Plus-size models are also engaged in work not strictly related to selling large-sized clothing, e.g., stock photography and advertising photography for cosmetics, household and pharmaceutical products and sunglasses, footwear and watches. Therefore, plus-size models do not exclusively wear garments marketed as plus-size clothing. This is especially true when participating in fashion editorials for mainstream fashion magazines. Some plus-size models have appeared in runway shows and campaigns for mainstream retailers and designers such as Gucci, Guess, Jean-Paul Gaultier, Levi's and Versace Jeans. Also known as the "in-between" and "middle models", they are neither considered catalogue size (0–2) nor plus-size (10 up). There is criticism that these models have been left out of the conversation because fashion companies and brands opt to employ the extremes of the spectrum. Model Camille Kostek who was on a solo cover of Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue in 2019 has stated that she was told by a well-known international modelling agency "...that it was too bad that I wasn't a size 10. That plus size is a big market right now and it's too bad I wasn't measuring bigger. My size (4/6) is considered an "in-between size", meaning I'm not a straight model nor plus model, I'm right in the middle. Actress Mindy Kaling has described this body type in her 2011 book Is Everybody Hanging Out Without Me? writing, "Since I am not model-skinny, but also not super-fat... I fall into that nebulous, 'Normal American Woman Size' that legions of fashion stylists detest... Many stylists hate that size because, I think, to them, I lack the self-discipline to be an aesthetic, or the sassy confidence to be a total fatty hedonist. They're like, 'Pick a lane.'" The arrival of black women modelling as a profession began in early postwar America. It started most notably from the need of advertisers and a rise of black photography magazines. The women who advanced in such careers were those in a middle-class system emphasising the conservative value of marriage, motherhood, and domesticity. Originally titled the "Brownskin" model, black women refined the social, sexual, and racial realities confined in the gender expectations of the modelling world. There was a profound need for black women to partake in the advertising process for the new "Negro Market". With the help of Branford Models, the first black agency, 1946 was the beginning of the black modelling era. Branford Models' was able to "overturn the barriers facing African Americans in the early postwar period," especially by lifting at least one economic freedom. In this postwar America, the demand for such presence in magazines advanced "as a stage for models to display consumer goods" while assisting "in constructing a new visual discourse of urban middle-class African America". In March 1966, Donyale Luna became the first Black model to appear on the cover of the British edition of Vogue. While they represented diversity, a major gap in the fashion industry, it was only until the 1970s that black models had a substantial presence in the modelling world. Known as the "Black is Beautiful" movement, the 1970s became the era of the black model. With growing disenfranchisement and racial inequality, the United States recognised the urgency of opening the "doors of social access and visibility to black Americans". The world of fashion was the gateway for social change. "The world of fashion was similarly looked to as a place where the culture could find signs of racial progress. Expressions of beauty and glamour mattered. Good race relations required taking note of who was selling women lipsticks and mini skirts, which meant that advertisers began looking for black models" Black models were looked to as the vehicle of social change. They were given the opportunity to balance out the lack of presence of black individuals in the mainstream culture. Agencies were beginning to scout black models and focus on the social change they were contributing to. Life magazine in October 1969, covered their issue with Naomi Sims, one of the most influential black models in the industry. Her rise to fame led to her being hired by international magazines and working on individual projects with designers across the globe. In the Life Magazine issue, Black Beauty, a new agency that represented black models, had a spread in the magazine that showcased 39 black models. Each one of the models had unique features, allowing black expression to progress through this historic magazine spread. With the movement's presence both in magazines and on the runway, designers began to realise the need to include black models on their runways and advertisements. The Battle of Versailles was one of the most notable moments in fashion history that put black models on the map. Eleanor Lambert, creator of Fashion Week and a major "[controller] of the narrative of American fashion", set up a dinner and a fundraiser to both increase American fashion visibility and restore the palace of Versailles. Five French designers and five American designers battled it out on the runway, showing off the fashion, and for the Americans, black models as well. Oscar de la Renta stated "it was the black models that had made the difference." Pat Cleveland, Bethann Hardison, Billie Blair, Jennifer Brice, Alva Chinn, and Ramona Saunders, were among the many black models that helped Team America win and stun the French competition. This competition made the black model a worldwide phenomenon. The French were beginning to welcome diversity on the runway and in their advertising. With the recognition Versailles had given, black presence in the modelling world carried out into the 1980s and the 1990s. The models were now known by name and the publicity that came with the designers they were modelling for. With the rise of the supermodel, models like Naomi Campbell and Tyra Banks paved the way for black success. Naomi Campbell, born in London, was the first black model to cover American Vogue, TIME magazine, Russian Vogue, and the first British black model to cover British vogue. Brands like Chanel, Louis Vitton, Balmain, Prada, and more have all featured Campbell in their campaigns. She used her remarkable success to achieve more than fashion excellence. By the mid-1990s, black presence in the modelling world had dramatically decreased. Designers began to favour a consistent aesthetic and elected for skinnier white models. This reality was paved by models such as Kate Moss and Stella Tennant, who provided a more consistent look for the runway. At this time, "the number of working black models in high-profile runway presentation... became so dire that stories began appearing in the mainstream media about the whitewashing of the runway". In response, models like Campbell, Iman, and Bethann Hardison, joined forces throughout the"Diversity Coalition" in an attempt to "call out and accuse prominent fashion houses for snubbing Black and Asian models on the catwalk, editorial spreads, and campaigns". The lack of representation was, in part, due to the belief that "black girls don't push products", which "encouraged people who work directly and indirectly in the industry to speak out on the injustices that go on within it". In the 1990s, it was quite clear that the top designers simply preferred a new aesthetic that excluded models of colour, which resulted in only 6% of runway models to be women of colour. Campbell's Diversity Coalition's primary mission was to "expedite inclusion on the runway by deliberately calling out designers who have executed acts of racism on the runway". According to Campbell, it was their choice to not include black models on the runway and desire a uniformed runway that resulted in a racist act. Although such a dramatic effort to exclude black presence from the fashion world, models like Tyra Banks and Veronica Webb persisted. Banks not only dominated the runway as a teen, she took over countless pop culture platforms. Being the first black model to cover Sports Illustrated, Banks was one of the most prominent models in the early 2000s. Covering Sports Illustrated, Elle, Essence, Vogue, and walking for Chanel, Chrisitan Dior, and Claude Monanta, Banks was truly dominating the fashion world. In addition, she acted in Fresh Prince of Bel Air and created her own reality competition show called America's Next Top Model. In conversation with Trebay of Los the New York Times, Banks stated that her first cover on Sports Illustrated "changed [her] life overnight. You have to think back to remember what that did for an appreciation of black beauty to have a black girl, a girl next door type, on the cover of one of the most mass mainstream magazines of our lives. It was a societal statement, a political statement, and an economic one". Now, models like Joan Smalls, Winne Harlow, Slick Woods, Jasmine Sanders and more are continuing the fight for black presence in the modelling world and using their successors as inspiration. A fit model (sometimes fitting model) is a person who is used by a fashion designer or clothing manufacturer to check the fit, drape and visual appearance of a design on a representative human being, effectively acting as a live mannequin. Some models are employed for their body parts. For example, hand models may be used to promote products held in the hand and nail-related products. (e.g. rings, other jewelry or nail polish). They are frequently part of television commercials. Many parts models have exceptionally attractive body parts, but there is also demand for unattractive or unusual looking body parts for particular campaigns. Hands are the most in-demand body parts. Feet models are also in high demand, particularly those that fit sample-size shoes. Models are also successful modelling other specific parts including abs, arms, back, bust or chest, legs, and lips. Some petite models (females who are under 5 ft 6 in (1.68 m) and do not qualify as fashion models) have found success in women's body part modelling. Parts model divisions can be found at agencies worldwide. Several agencies solely represent parts models, including Hired Hands in London, Body Parts Models in Los Angeles, Carmen Hand Model Management in New York and Parts Models in New York. Parts Models is the largest parts agency, representing over 300 parts models. Petite models are models that are under the typical height requirements that are expected of fashion models. Petite models typically work more often in commercial and print modelling (rather than runway modelling). The height of fashion models is typically 5 feet 9 inches (1.75 m) and above for women, and 6 feet 1 inch (1.85 m) and above for men. Models who are shorter than these heights usually fall under the category of petite or commercial models.[citation needed] Podium models differ from runway models in that they do not walk down a runway, but rather just stand on an elevated platform. They resemble live mannequins placed in various places throughout an event. Attendees can walk up to the models and inspect and even feel the clothing. Podium Modelling is a practical alternative way of presenting a fashion show when space is too limited to have a full runway fashion show. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics the median earnings for a model in the United States, as of 2021, is $34,000 annually. There are approximately 3,200 men and women who work as models full-time in the United States. Glamour models Glamour modelling focuses on sexuality; thus, general requirements are often unclear, depending more on each case. Glamour models can be any size or shape. A study from 2014 that analysed glamour model profiles estimated that the mean values of female models were 1.68 metres (5 ft 6 in) height, 54 kilograms (119 lb) weight and 0.73 waist-to-hip ratio. There is no industry standard for glamour modelling and it varies greatly by country. For the most part, glamour models are limited to modelling in calendars, men's magazines, such as Playboy, bikini modelling, lingerie modelling, fetish modelling, music videos, and work in films as extras. However, some extremely popular glamour models transition into commercial print modelling, appearing in swimwear and lingerie campaigns. In the UK, glamour modelling became a prominent feature of the newspaper industry when The Sun established Page 3 in 1969, a section in their newspaper which featured sexually suggestive images of Penthouse and Playboy models. From 1970 models appeared topless. In the 1980s, The Sun's competitors followed suit and produced their own Page 3 sections. It was during this time that glamour models first came to prominence with the likes of Samantha Fox. As a result, the United Kingdom has a very large glamour market and numerous glamour modelling agencies. It was not until the 1990s that modern glamour modelling was established. During this time, the fashion industry was promoting models with waif bodies and androgynous-looking women, which left a void. Several fashion models, who were deemed too commercial, and too curvaceous, were frustrated with industry standards, and took a different approach. Models such as Victoria Silvstedt left the fashion world and began modelling for men's magazines. In the previous decades, posing nude for Playboy resulted in models losing their agencies and endorsements. Playboy was a stepping stone which catapulted the careers of Victoria Silvstedt, Pamela Anderson, Jenny McCarthy, and Anna Nicole Smith. Pamela Anderson became so popular from her Playboy spreads that she was able to land roles on Home Improvement and Baywatch. In the mid-1990s, a series of men's magazines were established such as Maxim, FHM, and Stuff. At the same time, magazines including Sweden's Slitz (formerly a music magazine) re-branded themselves as men's magazines. Pre-internet, these magazines were popular among men in their late teens and early twenties because they were considered more tasteful than their predecessors. With the glamour market growing, fashion moved away from the waifs and onto Brazilian bombshells. The glamour market, consisting mostly of commercial fashion and print models, became its own genre due to its popularity. Even in a large market like the United Kingdom, however, glamour models are not usually signed exclusively to one agency as they can not rely financially on one agency to provide them with enough work. It was, and still is, a common practice for glamour models to partake in kiss-and-tell interviews about their dalliances with famous men.[citation needed] The notoriety of their alleged bed-hopping often propels their popularity and they are often promoted by their current or former fling. With Page 3 models becoming fixtures in the British tabloids, glamour models such as Jordan, now known as Katie Price, became household names. By 2004, Page 3 regulars earned anywhere from £30,000 to 40,000, where the average salary of a non–Page 3 model, as of 2011, was between £10,000 and 20,000. In the early 2000s, glamour models, and aspiring glamour models, appeared on reality television shows such as Big Brother to gain fame. Several Big Brother alumni parlayed their fifteen minutes of fame into successful glamour modelling careers. However, partly because of competition from the rising internet—giving audiences access to large amounts of, often free, online content—and its own glamour stars, such as Jordan Capri, the offline glamour market became saturated by the mid-2000s, and numerous men's magazines including Arena, Stuff and FHM in the United States went under. During this time, there was a growing trend of glamour models, including Kellie Acreman and Lauren Pope, becoming DJs to supplement their income. In a 2012 interview, Keeley Hazell said that going topless is not the best way to achieve success and that "[she] was lucky to be in that 1% of people that get that, and become really successful." In Japan, a gravure idol (グラビアアイドル, gurabia aidoru), often abbreviated to gradol (グラドル, guradoru), is a female model who primarily models for magazines, especially men's magazines, photobooks or DVDs. It is considered part of the overall idol industry in Japan. "Gurabia" (グラビア) is a wasei-eigo term derived from "rotogravure", which is a type of intaglio printing process that was once a staple of newspaper photo features. The rotogravure process is still used for commercial printing of magazines, postcards, and cardboard product packaging. Gravure idols appear in a wide range of photographic styles and genres. Their photos are largely aimed at male audiences with poses or activities intended to be provocative or suggestive, generally accentuated by an air of playfulness and innocence rather than aggressive sexuality. Although gravure idols may sometimes wear clothing that exposes most of their body, they seldom appear fully nude. Gravure idols may be as young as pre-teen age up to their early thirties. In addition to appearing in mainstream magazines, gravure idols often release their own professional photobooks and DVDs for their fans. Many popular female idols in Japan started their careers as gravure idols. An alternative model is any model who does not fit into the conventional model types and may include punk, goth, fetish, and tattooed models or models with distinctive attributes. This type of modelling is usually a cross between glamour modelling and art modelling. Publishers such as Goliath Books in Germany introduced alternative models and punk photography to larger audiences. Billi Gordon, then known as Wilbert Anthony Gordon, was[when?] the top greeting card model in the world and inspired a cottage industry, including greeting cards, T-shirts, fans, stationery, gift bags, etc. Fitness models Fitness modelling focuses on displaying a healthy, toned physique. Fitness models usually have defined muscle groups. The model's body weight is greater due to muscle being denser than fat; however, they have a lower body fat percentage and a higher degree of muscle definition. Fitness models are often used in magazine advertising; they can also in some cases be certified personal fitness trainers. However, other fitness models are also athletes and compete as professionals in fitness and figure competitions. There are several agencies in large markets such as New York, London, and Germany that have fitness modelling agencies. While there is a large market for these models, most of these agencies are secondary agencies promoting models who typically earn their primary income as commercial models. There are also magazines that are geared towards specifically fitness modelling or getting fit and in shape. Commercial models A promotional model is a model hired to drive consumer demand for a product, service, brand, or concept by interacting in person with potential consumers. The vast majority of promotional models tend to be attractive in physical appearance. They serve to provide information about the product or service and make it appealing to consumers. While the interaction length may be short, the promotional model delivers a live experience that reflects on the product or service he or she represents. This form of marketing touches fewer consumers for the cost than traditional advertising media (such as print, radio, and television); however, the consumer's perception of a brand, product, service, or company is often more profoundly affected by a live person-to-person experience. Marketing campaigns that make use of promotional models may take place in stores or shopping malls, at tradeshows, special promotional events, clubs, or even at outdoor public spaces. Promotional models may also be used as TV hosts/anchors for interviewing celebrities at film awards, sports events, etc. They are often held at high-traffic locations to reach as many consumers as possible or at venues where a particular type of target consumer is expected to be present. "Spokesmodel" is a term used for a model who is employed to be associated with a specific brand in advertisements. A spokesmodel may be a celebrity used only in advertisements (in contrast to a brand ambassador who is also expected to represent the company at various events), but more often the term refers to a model who is not a celebrity in their own right. A classic example of the spokesmodel is the models hired to be the Marlboro Man between 1954 and 1999. Trade show models work a trade show floorspace or booth and represent a company to attendees. Trade show models are typically not regular employees of the company, but are freelancers hired by the company renting the booth space. They are hired for several reasons: trade show models can make a company's booth more visible from the hundreds of other booths competing for attendee attention. They are articulate and quickly learn and explain or disseminate information on the company and its product(s) and service(s). And they can assist a company in handling a large number of attendees, which the company might otherwise not have enough employees to accommodate, possibly increasing the number of sales or leads resulting from participation in the show. Atmosphere models are hired by the producers of themed events to enhance the atmosphere or ambience of their event. They are usually dressed in costumes exemplifying the event's theme and are often placed strategically in various locations around the venue. It is common for event guests to have their picture taken with atmosphere models. For example, if someone is throwing a "Brazilian Day" celebration, they would hire models dressed in samba costumes and headdresses to stand or walk around the party.[citation needed] Instagram models are people who have accumulated a large number of followers on Instagram by posting engaging photos of themselves and their lifestyles, and are consequently hired by a company to advertise products as their influence and popularity can increase sales. They should not be confused with established models such as Cara Delevingne and Gigi Hadid, who use Instagram to promote their traditional modelling careers, although some models, such as Playboy model Lindsey Pelas, begin their careers conventionally and subsequently become Instagram models. Some models use Instagram success to develop their careers, such as Rosie Roff, who worked as a fashion model before being discovered via Instagram and gaining work as a ring girl in American boxing. In some cases, Instagram gives unsigned models a platform to attract the attention of agencies and talent scouts. American model Matthew Noszka entered the profession as a result of being discovered on Instagram by Wilhelmina Models. The Instagram model concept originated in the late 2000s, when the boyfriends of fashion bloggers such as Rumi Neely and Chiara Ferragni began photographing their girlfriends in various outfits. Instagram models often attempt to become social media influencers and engage in influencer marketing, promoting products such as fashion brands and detox teas. High-profile influencers can earn thousands of dollars for promoting commercial brands. When choosing whom to employ, brands have become less concerned with the number of followers an influencer has and more focused on their engagement marketing strategy. Research indicates that 89% of influencers use Instagram to promote themselves, compared to 20% using Twitter and 16% using Facebook. Some Instagram models have gained high-profile modelling jobs and become celebrities. Fitness model Jen Selter had become an Internet celebrity by 2014 and modelled for Vanity Fair magazine. Cosplayer and model Anna Faith acquired over 250,000 Instagram followers by 2014, gaining success from her ability to impersonate the Disney character Elsa. With Facebook's continuing decrease in post reach, Instagram has increasingly become cosplayers' favourite platform. American actress Caitlin O'Connor had almost 300,000 Instagram followers in 2016, earning most of her social media income from endorsing products on Instagram. American model Kayla Simmons has a million Instagram followers after posting images of herself in swimsuits. Australian personal trainer Kayla Itsines acquired 5.5 million Instagram followers, allowing her to build a business in the fitness industry. Brazilian model Claudia Alende gained a following of 2.8 million people on Instagram by 2015 and developed a career as a lingerie model. Plus-size models Iskra Lawrence and Tess Holliday have used Instagram to demonstrate their potential as models. Yashika Aannand, an Indian teenage actress, rose to prominence in the Tamil film industry after gaining popularity as an Instagram model with over 145,000 followers on her account by 2017. Iraqi cross-dressing model, Noor Alsaffar, was killed in September 2023 as part of an increase in violence against LGBTQ+ people. Instagram model techniques and aesthetics have also been used in unconventional or parody profiles. Instagram model Lil Miquela has blurred the line between reality and social media, amassing more than 200,000 followers without revealing whether she is real or computer-generated. Australian comedian Celeste Barber had acquired 1.8 million Instagram followers by 2017, parodying celebrity fashion photographs with real-life reenactments. In 2016, French organisation Addict Aide ran a campaign to raise awareness for alcohol abuse among young people in which a model posed as Louise Delage, a fictitious 25-year-old Parisian whose Instagram photos nearly always featured alcohol. The account amassed 65,000 followers in a month, after which a reveal video posted to it had over 160,000 views. Some reports suggest that a number of Instagram models obtain extra income by covertly working as prostitutes. Websites accusing various models of this, often without reliable evidence, have increased in popularity recently, sometimes with the unintended effect of increasing their earnings. But false accusations on these sites can harm legitimate models' reputations, and some women in the industry consider them a way for men to exert power over women. See also References Further reading External links |
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[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:BLUELOCK] | [TOKENS: 5211] |
Contents Wikipedia:Protection policy In some circumstances, pages may need to be protected from modification by certain groups of editors. Pages are protected when there is disruption that cannot be prevented through other means, such as blocks. Wikipedia is built on the principle that anyone can edit, and therefore aims to have as many pages open for public editing as possible so that anyone can add material and correct issues. This policy states in detail the protection types and procedures for page protection and unprotection, and when each protection should and should not be applied. Protection is a technical restriction applied only by administrators, although any user may request protection. Protection can be indefinite or expire after a specified time. The various levels of protection can be applied to the page edit, page move, page create, and file upload actions. Even when a page is protected from editing, the source wikitext of the page can still be viewed and copied by anyone. A protected page is marked at its top right by a padlock icon, usually added by the {{pp-protected}} template. The {{pp-protected}} template is automatically added by the {{documentation}} template used in template space. Overview of page protection Any protection applied to a page involves setting a type, level, and duration as follows: Preemptive protection Applying page protection solely as a preemptive measure is contrary to the open nature of Wikipedia and is generally not allowed. Instead, protection is used when vandalism, disruption, or abuse by multiple users is occurring at a frequency that warrants protection. The duration of protection should be as short as possible and at the lowest protection level sufficient to stop the disruption, allowing edits from as many productive users as possible. Exceptions include the Main Page, along with its templates and images, which are indefinitely fully protected. Additionally, Today's Featured Article is typically semi-protected from the day before its scheduled appearance on the Main Page until the day after it leaves. Finally, pages subject to Arbitration Committee remedies that permit or require preemptive protection may be protected accordingly. Requesting protection Page protection can be requested at Wikipedia:Requests for page protection. Changes to a protected page should be proposed on the corresponding talk page, and then (if necessary) requested by adding an edit request. From there, if the requested changes are uncontroversial or if there is consensus for them, the changes can be carried out by a user who can edit the page. Except in the case of office actions (see below), Arbitration Committee remedies, or pages in the MediaWiki namespace (see below), administrators may unprotect a page if the reason for its protection no longer applies, a reasonable period has elapsed, and there is no consensus that continued protection is necessary. Users can request unprotection or a reduction in protection level by asking the administrator who applied the protection on the administrator's user talk page. If the administrator is inactive, no longer an administrator, or does not respond, then a request for reduction in protection level may be filed. Note that such requests will normally be declined if the protecting administrator is active and was not consulted first. A log of protections and unprotections is available at Special:Log/protect. Summary table Protection types Edit protection restricts editing of a page, often due to vandalism or disputes, ensuring only experienced users can make changes (see above for more information). Administrators can prevent the creation of pages. This type of protection is useful for pages that have been deleted but repeatedly recreated. Such protection is case-sensitive. There are several levels of creation protection that can be applied to pages, identical to the levels for edit protection. A list of protected titles can be found at Special:ProtectedTitles (see also historical lists). Preemptive restrictions on new article titles are instituted through the title blacklist system, which allows for more flexible protection with support for substrings and regular expressions. Pages that have been creation-protected are sometimes referred to as "salted". Editors wishing to re-create a salted title with appropriate content should either contact an administrator (preferably the protecting administrator), file a request for reduction in protection level, or use the deletion review process. To make a convincing case for re-creation, it is helpful to show a draft version of the intended article when filing a request. Create protection of any duration may be applied to pages being repeatedly recreated in violation of policy using the lowest protection level sufficient to stop the disruption (autoconfirmed, extended-confirmed, or full). Due to the implementation of ACPERM, non-confirmed editors cannot create pages in mainspace; thus, semi-creation protection should be used only for protection of pages outside of mainspace. While creation-protection is usually permanent, temporary creation protection can be applied if a page is repeatedly recreated by a single user (or sockpuppets of that user, if applicable). Move-protected pages, or more technically, fully move-protected pages, cannot be moved to a new title except by an administrator. Move protection is commonly applied to: Move protection of any duration may be applied to pages being repeatedly moved in violation of policy using the lowest protection level sufficient to stop the disruption (extended-confirmed or full). Non-confirmed editors cannot move pages so semi-move protection has no effect. Fully edit-protected pages are also implicitly move-protected. As with full edit protection, protection because of edit warring should not be considered an endorsement of the current name. When move protection is applied during a requested move discussion, the page should be protected at the location it was at when the move request was started. All files and categories are implicitly move-protected, requiring file movers or administrators to rename files, and page movers or administrators to rename categories. Upload-protected files, or more technically, fully upload-protected files, cannot be replaced with new versions except by an administrator. Upload protection does not protect file pages from editing. It can be applied by an administrator to: Protection levels Pending changes protection allows unregistered and new users to edit pages, while keeping their edits hidden from unregistered users (who make up the vast majority of visitors to Wikipedia articles) until those changes are accepted by a pending changes reviewer or an administrator. An alternative to semi-protection, it is used to suppress vandalism and certain other persistent problems, while allowing all users to continue to submit edits. Pending changes is technically implemented as a separate option, with its own duration, and it yields to other edit protection levels in cases of overlap. When a page under pending changes protection is edited by an unregistered editor or a new user, the edit is not directly visible to the majority of Wikipedia readers, until it is reviewed and accepted by an editor with the pending changes reviewer right. When a page under pending changes protection is edited by an autoconfirmed user, the edit will be immediately visible to Wikipedia readers, unless there are pending edits waiting to be reviewed. Pending changes are visible in the page history, where they are marked as "pending review". Readers who are not logged in (the vast majority of readers) are shown the latest accepted version of the page; logged-in users see the latest version of the page, with all changes (reviewed or not) applied. When editors who are not reviewers make changes to an article with unreviewed pending changes, their edits are also marked as pending and are not visible to most readers. A user who clicks "edit this page" is always, at that point, shown the latest version of the page for editing regardless of whether the user is logged in or not. Pending changes are typically reviewed within several hours. Pending changes can be used to protect articles against: Pending changes protection should not be used as a preemptive measure against violations that have not yet occurred. Like semi-protection, pending changes protection should never be used in genuine content disputes, where there is a risk of placing a particular group of editors (unregistered users) at a disadvantage. Semi-protection is generally a better option for articles with a high edit rate as well as articles affected by issues difficult for pending changes reviewers to detect, such as non-obvious vandalism, plausible-sounding misinformation, and hard-to-detect copyright violations. In addition, administrators may apply temporary pending changes protection on pages that are subject to significant but temporary vandalism or disruption (for example, due to media attention) when blocking individual users is not a feasible option. As with other forms of protection, the time frame of the protection should be proportional to the problem. Indefinite PC protection should be used only in cases of severe long-term disruption. Removal of pending changes protection can be requested to any administrator, or at requests for unprotection. The reviewing process is described in detail at Wikipedia:Reviewing pending changes. Semi-protected pages may be edited only by registered users who are confirmed or autoconfirmed (accounts that are at least 4 days old and with at least 10 edits on English Wikipedia). Semi-protection is useful when there is a significant amount of disruption or vandalism from new or unregistered users, or to prevent sockpuppets of blocked or banned users from editing, especially when it occurs on biographies of living persons who have had a recent high level of media interest. An alternative to semi-protection is pending changes, which is sometimes favored when an article is being vandalized regularly, but otherwise receives a low amount of editing. Such users can request edits to a semi-protected page by proposing them on its talk page, using the {{Edit semi-protected}} template if necessary to gain attention. If the page in question and its talk page are both protected, the edit request should be made at Wikipedia:Requests for page protection instead. New users may also request the confirmed user right at Wikipedia:Requests for permissions/Confirmed. Semi-protection should not be used as a preemptive measure against vandalism that has not yet occurred or to privilege registered users over unregistered users in (valid) content disputes. Administrators may apply temporary semi-protection on pages that are: In addition, administrators may apply indefinite semi-protection to pages that are subject to heavy and persistent vandalism or violations of content policy (such as Wikipedia's biographies of living persons or neutral point of view policies). A page and its talk page should not normally be protected at the same time. In exceptional cases, if a page and its talk page are both protected, the talk page should direct affected editors to Wikipedia:Request for edit through the use of a non-iconified page protection template, to ensure that no editor is entirely prevented from contributing. Today's featured article is, since 2023, always semi-protected. However, this was historically not the case. Extended confirmed protection, previously known as 30/500 protection, restricts editing to users with the extended confirmed user access level, administrators, and bots. Extended confirmed is automatically granted to users one edit after their account has existed for at least 30 days and has made at least 500 edits. Where semi-protection has proven to be ineffective, administrators may use extended confirmed protection to combat disruption (vandalism, abusive sockpuppetry, edit wars, etc.) on any topic. Extended confirmed protection should not be used as a preemptive measure against disruption that has not yet occurred, nor should it be used to privilege extended confirmed users over unregistered/new users in valid content disputes (except as general sanction enforcement; see below). When necessary to prevent disruption in designated contentious topic areas, administrators are authorized to make protections at any level. (This is distinct from the extended confirmed restriction below.) Community-designated contentious topics grant similar authorizations. Some topic areas are under Arbitration Committee extended confirmed restriction as a general sanction. When such a restriction is in effect in a topic area, only extended-confirmed users may make edits related to the topic area. Enforcement of the restriction on articles primarily in the topic area is preferably done with extended confirmed protection, but it is not required (other enforcement methods are outlined in the policy). As always, review the policy before enforcing it. Community general sanctions, applying a similar extended confirmed restriction, have also been authorized by the community. General sanctions has a list of the active general sanctions that incorporate the extended confirmed restriction. High-risk templates can be extended confirmed–protected at administrator discretion when template protection would be too restrictive and semi-protection would be ineffective to stop widespread disruption. Extended confirmed protection can be applied at the discretion of an administrator when creation-protecting a page. A bot maintains a report of pages recently put under extended confirmed protection. Any protection made as arbitration enforcement will be automatically logged at Wikipedia:Arbitration enforcement log/Protections. Community-authorized discretionary sanctions must be logged on a page specific to the topic area. A full list of the 14975 pages under extended confirmed protection can be found here. Users can request edits to an extended confirmed–protected page by proposing them on its talk page, using the {{Edit extended-protected}} template if necessary to gain attention. A template-protected page can be edited only by administrators or users in the Template editors group. This protection level should be used almost exclusively on high-risk templates and modules. In cases where pages in other namespaces become transcluded to a very high degree, this protection level is also valid. This is a protection level that replaces full protection on pages that are merely protected due to high transclusion rates, rather than content disputes. It should be used on templates whose risk factor would have otherwise warranted full protection. It should not be used on less risky templates on the grounds that the template editor user right exists—the existence of the right should not result in more templates becoming uneditable for the general editing community. In borderline cases, extended confirmed protection or lower can be applied to high risk templates that the general editing community still needs to edit regularly. A full list of the pages under template protection can be found here. Editors may request edits to a template-protected page by proposing them on its talk page, using the {{Edit template-protected}} template if necessary to gain attention. A fully protected page cannot be edited or moved by anyone except administrators. Modifications to a fully protected page can be proposed on its talk page (or at another appropriate forum) for discussion. Administrators can make changes to the protected article reflecting consensus. Placing the {{Edit fully-protected}} template on the talk page will draw the attention of administrators for implementing uncontroversial changes. While content disputes and edit warring can be addressed with user blocks issued by uninvolved administrators, allowing normal page editing by other editors at the same time, the protection policy provides an alternative approach as administrators have the discretion to temporarily fully protect an article to end an ongoing edit war. This approach may better suit multi-party disputes and contentious content, as it makes talk page consensus a requirement for implementation of requested edits. When protecting a page because of a content dispute, administrators have a duty to avoid protecting a version that contains policy-violating content, such as vandalism, copyright violations, defamation, or poor-quality coverage of living people. Administrators are deemed to remain uninvolved when exercising discretion on whether to apply protection to the current version of an article, or to an older, stable, or pre-edit-war version. Fully protected pages may not be edited except to make changes that are uncontroversial or for which there is clear consensus. Editors convinced that the protected version of an article contains policy-violating content, or that protection has rewarded edit warring or disruption by establishing a contentious revision, may identify a stable version prior to the edit war and request reversion to that version. Before making such a request, editors should consider how independent editors might view the suggestion and recognize that continuing an edit war is grounds for being blocked. Administrators who have made substantive content changes to an article are considered involved and must not use their advanced permissions to further their own positions. When involved in a dispute, it is almost always wisest to respect the editing policies that bind all editors and call for input from an uninvolved administrator, rather than to invite controversy by acting unilaterally. If a deleted page is going through deletion review, only administrators are normally capable of viewing the former content of the page. If they feel it would benefit the discussion to allow other users to view the page content, administrators may restore the page, replace the contents with the {{Temporarily undeleted}} template or a similar notice, and fully protect the page to prevent further editing. The previous contents of the page are then accessible to everyone via the page history. Generic file names such as File:Photo.jpg, File:Example.jpg, File:Map.jpg, and File:Sound.wav are fully protected to prevent new versions from being uploaded. Furthermore, File:Map.jpg and File:Sound.wav are salted. The following pages and templates are usually fully protected for an indefinite period of time: As with full edit protection, administrators should avoid favoring one version over another, and protection should not be considered an endorsement of the current version. An exception to this rule is when they are protected due to upload vandalism. Pages can be protected by Wikimedia Foundation staff in response to issues such as copyright infringement or libel as outlined in Foundation:Policy:Office actions § Use of advanced rights by Foundation staff. Such actions override community consensus. Administrators should not edit or unprotect such pages without permission from Wikimedia Foundation staff. Cascading protection fully protects a page, and extends that full protection automatically to any page that is transcluded onto the protected page, whether directly or indirectly. This includes templates, images and other media that are hosted on the English Wikipedia. Files stored on Commons are not protected by any other wiki's cascading protection and, if they are to be protected, must be either temporarily uploaded to the English Wikipedia or explicitly protected at Commons (whether manually or through cascading protection there). When operational, KrinkleBot cascade-protects Commons files transcluded at Wikipedia:Main Page/Tomorrow, Wikipedia:Main Page/Commons media protection and Main Page. As the bot's response time varies, media should not be transcluded on the main page (or its constituent templates) until after it has been protected. (This is particularly relevant to Template:In the news, for which upcoming images are not queued at Wikipedia:Main Page/Tomorrow.) Cascading protection: The list of cascading-protected pages can be found at Wikipedia:Cascade-protected items. Requests to add or remove cascading protection on a page should be made at Wikipedia talk:Cascade-protected items as an edit request. Operational pages principally used by software, including bots and user scripts, may be protected based on the type of use, content, and other considerations. This includes configuration pages, data pages, log pages, status pages, and other pages specific to the operation of software. However, personal CSS, personal JavaScript, and personal JSON are automatically protected and should not be protected for this reason. Some pages on Wikipedia are subject to software-enforced protection that administrators cannot change or remove. This is called permanent or indefinite protection, and interface protection in the case of CSS and JavaScript pages. Specifically, this applies to: Protection by namespace Modifications to a protected page can be proposed on its talk page (or at another appropriate forum) for discussion. Administrators can make changes to the protected article reflecting consensus. Placing the {{Edit protected}} template on the talk page will draw the attention of administrators for implementing uncontroversial changes. Talk pages are not usually protected, and are semi-protected only for a limited duration in the most severe cases of disruption. User talk pages are rarely protected. However, protection can be applied if there is severe vandalism or abuse. Users whose talk pages are protected may wish to have an unprotected user talk subpage linked conspicuously from their main talk page to allow good-faith comments from users that the protection restricts editing from. A user's request to have their own talk page protected is not a sufficient rationale by itself to protect the page, although requests can be considered if a reason is provided. Blocked users' user talk pages should not ordinarily be protected, as this interferes with the user's ability to contest their block through the normal process. It also prevents others from being able to use the talk page to communicate with the blocked editor. In extreme cases of abuse by the blocked user, such as abuse of the {{unblock}} template, re-blocking the user with talk page access removed should be preferred over applying protection to the page. If the user has been blocked and with the ability to edit their user talk page disabled, they should be informed of this in a block notice, subsequent notice, or message, and it should include information and instructions for appealing their block off-wiki, such as through the UTRS tool interface or, as a last recourse, the Arbitration Committee. When required, protection should be implemented for only a brief period, not exceeding the duration of the block. Confirmed socks of registered users should be dealt with in accordance with Wikipedia:Sockpuppetry; their pages are not normally protected. Base user pages (for example, the page User:Example, and not User:Example/Lipsum or User talk:Example) are automatically protected from creation or editing by unconfirmed accounts and anonymous temporary account users. An exception is that unconfirmed registered users are allowed to create or edit their own user page. Temporary account editors and unconfirmed accounts are also unable to create or edit user pages that do not belong to a currently registered account. This protection is enforced by an edit filter. Users may opt-out of this protection by placing {{unlocked userpage}} anywhere on their own user page. User pages and subpages within their own user space can be protected upon a request from the user, as long as a need exists. Pages within the user space should not be automatically or preemptively protected without good reason or cause. Requests for protection specifically at uncommon levels (such as template protection) can be granted if the user has expressed a genuine and realistic need. When a filter is insufficient to stop user page vandalism, a user may choose to create a ".css" subpage (e.g., User:Example/monobook.css), copy all the contents of their user page onto the subpage, transclude the subpage by putting {{User:Example/monobook.css}} on their user page, and then ask an administrator to fully protect their user page. Because user space pages that end in ".css" and ".js" are editable only by the user to which that user space belongs and interface administrators, this will protect one's user page from further vandalism. In the event of the confirmed death of an editor, their user page (but not the user talk page) should be fully protected. Highly visible templates – those used on a large number of pages or frequently substituted – are often protected based on the degree of visibility, type of use, content, and other considerations. Protected templates should normally have the {{documentation}} template. It loads the unprotected /doc page, so that non-admins and IP-users can edit the documentation, categories and interwiki links. It also automatically adds {{pp-template}} to protected templates, which displays a small padlock in the top right corner and categorizes the template as protected. Only manually add {{pp-template}} to protected templates that do not use {{documentation}} (mostly the flag templates). Cascading protection should generally not be applied directly to templates, as it will not protect transclusions inside <includeonly> tags or transclusions that depend on template parameters, but will protect the template's documentation subpage. Instead, consider either of the following: Note: All editnotice templates (except those in userspace) are already protected via MediaWiki:Titleblacklist. They can be edited by admins, template editors and page movers only. Sandboxes should not ordinarily be protected since their purpose is to let new users test and experiment with wiki syntax. Most sandboxes are automatically cleaned every 12 hours, although they are frequently overwritten by other testing users. The Wikipedia:Sandbox is cleaned every hour. Those who use sandboxes for malicious purposes, or to violate policies such as no personal attacks, civility, or copyrights, should instead be warned and/or blocked. Available templates The following templates can be added at the very top of a page to indicate that it is protected: On redirect pages, use the {{Redirect category shell}} template, which automatically categorizes by protection level, below the redirect line. A protection template may also be added below the redirect line, but it will serve only to categorize the page, as it will not be visible on the page, and it will have to be manually removed when protection is removed. Retired protections Superprotect was a level of protection, allowing editing only by Wikimedia Foundation employees who were in the Staff global group. It was implemented on August 10, 2014 and removed on November 5, 2015. It was never used on the English Wikipedia. For several years, the Gadget namespace (which no longer exists) could only be edited by WMF staff, which has sometimes been referred to as superprotection even though it is unrelated to the above use. Cascading semi-protection was formerly possible, but it was disabled in 2007 after users noticed that non-administrators could fully protect any page by transcluding it onto the page to which cascading semi-protection had been applied by an administrator. Originally, two levels of pending changes protection existed, where level 2 required edits by all users who were not pending changes reviewers to be reviewed. Following a community discussion, level 2 was retired from the English Wikipedia in January 2017. Since that change, "pending changes level 1" is generally referred to as just "pending changes". See also Notes |
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[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Witcher_3:_Wild_Hunt] | [TOKENS: 7028] |
Contents The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt[c] is a 2015 action role-playing game developed and published by CD Projekt. It is the sequel to the 2011 game The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings and the third game in The Witcher video game series, played in an open world with a third-person perspective. The games follow the Witcher series of fantasy novels by Polish author Andrzej Sapkowski. The game takes place in a fictional fantasy world based on Slavic folklore. Players control Geralt of Rivia, a monster slayer for hire known as a Witcher, and search for his adopted daughter who is on the run from the Wild Hunt. Players battle the game's many dangers with weapons and magic, interact with non-player characters, and complete quests to acquire experience points and gold, which are used to increase Geralt's abilities and purchase equipment. The game's story has three possible endings, determined by the player's choices at key points in the narrative. Development began in 2011 and lasted for three and a half years. Central and Northern European cultures formed the basis of the game's world. The game was developed using the REDengine 3, which enabled CD Projekt to create a complex story without compromising its open world. The music was primarily composed by Marcin Przybyłowicz and performed by the Brandenburg State Orchestra. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt was released for PlayStation 4, Windows, and Xbox One in May 2015, with a Nintendo Switch version released in October 2019, and PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S versions (subtitled "Complete Edition") released in December 2022. The game received critical acclaim, with praise for its gameplay, narrative, world design, combat, and visuals, although it received minor criticism due to technical issues. It holds more than 200 game of the year awards and has been cited as one of the greatest video games ever made. Two expansions were also released to critical acclaim: Hearts of Stone and Blood and Wine. A "Game of the Year Edition" was released in August 2016, with the base game, expansions and all downloadable content included. The game has sold over 60 million units as of May 2025, making it one of the best-selling video games of all time. A sequel titled The Witcher IV is in development. Gameplay The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is an action role-playing game with a third-person perspective. Players control Geralt of Rivia, a monster slayer known as a Witcher. Geralt walks, runs, rolls and dodges, and (for the first time in the series) jumps, climbs and swims. He has a variety of weapons, including bombs, a crossbow and two swords (one steel and one silver). The steel sword is used primarily to kill humans while the silver sword is more effective against creatures and monsters. Players can draw out, switch and sheathe their swords at will. There are two modes of melee attack; light attacks are fast but weak, and heavy attacks are slow but strong. Players can block and counter enemy attacks with their swords. Swords have limited endurance and require regular repair. In addition to physical attacks, Geralt has five magical signs at his disposal: Aard, Axii, Igni, Yrden and Quen. Aard prompts Geralt to unleash a telekinetic blast, Axii confuses enemies, Igni burns them, Yrden slows them down and Quen offers players a temporary, protective shield. The signs use stamina, and cannot be used indefinitely. Players can use mutagens to increase Geralt's magic power. Geralt loses health when attacked by enemies, although wearing armour can help reduce health loss. Health is restored with meditation or consumables, such as food and potions. Players occasionally control Ciri, Geralt's adoptive daughter who can teleport short distances. The game uses artificial intelligence (AI) and dynamic environments. The day-night cycle influences some monsters; a werewolf becomes powerful during the night of a full moon. Players can learn about their enemies and prepare for combat by reading the in-game bestiary. When they kill an enemy, they can loot its corpse for valuables. Geralt's witcher sense enables players to find objects of interest, including items that can be collected or scavenged. Items are stored in the inventory, which can be expanded by purchasing upgrades. Players can sell items to vendors or use them to craft potions and bombs. They can visit blacksmiths to craft new weapons and armorers with what they have gathered. The price of an item and the cost of crafting it depend on a region's local economy. Players earn experience points by completing quests. When a player earns enough experience, Geralt's level increases and the player receives ability points. These points may be used on four skill trees: combat, signs, alchemy and general. Combat upgrades enhance Geralt's attacks and unlock new fighting techniques; signs upgrades enable him to use magic more efficiently, and alchemy upgrades improve crafting abilities. General upgrades have a variety of functions, from raising Geralt's vitality to increasing crossbow damage. The game focuses on narrative and has a dialogue tree which allows players to choose how to respond to non-player characters. Geralt must make decisions which change the state of the world and lead to 36 possible endings, affecting the lives of in-game characters. He can have a romantic relationship with some of the game's female characters by completing certain quests. In addition to the main quests, books offer more information on the game's world. Players can begin side quests after visiting a town's noticeboard. These side missions include Witcher Contracts (elaborate missions requiring players to hunt monsters) and Treasure Hunt quests, which reward players with top-tier weapons or armour. The game's open world is divided into several regions. Geralt can explore each region on foot or by transportation, such as a boat. Roach, his horse, may be summoned at will. Players can kill enemies with their sword while riding Roach, but an enemy presence may frighten the horse and unseat Geralt. Points of interest may be found on the map, and players receive experience points after completing mini-missions in these regions. Players can discover Places of Power for additional ability points. Other activities include horse racing, boxing and card playing; the card-playing mechanic was later expanded into a standalone game, Gwent: The Witcher Card Game. Synopsis The game is set in the Continent, a fictional fantasy world based on Slavic folklore. It is surrounded by parallel dimensions and extra-dimensional worlds. Humans, elves, dwarves, monsters, and other creatures co-exist on the Continent, but non-humans are often persecuted for their differences in the northern realms. The Continent is caught up in a war between the empire of Nilfgaard – led by Emperor Emhyr var Emreis (Charles Dance), who invaded the Northern Kingdoms – and Redania, ruled by King Radovid V. Several locations appear, including the free city of Novigrad, the Redanian city of Oxenfurt, the no man's land of Velen, the city of Vizima (former capital of the recently conquered Temeria), the Skellige islands (home to several clans who resemble Norse-Gaels), and the witcher stronghold of Kaer Morhen. The main character is the Witcher, Geralt of Rivia (Doug Cockle), a monster hunter trained since childhood in combat, tracking, alchemy and magic, and made stronger, faster and resistant to toxins by mutagens. He is aided by his lover, the powerful sorceress Yennefer of Vengerberg (Denise Gough), his former love interest Triss Merigold (Jaimi Barbakoff), the bard Dandelion (John Schwab), the dwarf warrior Zoltan Chivay (Alexander Morton), and Geralt's witcher mentor Vesemir (William Roberts). Geralt is spurred into action by the reappearance of his and Yennefer's adopted daughter, Ciri (Jo Wyatt). Ciri is a Source, born with innate (and potentially vast) magical abilities; after the apparent death of her parents, she was trained as a witcher while Yennefer taught her magic. Ciri disappeared years before to escape the Wild Hunt, a group of spectral warriors led by the King of the Wild Hunt: the elf Eredin (Steven Hartley), from a parallel dimension. Geralt and his mentor Vesemir arrive at the town of White Orchard after receiving a letter from Geralt's long-lost lover Yennefer. After defeating a griffin for the local Nilfgaardian garrison, Geralt accompanies Yennefer to the city of Vizima, where they meet with Emperor Emhyr. Emhyr orders Geralt to find Ciri, who is Emhyr's biological (and Geralt's adopted) daughter. Ciri is a Child of the Elder Blood, the last heir to an ancient Elven bloodline that grants her the power to manipulate time and space, and is being relentlessly stalked by the enigmatic Wild Hunt. Geralt learns of three places Ciri was recently seen: the war-ravaged swamp province of Velen, the free city-state of Novigrad, and the Skellige Isles. In Velen, Geralt tracks Ciri to the fortress of the Bloody Baron, a warlord who recently took over the province. The Baron demands that Geralt find his missing wife and daughter in exchange for information about Ciri. Geralt learns that the Baron drove his own family away with his drunken rages; while his daughter fled to Oxenfurt, his wife Anna became a servant of the Crones, three malicious witches that watch over Velen. He also discovers that Ciri was briefly captured by the Crones, but escaped to the Baron's stronghold before continuing on to Novigrad. Depending on the player's choices, Anna may be killed by the Crones (causing the baron to hang himself) or survive. At Novigrad, Geralt reunites with his former lover Triss Merigold, who has gone underground to escape persecution by the Church of the Eternal Fire. He learns that Ciri and his old friend Dandelion ran afoul of Novigrad's powerful crime bosses while seeking to break a curse related to a mysterious phylactery. With the help of Triss and several old acquaintances, Geralt rescues Dandelion, who tells him that Ciri teleported away to escape pursuit by guards. Geralt sails to Skellige and reunites with Yennefer, who is investigating a magical explosion near where Ciri was last seen. They discover that Ciri visited the village of Lofoten, but when the Wild Hunt attacked again, fled in a boat with an unidentified elf. When the boat returned to shore, its only occupant was Uma, a deformed creature Geralt previously saw living with the Bloody Baron. Deducing that Uma was the victim of the curse Ciri tried to lift in Novigrad, Geralt collects Uma in Velen and takes him to the nearly abandoned witcher school at Kaer Morhen. Working with Yennefer and his fellow witchers, Geralt breaks the curse and restores Uma's true identity: Avallac'h, Ciri's teacher and the elf seen with her on her travels. Avallac'h tells Geralt that he placed Ciri in an enchanted sleep on the Isle of Mists to keep her temporarily safe from the Wild Hunt. Geralt finds Ciri on the Isle of Mists and learns from her that Eredin, the leader of the Wild Hunt, wants her Elder Blood powers to save his homeworld from a curse of an unknown origin known as the White Frost which moves autonomously throughout the worlds, freezes and devastates them, making them unsuitable for living. They return to Kaer Morhen and fortify it against the inevitable arrival of the Hunt. In the battle that ensues, Vesemir is killed, causing Ciri to unleash her uncontrolled power and temporarily send the Wild Hunt into retreat. Realizing that the Hunt will never stop, Ciri and Geralt decide to fight Eredin at a time and place of their choosing. They ambush Imlerith, a general of the Hunt and Vesemir's killer, at a Witches' Sabbath hosted by the Crones. Imlerith and two of the Crones are slain, but the third escapes with Ciri's medallion. While Triss and Yennefer reform the Lodge of Sorceresses to aid in the fight, Geralt recovers the Sunstone, an artifact that can communicate between worlds. Using the Sunstone, Avallac'h lures Eredin to Skellige, where Geralt defeats him in combat. As he dies, Eredin tells Geralt that Avallac'h has betrayed him, and plans to use Ciri's power for his own ends. As the White Frost begins to encroach on the Continent, Geralt and Yennefer pursue Avallac'h, but find Ciri alive and well. She tells Geralt that Avallac'h is not a traitor, and has only ever intended to fight the White Frost. Thinking back on her relationship with Geralt, Ciri finds the strength to stop the cataclysm; if Geralt patronized and protected her throughout the game, she gets missing in the attempt, but if he guided her to mature and make her own choices, she returns. The player's choices can lead to several different endings. If Ciri returns after defeating the White Frost and Geralt took her to meet her father, she will become the Empress of Nilfgaard. If Ciri returns but did not meet the emperor (or she met the emperor and Nilfgaard lost the war), Geralt helps her fake her death, and she becomes a witcher. If Ciri got missing in her confrontation with the White Frost, Geralt retrieves her medallion from the last remaining Crone and mourns quietly as his hut is swarmed by monsters. The player's choices also determine whether Geralt ends up in a romantic relationship with Yennefer, Triss, or neither, and how much of the North is ultimately conquered by Nilfgaard. Development Although the game was planned to begin production in 2008, CD Projekt Red's preoccupation with Rise of the White Wolf pushed it back to 2011. The company developed The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt with a self-funded budget of US$81 million[d] over three-and-a-half years. The project began with 150 employees, eventually growing to over 250 in-house staff. 1,500 people were involved in the production globally. While the game is based on Andrzej Sapkowski's novels, it is not an official continuation of them, and Sapkowski's involvement with the game was limited to the creation of its in-game map. The game was localised in 15 languages, with a total of 500 voice actors. The game was scripted concurrently in Polish and English to alleviate difficulty in localisation. According to Side (the company which handled voice casting and recording), the 450,000-word script had 950 speaking roles. The voices were recorded from late 2012 to early 2015. CD Projekt Red wanted the game to be free of any digital rights management (DRM) due to the developer's unsuccessful control of piracy with its predecessor, The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings, whose DRM also made it run slowly. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt was created with the REDengine 3, CD Projekt Red's proprietary game engine designed for nonlinear role-playing video games set in open world environments, aided by the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One consoles and prepared for use in October 2014. The first play-through indicated to the developers that the open world, despite its content and generation around the quests, seemed empty. As a solution, they added points of interest. The game had 5,000 bugs that December, which (with a launch date of February 2015) necessitated its postponement. Like the previous two Witcher games, players are given a complex story with multiple choices and consequences. Unlike other game engines, REDengine 3 permits a complex storyline without sacrificing virtual world design. The user interface was made more intuitive with grid-based solutions. The camera system was improved to use long shots for battles with multiple enemies and close-ups for more intimate confrontations. More animations were used for combat sequences than in The Witcher 2, with each lasting less than one second for quick succession. Game director Konrad Tomaszkiewicz and senior game designer Damien Monnier cited Dark Souls and Demon's Souls as influences on Wild Hunt's combat system, and level designer Miles Tost and senior environment artist Jonas Mattsson cited The Legend of Zelda series and Red Dead Redemption as influencing the game's level designs and environments. The developers also cited the Gothic series as a big influence. CD Project had localized and published Gothic (released in Poland in 2002) and Gothic II (in 2003) in Poland. Both games as well as Gothic 3 (released in 2006) became very popular in Poland and therefore a success for CD Project as a regional publisher of said games. Months before its release date, the game's economy, crafting, and inventory systems were incomplete and apparently unable to meet the deadline. Senior gameplay designer Matthew Steinke thought of a remedy and drew up a system context diagram. To allocate prices, Steinke wrote a formula based on rate of damage, defence, or healing. Polynomial least squares were used to determine its efficacy, and it was found to eliminate bugs from the system and reduce loading times. Each character was given a unique personality to contrast the fetch-quest system typically used in video games. It was decided early that the writing would be witty, with metaphors and implied meanings. Early in development, dialogue for each side quest was limited to 15 lines, with writers often having to attest to the quality and necessity of the dialogue to be allowed an extension beyond that limit. Player options were written as morally ambiguous, reflecting real life and Andrzej Sapkowski's original Witcher series. Alcoholism, abuse and sexuality, depicted as normal parts of the medieval world, were incorporated into the story for authenticity. Areas of the open world were based on Poland, Amsterdam, and Scandinavia. Objects were modelled by hand. Storylines such as Yennefer imprisoning Geralt on an island and Geralt's covert recruitment to the Wild Hunt were discarded to make the game smaller and avoid splitting it into two parts. The card game Gwent was preceded by other minigame proposals, including a drinking game, knife throwing, and ice skating. A re-enactment of the Battle of Grunwald was recorded for the sounds of battle, marching, blacksmithing, and the firing of arrows. Recording the knights' voices for post-processing, the speakers wore helmets for an authentic sound. Marcin Przybyłowicz was the game's music director and composer, with additional music contributed by Percival, a Polish folk band that plays on reconstructions of medieval instruments. They perform their own compositions as well as old Slavic melodies, which made them a good choice for what Przybyłowicz had in mind. According to Przybyłowicz, working with Percival was a challenge; he expected an academic approach before learning that most of the group were not formally trained, and much of the music was improvised. Multi-instrumentalist Robert Jaworski of the folk band Żywiołak recorded lute, Renaissance fiddle, bowed gusle, and hurdy-gurdy sections. The score was performed in Frankfurt an der Oder by the Brandenburg State Orchestra, conducted by Bernd Ruf. Marketing and release The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt was announced in 2013, then to be released for PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One the following year. The release date was later delayed from the third quarter of 2014 to February 2015. After missing its planned release date of 24 February, CD Projekt Red confirmed in April that the game was released to manufacturing. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt was released worldwide on 19 May 2015. Polish Prime Minister Ewa Kopacz and President Bronisław Komorowski visited CD Projekt Red to celebrate the launch. As with the second game, Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment and Bandai Namco Entertainment each handled physical distribution of the game in North America and Western Europe, Australia and New Zealand respectively. In addition to the standard edition, players can also purchase the "Collector's Edition", which includes the base game and items such as an artbook, a statue of Geralt fighting against a griffin, and a Witcher medallion. At E3 2019, a port for the Nintendo Switch was announced. It was developed in cooperation with Saber Interactive, and was released on 15 October 2019. The port features slight graphical downgrades to compensate for the Switch's less powerful hardware, but is otherwise identical to existing versions. CD Projekt Red co-founder Marcin Iwiński listed three pillars that he considered integral to marketing: game quality, a "gamer-centric value proposition", and communication with fans. To achieve the second, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt was marketed as "Skyrim in a Game of Thrones sauce". The third explained in detail the visual downgrade from earlier promotional footage to the finished product, which Iwiński thought effective. The logo was re-designed to make it less obvious that The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt was a sequel; the number three suggested a claw mark or mask to an audience unfamiliar with the series, while fans would recognise it as the mark of the Wild Hunt. A standalone physical card game of Gwent was included with a physical copy of the Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt videogame's Xbox One Collector's Edition of the video game (Northern Realms and Nilfgaardian Empire factions) and in "Hearts of Stone"physical expansion for PC/PS4 (Scoia'Tel and Monsters factions). A full physical edition of Gwent, Gwent: The Legendary Card Game, has been released through No Loading Games and Hachette Boardgames in 2025. The developer studied Witcher forums and websites such as Reddit to predict what players generally desired from downloadable content (DLC). A collection of 16 free DLC was released, as announced before release by the developers. They included cosmetic and additional gameplay content and the New Game Plus mode. CD Projekt Red announced two expansion packs: Hearts of Stone and Blood and Wine. Hearts of Stone was released on 13 October 2015, and Blood and Wine on 31 May 2016. Hearts of Stone follows Geralt as he contacts a mysterious entity known as the Man of Glass and an immortal man, Olgierd von Everec. The expansion was critically acclaimed. The second expansion pack, Blood and Wine, follows Geralt as he travels to Toussaint (a Nilfgaardian duchy untouched by war) to track down a mysterious beast that is terrorizing the region. It was also critically acclaimed, winning the Best RPG category at The Game Awards 2016. A "Game of the Year" edition, with the base game, both expansions and all DLC, was released on 30 August 2016. On 14 December 2022, the publisher released the game for the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S. This version became available as a free "Next-Gen" update for existing owners on PlayStation 4, Windows, and Xbox One, but also could be purchased separately. The "Next-Gen" version has been lauded for numerous visual enhancements made to the game, including higher resolution textures and ray-tracing. In 2021, video game news site Kotaku had reported that the re-release would include content from mods produced by fans; "HalkHogan", creator of a mod that improves the game's textures, announced that the developer had entered talks to include content from "The Witcher 3 HD Reworked Project" in the release. CD Projekt Red confirmed to Kotaku that they had entered talks with mod creators, prompting discussion about why the company, which earned $300 million in 2020, sought out community assistance. The updated version was originally scheduled for the second half of 2021, but was delayed to the second quarter of 2022. It was originally being developed by Saber Interactive. On 13 April 2022, CDPR announced that its in-house development team would be taking over the remaining work and that its release date would be postponed. In November, a release date of 14 December 2022 was announced for digital platforms. The game was made available for retail on 26 January 2023. The "Next-Gen" update included new outfits and a quest inspired by the Netflix series, improved visuals, performance, and bug fixes as well as all previously released downloadable content. The re-release was published on schedule, but was criticized for introducing performance issues and bugs. Later that day, CD Projekt Red announced that they were investigating the issues and working on fixes. Reception The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt received "universal acclaim" for the PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S versions, and "generally favorable reviews" for the Switch version, according to review aggregator Metacritic. Critics agreed that it was an ambitious action role-playing game which was grand in scale, but marred by technical difficulties and a lack of innovation. GameSpot and Eurogamer gave the game their highest rating. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt has been considered one of the greatest games of all time. The game world received widespread praise from critics. Kimberly Wallace of Game Informer called it "immersive", and was impressed by its attention to detail. Destructoid's Chris Carter praised its size, which he found enormous and would take players hours to explore. Jonathon Leack, writing for Game Revolution, praised the game's effective use of its large world. Leack wrote that every region had quests and activities for players to try, although he thought that much was filler which extended its length. Tom Senior of GamesRadar praised the open world's variety, describing it as an "exciting realization of the Ronin fantasy". GameTrailers' Daniel Bloodworth praised the game for encouraging exploration; many quests would only become available to players after they met non-playable characters in different parts of the world. Vince Ingenito of IGN and Shaun Prescott of PC Gamer were impressed by the game's scenery and its day-night cycle, with Ingenito saying that it highlighted the game world's authenticity. Its narrative received critical acclaim. Carter praised the cast of characters, which he called unique and interesting. He considered the narrative more involving, with players witnessing key events and making consequential choices. Wallace praised the game's dialogue and its side-quests; each was similar to a short story, and player decisions in the quests would influence the state of the world. She liked the main quest, which added more character to Geralt, and said that the romance options were a significant improvement over its predecessors. However, she was disappointed with the quality of the game's endings. Kevin Van Ord of GameSpot echoed Wallace, noting that The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt's story had more characterisation for Geralt than the previous games. He welcomed the change, since it gave players emotional connections to the in-game characters. Senior enjoyed the side-quests, calling them "a compilation of dark fantasy short stories" which overshadowed the main quests. Ingenito was disappointed with the main story, saying that there was too much padding and too many dull quests. PC Gamer's Shaun Prescott agreed, saying that the narrative would have felt rote if the side content was not engaging. Van Ord, Wallace and Brett Phipps of VideoGamer.com praised the voice acting, with Wallace calling it the series' best. Arthur Gies from Polygon criticized that some of the female characters are overly sexualized and that there are no people of color in the main game. The game's combat had a generally positive reception. Bloodworth found Geralt more mobile and agile with the new climbing and swimming mechanic. Carter said that it was significantly streamlined and its predecessors' strategic elements removed, but appreciated its action. Wallace wrote that with a simplified alchemy system, a decent user interface and diverse difficulty settings the combat was more accessible, although she disliked the disruptive weapon-degradation system and unrefined crossbow shooting mechanic. Leack thought the system lacked complexity and criticised its lack of polish, caused by the unreliable lock-on system, camera issues and excessively-long combat animation. Senior noted that some gameplay mechanics, such as rolling and dodging, were inconsistent and made the system feel unfair. Ingenito praised the combat, describing its fluidity as a significant improvement over its predecessors. Other gameplay aspects received mixed reviews. Van Ord praised the game's customisation and upgrade system (which offered players a sense of progression), since it hardened as the story unfolded. Ingenito called its upgrade system deep and flexible, since players have considerable freedom when customising Geralt's skills. Leack disliked the upgrade system, calling it "unexciting". Carter was disappointed with the Witcher Senses, finding it repetitive, but Senior considered them superior to objective markers — the norm for role-playing games. Prescott disliked the user interface for its clumsiness and tedium. Senior found the Gwent card game an addictive minigame. The game was criticised for its technical issues. Carter called its climbing animations stiff, noting that some gameplay bugs would hinder player progress. According to Wallace, the game's load times were too long. Leack noted that the game had a graphic downgrade, and the actual game did not look as good as the 2013 demonstration. Senior, Phipps and Ingenito noted frame rate issues; although Ingenito thought it did not impact the gameplay, Phipps called it a persistent problem which overshadowed many of the game's achievements. Before its release, over 1.5 million people pre-ordered the game. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt debuted atop the UK software sales chart in its first week, when it earned 600% more than predecessor The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings. It was the best-selling video game of the year in the UK, breaking the record held by Battlefield Hardline. It debuted atop the Japanese video-game sales charts, selling 67,385 units in its first week. Four million units of the game were sold in its first two weeks of release. By June 2015, over 690,000 players had activated the game through GOG Galaxy. The game sold over six million units in the next six weeks, and the studio made a profit of $63.3 million in the first half of 2015. In March 2016, CD Projekt Red reported that the game had shipped nearly 10 million units worldwide. By the end of 2017, the series as a whole had sold over 33 million. By June 2019, that number had risen to over 40 million, with The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt accounting for over half of that figure. Following the release of the first season of Netflix' television series The Witcher in December 2019, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt had a 554% increase in sales that month compared to December 2018. By December 2019, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt had sold over 28 million units. And by April 2021 it had sold over 30 million units, while the series as a whole had sold over 50 million. By April 2022, the game had sold 40 million units. As of May 2023, sales top 50 million. As of May 2025, the game has sold over 60 million units. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt received pre-release awards at E3 in 2013 and 2014. It was voted the best role-playing game at the IGN Best of E3 Awards in 2013 and 2014. It won IGN's E3 People's Choice Award in 2013 and 2014, GameSpot's E3 People's Choice Award in 2014, and the Most Wanted Award at the 31st and 32nd Golden Joystick Awards. It was the Most Anticipated Game at the Game Awards 2014 in Las Vegas. It received 260 game of the year awards and was the most awarded game of all time until 2021, when it was overtaken by The Last of Us Part II. By August 2016, it had received over 800 awards. In 2020, Gamesradar listed it as the top game of the generation. Its accolades are from several events, including the Golden Joystick Awards, The Game Awards, D.I.C.E. Awards, Game Developers Choice Awards, SXSW Gaming Awards and the National Academy of Video Game Trade Reviewers (NAVGTR) awards. The Witcher 3 was recognized as game of the year by IGN, GameSpot, Game Informer and other gaming publications. The game received a Golden Joystick Award for Best Storytelling, Best Visual Design and Best Gaming Moment, and the Game Awards for Best Role-Playing Game and Studio of the Year for CD Projekt Red. It won Outstanding Achievement in Game Design, Outstanding Technical Achievement and Outstanding Achievement in Story at the 19th Annual D.I.C.E. Awards, and won the Game of the Year and Best Technology awards at the 16th Annual Game Developers Choice Awards. A 2023 poll conducted by GQ which surveyed a team of video game journalists across the industry ranked the title as the fifth best video game of all time. Notes References External links |
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[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Trocadero] | [TOKENS: 1589] |
Contents London Trocadero The London Trocadero is a former entertainment complex on Coventry Street, with a rear entrance in Shaftesbury Avenue, London. It was originally built in 1896 as a restaurant, which closed in 1965. In 1984, the complex reopened as an exhibition and entertainment space. It became known for the video-game oriented SegaWorld attractions which were added in 1996, and later downscaled and renamed to "Funland" before its closure in 2011. Part of the building was opened as a hotel in 2020. The complex incorporates separate historic London buildings, including the old London Pavilion Theatre (a former venue for the Palace of Varieties), the New Private Subscription Theatre, the Royal Albion Theatre, the Argyll Subscription Rooms, the Eden Theatre and the Trocadero Restaurant. The name Trocadero indirectly derives from the Battle of Trocadero in 1823, through the Palais du Trocadéro in Paris, named after the French victory. Since at least 1919, the Trocadero has been abbreviated to the Troc or Chicarito, and under that name it appears in a poem by John Betjeman. History The Trocadero Restaurant of J. Lyons and Co. opened in 1896 on a site on Coventry Street, near the theatres of the West End, which had been formerly occupied by the Argyll Rooms, where wealthy men hired prostitutes. A one time maître d'hôtel of the Trocadero was French-born Raymond Monbiot, great-grandfather of the journalist and environmentalist George Monbiot. The new settings were done in an Opera Baroque style, and the various Trocaderos of the English-speaking world have derived their names from this original, the epitome of grand Edwardian catering. Murals on Arthurian themes decorated the grand staircase, and the Long Bar catered to gentlemen only. During World War I, the Trocadero initiated the first "concert tea": tea was served in the Empire Hall, accompanied by a full concert programme. After the war, cabaret was a feature of the Grill Room. The Trocadero closed on 13 February 1965. In 1984, the Trocadero was redeveloped as a tourist-orientated entertainment, cinema and shopping complex. Providing 450,000 square feet (42,000 m2) of leisure space, it was the largest leisure scheme in the United Kingdom at the time; only being matched 19 years later by the similar sized Xscape development in Castleford. It retained the external Baroque facade, but gutted the interior and added a Guinness Book of World Records Exhibition. But tenants were limited, and the half-finished development was eventually sold to Burford Group plc, led by Nick Leslau and Nigel Wray. Nickelodeon UK broadcast live from there from 1993 until 1995 when they moved to Rathbone Place. The Trocadero Centre received a boost in the late 1990s with the addition of sponsorship from Pepsi, and Sega as an anchor tenant. The launch of SegaWorld London, an indoor theme park occurred on 7 September 1996, which included a large statue of Sonic the Hedgehog over the front entrance. Pepsi sponsored The Pepsi Max Drop and from 1997 the Pepsi IMAX cinema, the first 3D IMAX cinema in the UK. It was also home to the second series of Channel 4's daily reality show The Salon. However, resultant visitor numbers were poor, and the Guinness Records exhibition closed in the mid-1990s. Following the loss of Sega's sponsorship in 1999, Segaworld became Funland, named after the original arcade that had operated in the building since 1990, and was subsequently reduced in size. The Pepsi-sponsored IMAX cinema closed in March 2000 shortly after the newer London IMAX opened on the South Bank, and the Drop Ride closed around the same time (the Drop Ride was relocated to Funland in Hayling Island, which has no relation to Funland in the Trocadero beyond the name). Remains of old attractions could still be seen around the centre, such as a wall with a gun-barrel motif that used to house the James Bond: License to Thrill ride. The top floors were kept open until autumn 2002, when they were closed and the disused escalator was blocked off with a drinks machine. This was the original entrance to Segaworld when Funland occupied the lower floors. In October 2005, the centre was used as a backdrop for the final scenes of Madonna's "Hung Up" video. Criterion Capital acquired the Trocadero in 2005, and unveiled plans to comprehensively redevelop the site while retaining the listed facade. In 2009, a plan to build a pod hotel with 500 budget rooms inside the building was announced. The 'rocket' escalator was removed in May 2011, and what remained of Funland closed in July 2011. A new plan for a 583-bedroom hotel including "pod rooms", apartments, shops and a rooftop bar was approved by Westminster City Council in August 2012. In March 2014, Criterion announced plans to open a TK Maxx in the centre, 5 years after it was blocked by the Crown Estate. The locked entrance and a handful of left-over arcade games and attractions remained in a much quieter, emptier Trocadero centre with spaces at basement level for street dancers. Despite some online articles indicating that the venue would permanently close on 25 February 2014, only a few areas were removed and others remained open while renovation and plans to build the hotel continued. The Cineworld cinema closed on 21 September 2014 and was replaced by a new Picturehouse cinema called Picturehouse Central, which opened on 19 June 2015. Plans were submitted in May 2020 to develop parts of the building's basement into a mosque but were later withdrawn in the wake of comments from the public voicing concerns over increased traffic and a place of worship being incongruous with the area's reputation for nightlife. After further delays and changes of plan, Criterion opened the hotel in 2020: the Zedwell Piccadilly has 728 windowless rooms and a large rooftop bar. In 2023, Asif Aziz's plan to convert a part of it into a mosque was approved by the Westminster City Council's planning committee. According to the plans, the site will also hold 'interfaith meetings'. The site will be able to hold 250 worshippers in the lower basement area and 140 in the upper one, for a total capacity of 390, which is far lower than the capacity of the plan proposed originally. Some critics have expressed concern over the mosque's location near various nightlife establishments. In October 2025 it was announced that Westminster City Council had granted planning permission for a £40 million refurbishment that would create a casino and leisure centre within the building, with an entrance at 13 Coventry Street. The project proposed by Genting UK will redevelop 37,000 square feet of the interior, including the vacant restaurant space on the first floor previously occupied by Bubba Gump and the vacant former nightclub, Opium, in the basement. The complex will cater for 1,250 customers and create 350 new jobs in hospitality for Londoners, from entry-level to management. See also References External links 51°30′36.83″N 0°7′57.86″W / 51.5102306°N 0.1327389°W / 51.5102306; -0.1327389 |
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[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copenhagen] | [TOKENS: 16996] |
Contents Copenhagen Copenhagen[a] (Danish: København [kʰøpm̩ˈhɑwˀn] ⓘ) is the capital and most populous city of both the country of Denmark and the wider Kingdom of Denmark, with a population of 667,000 people in the municipality and 1.4 million in the urban area. The city is situated mainly on the island of Zealand (Sjælland), with a smaller part on the island of Amager. Copenhagen is separated from Malmö, Sweden, by the Øresund strait. The Øresund Bridge connects the two cities by rail and road. Originally a Viking fishing village established in the 10th century in the vicinity of what is now Gammel Strand, Copenhagen became the capital of Denmark in the early 15th century. During the 16th century, the city served as the de facto capital of the Kalmar Union and the seat of the Union's monarchy, which governed most of the modern-day Nordic region as part of a Danish confederation with Sweden and Norway. The city flourished as the cultural and economic centre of Scandinavia during the Renaissance. By the 17th century, it had become a regional centre of power, serving as the heart of the Danish government and military. During the 18th century, Copenhagen suffered from a devastating plague outbreak and urban conflagrations. Major redevelopment efforts included the construction of the prestigious district of Frederiksstaden and the establishment of cultural institutions such as the Royal Theatre and the Royal Academy of Fine Arts. The city also became the centre of the Danish slave trade during this period. In 1807, the city was bombarded by a British fleet during the Napoleonic Wars, before the Danish Golden Age brought a Neoclassical look to Copenhagen's architecture. After World War II, the Finger Plan fostered the development of housing and businesses along the five urban railway routes emanating from the city centre. Since the turn of the 21st century, Copenhagen has seen strong urban and cultural development, facilitated by investment in its institutions and infrastructure. The city is the cultural, economic, and governmental centre of Denmark; it is one of the major financial centres of Northern Europe with the Copenhagen Stock Exchange. Copenhagen's economy has developed rapidly in the service sector, especially through initiatives in information technology, pharmaceuticals, and clean technology. Since the completion of the Øresund Bridge, Copenhagen has increasingly integrated with the Swedish province of Scania and its largest city, Malmö, forming the Øresund Region. With several bridges connecting the various districts, the cityscape is characterised by parks, promenades, and waterfronts. Copenhagen's landmarks, such as Tivoli Gardens, The Little Mermaid statue, the Amalienborg and Christiansborg palaces, Rosenborg Castle, Frederik's Church, Børsen, and many museums, restaurants, and nightclubs are significant tourist attractions. Copenhagen is home to the University of Copenhagen, the Technical University of Denmark, Copenhagen Business School, and the IT University of Copenhagen. The University of Copenhagen, founded in 1479, is the oldest university in Denmark. Copenhagen is home to the football clubs F.C. Copenhagen and Brøndby IF. The annual Copenhagen Marathon was established in 1980. Copenhagen is one of the most bicycle-friendly cities in the world. Movia is a public mass transit company serving all of eastern Denmark except Bornholm. The Copenhagen Metro, launched in 2002, serves central Copenhagen. Additionally, the Copenhagen S-train, the Lokaltog (private railway), and the Coast Line network serve and connect central Copenhagen to outlying boroughs. Serving roughly 2.5 million passengers a month, Copenhagen Airport, Kastrup, is the busiest airport in the Nordic countries. Etymology Copenhagen's name (København in Danish), reflects its origin as a harbour and a place of commerce. The original designation in Old Norse, from which Danish descends, was Kaupmannahǫfn [ˈkɔupˌmɑnːɑˌhɔvn] (cf. modern Icelandic: Kaupmannahöfn [ˈkʰœipˌmanːaˌhœpn̥], Faroese: Keypmannahavn [ˈtʃʰɛʰpmanːaˌhavn]), meaning 'merchants' harbour' (merchant in plural). By the time Old Danish was spoken, the capital was called Køpmannæhafn, with the current name deriving from centuries of subsequent regular sound change. The stemm-syllable has an au - o change as we see in Asbjörn - Osborn, Austrie etc., and this change in pronunciation happened sometime around 1400. The English cognates of the original name would be "chapman's haven". The English chapman, German Kaufmann, Dutch koopman, Swedish köpman, Danish købmand, and Icelandic kaupmaður share a derivation from Latin caupo, meaning 'tradesman'. However, the English term for the city was adapted from its Low German name, Kopenhagen. Copenhagen's Swedish name is Köpenhamn, a direct translation of the mutually intelligible Danish name. The city's Latin name, Hafnia, is the namesake of the element hafnium. History Substantial discoveries of flint tools in the area provide evidence of human settlements dating to the Stone Age. Many historians believe the town dates to the late Viking Age, and was possibly founded by Sweyn I Forkbeard. Multiple finds indicate that Copenhagen's origins as a city go back at least to the 11th century. The natural harbour and good herring stocks seem to have attracted fishermen and merchants to the area on a seasonal basis from the 11th century and more permanently in the 13th century. The first habitations were probably centred on Gammel Strand (literally 'old shore') in the 11th century or even earlier. Recent archaeological finds in connection with work on the city's metropolitan rail system revealed the remains of a large merchant's mansion near today's Kongens Nytorv from c. 1020. The remains of an ancient church, with graves dating to the 11th century, have been unearthed near where Strøget meets Rådhuspladsen. Excavations in Pilestræde have also led to the discovery of a well from the late 12th century. However, the earliest written mention of the town was in the 12th century when Saxo Grammaticus in Gesta Danorum referred to it as Portus Mercatorum, meaning 'Merchants' Harbour' or, in the Danish of the time, Købmannahavn. Traditionally, Copenhagen's founding has been dated to Bishop Absalon's construction of a modest fortress on the little island of Slotsholmen in 1167 where Christiansborg Palace stands today. The construction of the fortress was in response to attacks by Wendish pirates who plagued the coastline during the 12th century. Defensive ramparts and moats were completed, and by 1177 St. Clemens Church had been built. Attacks by the Wends continued, and after the original fortress was eventually destroyed by the marauders, islanders replaced it with Copenhagen Castle. In 1186, a letter from Pope Urban III states that the castle of Hafn (Copenhagen) and its surrounding lands, including the town of Hafn, were given to Absalon, Bishop of Roskilde (1158–1191) and Archbishop of Lund (1177–1201), by King Valdemar I. Upon Absalon's death, the property was to come into the ownership of the Bishopric of Roskilde. Around 1200, the Church of Our Lady was constructed on higher ground to the northeast of the town, which began to develop around it. As the town became more prominent, it was repeatedly attacked by the Hanseatic League. In 1368, it was successfully invaded during the Second Danish-Hanseatic War. As the fishing industry thrived in Copenhagen, particularly in the trade of herring, the city began expanding to the north of Slotsholmen. In 1254, it received a charter as a city under Bishop Jakob Erlandsen who garnered support from the local fishing merchants against the king by granting them special privileges. In the mid 1330s, the first land assessment of the city was published. With the establishment of the Kalmar Union (1397–1523) between Denmark, Norway and Sweden, by about 1416 Copenhagen had emerged as the capital of Denmark when Eric of Pomerania moved his seat to Copenhagen Castle. The University of Copenhagen was inaugurated on 1 June 1479 by King Christian I, following approval from Pope Sixtus IV. This makes it the oldest university in Denmark and one of the oldest in Europe. Originally controlled by the Catholic Church, the university's role in society was forced to change during the Reformation in Denmark in the late 1530s. In disputes prior to the Reformation of 1536, the city which had been faithful to Christian II, who was Catholic, was successfully besieged in 1523 by the forces of Frederik I, who supported Lutheranism. Copenhagen's defences were reinforced with a series of towers along the city wall. After an extended siege from July 1535 to July 1536, during which the city supported Christian II's alliance with Malmö and Lübeck, it was finally forced to capitulate to Christian III. During the second half of the century, the city prospered from increased trade across the Baltic supported by Dutch shipping. Christoffer Valkendorff, a high-ranking statesman, defended the city's interests and contributed to its development. The Netherlands had also become primarily Protestant, as were northern German states. During the reign of Christian IV between 1588 and 1648, Copenhagen had dramatic growth as a city. On his initiative at the beginning of the 17th century, two important buildings were completed on Slotsholmen: the Tøjhus Arsenal and Børsen, the stock exchange. To foster international trade, the East India Company was founded in 1616. To the east of the city, inspired by Dutch planning, the king developed the district of Christianshavn with canals and ramparts. It was initially intended to be a fortified trading centre but ultimately became part of Copenhagen. Christian IV also sponsored an array of ambitious building projects including Rosenborg Slot and the Rundetårn. In 1658–1659, the city withstood a siege by the Swedes under Charles X and successfully repelled a major assault. By 1661, Copenhagen had asserted its position as capital of Denmark and Norway. All the major institutions were located there, as was the fleet and most of the army. The defences were further enhanced with the completion of the Citadel in 1664 and the extension of Christianshavns Vold with its bastions in 1692, leading to the creation of a new base for the fleet at Nyholm. Copenhagen lost around 22,000 of its population of 65,000 to the plague in 1711. The city was also struck by two major fires that destroyed much of its infrastructure. The Copenhagen Fire of 1728 was the largest in the history of Copenhagen. It began on the evening of 20 October, and continued to burn until the morning of 23 October, destroying approximately 28% of the city, leaving some 20% of the population homeless. No less than 47% of the medieval section of the city was completely lost. Along with the 1795 fire, it is the main reason that few traces of the old town can be found in the modern city. A substantial amount of rebuilding followed. In 1733, work began on the royal residence of Christiansborg Palace, which was completed in 1745. In 1749, development of the prestigious district of Frederiksstaden was initiated. Designed by Nicolai Eigtved in the Rococo style, its centre contained the mansions which now form Amalienborg Palace. Major extensions to the naval base of Holmen were undertaken while the city's cultural importance was enhanced with the Royal Theatre and the Royal Academy of Fine Arts. During the 18th century, the Danish slave trade, which began during the 17th century, underwent a rapid expansion. Between 1660 and 1806, Danish merchants, many of them based out of Copenhagen, transported approximately 120,000 enslaved Africans to the Danish West Indies. These merchants were mostly affiliated with the slave-trading Danish West India Company and Danish Asiatic Company, both of which were headquartered in Copenhagen. Many buildings in Copenhagen, such as the Moltke Mansion, Yellow Palace and the Vestindisk Pakhus were funded with profits made from the Danish slave trade. In the second half of the 18th century, Copenhagen benefited from Denmark's neutrality during the wars between Europe's main powers, allowing it to play an important role in trade between the states around the Baltic Sea. After Christiansborg was destroyed by fire in 1794 and another fire caused serious damage to the city in 1795, work began on the classical Copenhagen landmark of Højbro Plads while Nytorv and Gammel Torv were converged. As a result of British fears that Denmark would ally with France, a Royal Navy fleet under the command of Admiral Sir Hyde Parker was dispatched to neutralize the Royal Dano-Norwegian Navy. On 2 April 1801, Parker's fleet encountered the Dano-Norwegian navy anchored near Copenhagen. Vice-Admiral Horatio Nelson led the main attack. The Dano-Norwegian fleet put up heavy resistance, and the battle is often considered to be Nelson's hardest-fought battle, surpassing even the heavy fighting at Trafalgar. It was during this battle that Lord Nelson was said to have "put the telescope to the blind eye" in order not to see Admiral Parker's signal to cease fire. The British ultimately won the battle, sinking or capturing most of Dano-Norwegian fleet, which led Denmark to agree not to ally with France. In 1807, as a result of continued British fears that Denmark would ally with France, another British fleet led by Admiral James Gambier was dispatched to Copenhagen with orders to seize or destroy the Dano-Norwegian navy. The British published a proclamation demanding the surrender of the Dano-Norwegian fleet, and the Danish responded with "what amounted to a declaration of war". Gambier's forces responded by carrying out a naval bombardment of Copenhagen from 2 to 5 September. The bombardment, which saw the deployment of Congreve rockets, killed 195 civilians and wounded 768, along with burning approximately 1,000 structures, including the Church of Our Lady. Copenhagen's defenders were unable to respond to the bombardment effectively due to relying on an old defence-line whose limited range could not reach the British ships and their longer-range artillery. A British landing force of 30,000 men entered and occupied Copenhagen; during the battle, the British suffered almost 200 casualties, while the Danish suffered 3,000. Virtually the entire Dano-Norwegian fleet was surrendered to the British, who either burnt them or brought them back to Britain. Denmark declared war on Britain, leading to the outbreak of the Gunboat War, which lasted until the 1814 Treaty of Kiel. Despite the turmoil the Napoleonic Wars brought to the city, Copenhagen soon experienced a period of intense cultural creativity known as the Danish Golden Age. Painting prospered under C.W. Eckersberg and his students while C.F. Hansen and Gottlieb Bindesbøll brought a Neoclassical look to the city's architecture. In the early 1850s, the ramparts of the city were opened to allow new housing to be built around The Lakes (Danish: Søerne) that bordered the old defences to the west. By the 1880s, the districts of Nørrebro and Vesterbro developed to accommodate those who came from the provinces to participate in the city's industrialization. This dramatic increase of space was long overdue, as not only were the old ramparts out of date as a defence system but bad sanitation in the old city had to be overcome. From 1886, the west rampart (Vestvolden) was flattened, allowing major extensions to the harbour leading to the establishment of the Freeport of Copenhagen 1892–94. Electricity came in 1892 with electric trams in 1897. The spread of housing to areas outside the old ramparts brought about a huge increase in the population. In 1840, Copenhagen was inhabited by approximately 120,000 people. By 1901, it had some 400,000 inhabitants. By the beginning of the 20th century, Copenhagen had become a thriving industrial and administrative city. With its new city hall and railway station, its centre was drawn towards the west. New housing developments grew up in Brønshøj and Valby while Frederiksberg became an enclave within the city of Copenhagen. The northern part of Amager and Valby were also incorporated into the City of Copenhagen in 1901–02. As a result of Denmark's neutrality in the First World War, Copenhagen prospered from trade with both Britain and Germany while the city's defences were kept fully manned by some 40,000 soldiers for the duration of the war. In the 1920s there were serious shortages of goods and housing. Plans were drawn up to demolish the old part of Christianshavn and to get rid of the worst of the city's slum areas. However, it was not until the 1930s that substantial housing developments ensued, with the demolition of one side of Christianhavn's Torvegade to build five large blocks of flats. In Denmark during World War II, Copenhagen was occupied by German troops along with the rest of the country from 9 April 1940 until 4 May 1945. German leader Adolf Hitler hoped that Denmark would be "a model protectorate" and initially the Nazi authorities sought to arrive at an understanding with the Danish government. The 1943 Danish parliamentary election was also allowed to take place, with only the Communist Party excluded. But in August 1943, after the government's collaboration with the occupation forces collapsed, several ships were sunk in Copenhagen Harbor by the Royal Danish Navy to prevent their use by the Germans. Around that time the Nazis started to arrest Jews, although most managed to escape to Sweden. In 1945 Ole Lippman, leader of the Danish section of the Special Operations Executive, invited the British Royal Air Force to assist their operations by attacking Nazi headquarters in Copenhagen. Accordingly, air vice-marshal Sir Basil Embry drew up plans for a spectacular precision attack on the Sicherheitsdienst and Gestapo building, the former offices of the Shell Oil Company. Political prisoners were kept in the attic to prevent an air raid, so the RAF had to bomb the lower levels of the building. The attack, known as "Operation Carthage", came on 22 March 1945, in three small waves. In the first wave, all six planes (carrying one bomb each) hit their target, but one of the aircraft crashed near Frederiksberg Girls School. Because of this crash, four of the planes in the two following waves assumed the school was the military target and aimed their bombs at the school, leading to the death of 123 civilians (of which 87 were schoolchildren). However, 18 of the 26 political prisoners in the Shell Building managed to escape while the Gestapo archives were completely destroyed. On 8 May 1945 Copenhagen was officially liberated by British troops commanded by Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery who supervised the surrender of 30,000 Germans situated around the capital. Shortly after the end of the war, an innovative urban development project known as the Finger Plan was introduced in 1947, encouraging the creation of new housing and businesses interspersed with large green areas along five "fingers" stretching out from the city centre along the S-train routes. With the expansion of the welfare state and women entering the work force, schools, nurseries, sports facilities and hospitals were established across the city. As a result of student unrest in the late 1960s, the former Bådsmandsstræde Barracks in Christianshavn was occupied, leading to the establishment of Freetown Christiania in September 1971. Motor traffic in the city grew significantly and in 1972 the trams were replaced by buses. From the 1960s, on the initiative of the young architect Jan Gehl, pedestrian streets and cycle tracks were created in the city centre. Activity in the port of Copenhagen declined with the closure of the Holmen Naval Base. Copenhagen Airport underwent considerable expansion, becoming a hub for the Nordic countries. In the 1990s, large-scale housing developments were realised in the harbour area and in the west of Amager. The national library's Black Diamond building on the waterfront was completed in 1999. Since the summer of 2000, Copenhagen and the Swedish city of Malmö have been connected by the Øresund Bridge, which carries rail and road traffic. As a result, Copenhagen has become the centre of a larger metropolitan area spanning both nations. The bridge has brought about considerable changes in the public transport system and has led to the extensive redevelopment of Amager. The city's service and trade sectors have developed while a number of banking and financial institutions have been established. Educational institutions have also gained importance, especially the University of Copenhagen with its 35,000 students. An important development for the city has been the opening of the Copenhagen Metro railway system in 2002. The Copenhagen Metro was extended until 2007, transporting some 54 million passengers by 2011. The Copenhagen Opera House, a gift to the city from the shipping magnate Mærsk Mc-Kinney Møller on behalf of the A.P. Møller foundation, was completed in 2004. In December 2009 Copenhagen gained international prominence when it hosted the worldwide climate meeting COP15. In 2019 Copenhagen was crowned the best swimming city by CNN and Copenhagen harbour now has 13 official swimming zones and three harbour baths. Illegal bathers are fined by the police. On 3 July 2022, three people were killed in a shooting at Field's mall in Copenhagen. Police chief inspector Søren Thomassen announced the arrest of a 22-year-old man and said that the police cannot rule out an act of terrorism. Geography Copenhagen is part of the Øresund Region, which consists of Zealand, Lolland-Falster and Bornholm in Denmark and Scania in Sweden. It is located on the eastern shore of the island of Zealand, partly on the island of Amager and on a number of natural and artificial islets between the two. Copenhagen faces the Øresund to the east, the strait of water that separates Denmark from Sweden, and which connects the North Sea with the Baltic Sea. The Swedish city of Malmö and the town of Landskrona lie on the Swedish side of the sound directly across from Copenhagen. By road, Copenhagen is 42 kilometres (26 mi) northwest of Malmö, Sweden, 85 kilometres (53 mi) northeast of Næstved, 164 kilometres (102 mi) northeast of Odense, 295 kilometres (183 mi) east of Esbjerg and 188 kilometres (117 mi) southeast of Aarhus by sea and road via Sjællands Odde. The city centre lies in the area originally defined by the old ramparts, which are still referred to as the Fortification Ring (Fæstningsringen) and kept as a partial green band around it. Then come the late-19th- and early-20th-century residential neighbourhoods of Østerbro, Nørrebro, Vesterbro and Amagerbro. The outlying areas of Kongens Enghave, Valby, Vigerslev, Vanløse, Brønshøj, Utterslev and Sundby followed from 1920 to 1960. They consist mainly of residential housing and apartments often enhanced with parks and greenery. The central area of the city consists of relatively low-lying flat ground formed by moraines from the last ice age while the hilly areas to the north and west frequently rise to 50 m (160 ft) above sea level. The slopes of Valby and Brønshøj reach heights of over 30 m (98 ft), divided by valleys running from the northeast to the southwest. Close to the centre are the Copenhagen lakes of Sortedams Sø, Peblinge Sø and Sankt Jørgens Sø. Copenhagen rests on a subsoil of flint-layered limestone deposited in the Danian period some 60 to 66 million years ago. Some greensand from the Selandian is also present. There are a few faults in the area, the most important of which is the Carlsberg fault which runs northwest to southeast through the centre of the city. During the last ice age, glaciers eroded the surface leaving a layer of moraines up to 15 m (49 ft) thick. Geologically, Copenhagen lies in the northern part of Denmark where the land is rising because of post-glacial rebound. Amager Strandpark, which opened in 2005, is a 2 km (1 mi) long artificial island, with a total of 4.6 km (2.9 mi) of beaches. It is located just 15 minutes by bicycle or a few minutes by metro from the city centre. In Klampenborg, about 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) from downtown Copenhagen, is Bellevue Beach. It is 700 metres (2,300 ft) long and has both lifeguards and freshwater showers on the beach. The beaches are supplemented by a system of Harbour Baths along the Copenhagen waterfront. The first and most popular of these is located at Islands Brygge, literally meaning Iceland's Quay, and has won international acclaim for its design. Climate Copenhagen is in the oceanic climate zone (Köppen: Cfb). Its weather is subject to low-pressure systems from the Atlantic which result in unstable conditions throughout the year. Apart from slightly higher rainfall from July to September, precipitation is moderate. While snowfall occurs mainly from late December to early March, there can also be rain, with average temperatures around the freezing point. July is the sunniest month of the year with an average of over seven hours of sunshine a day. July is the warmest month with an average daytime high of 21 °C. By contrast, the average hours of sunshine are less than two per day in November and only one and a half per day from December to February. In the spring, it gets warmer again with four to six hours of sunshine per day from March to May. February is the driest month of the year. Exceptional weather conditions can bring as much as 50 cm of snow to Copenhagen in a 24-hour period during the winter months while summer temperatures have been known to rise to heights of 33 °C (91 °F). Because of Copenhagen's northern latitude, the number of daylight hours varies considerably between summer and winter. On the summer solstice, the sun rises at 04:26 and sets at 21:58, providing 17 hours 32 minutes of daylight. On the winter solstice, it rises at 08:37 and sets at 15:39 with 7 hours and 1 minute of daylight. There is therefore a difference of 10 hours and 31 minutes in the length of days and nights between the summer and winter solstices. Administration According to Statistics Denmark, the urban area of Copenhagen (Hovedstadsområdet) consists of the municipalities of Copenhagen, Frederiksberg, Albertslund, Brøndby, Gentofte, Gladsaxe, Glostrup, Herlev, Hvidovre, Lyngby-Taarbæk, Rødovre, Tårnby and Vallensbæk as well as parts of Ballerup, Rudersdal and Furesø municipalities, along with the cities of Ishøj and Greve Strand. They are located in the Capital Region (Region Hovedstaden). Municipalities are responsible for a wide variety of public services, which include land-use planning, environmental planning, public housing, management and maintenance of local roads, and social security. Municipal administration is also conducted by a mayor, a council, and an executive. Copenhagen Municipality is by far the largest municipality, with the historic city at its core. The seat of Copenhagen's municipal council is the Copenhagen City Hall (Rådhus), which is situated on City Hall Square. The second largest municipality is Frederiksberg, an enclave within Copenhagen Municipality. Copenhagen Municipality is divided into ten districts (bydele): Indre By, Østerbro, Nørrebro, Vesterbro/Kongens Enghave, Valby, Vanløse, Brønshøj-Husum, Bispebjerg, Amager Øst, and Amager Vest. Neighbourhoods of Copenhagen include Slotsholmen, Frederiksstaden, Islands Brygge, Holmen, Christiania, Carlsberg, Sluseholmen, Sydhavn, Amagerbro, Ørestad, Nordhavnen, Bellahøj, Brønshøj, Ryparken, and Vigerslev. Most of Denmark's top legal courts and institutions are based in Copenhagen. A modern-style court of justice, Hof- og Stadsretten, was introduced in Denmark, specifically for Copenhagen, by Johann Friedrich Struensee in 1771. Now known as the City Court of Copenhagen (Københavns Byret), it is the largest of the 24 city courts in Denmark with jurisdiction over the municipalities of Copenhagen, Dragør and Tårnby. With its 42 judges, it has a Probate Division, an Enforcement Division and a Registration and Notorial Acts Division while bankruptcy is handled by the Maritime and Commercial Court of Copenhagen. Established in 1862, the Maritime and Commercial Court (Sø- og Handelsretten) also hears commercial cases including those relating to trade marks, marketing practices and competition for the whole of Denmark. Denmark's Supreme Court (Højesteret), located in Christiansborg Palace on Prins Jørgens Gård in the centre of Copenhagen, is the country's final court of appeal. Handling civil and criminal cases from the subordinate courts, it has two chambers which each hear all types of cases. The Danish National Police and Copenhagen Police headquarters is situated in the Neoclassical-inspired Politigården building built in 1918–1924 under architects Hack Kampmann and Holger Alfred Jacobsen. The building also contains administration, management, emergency department and radio service offices. The Copenhagen Fire Department forms the largest municipal fire brigade in Denmark with some 500 fire and ambulance personnel, 150 administration and service workers, and 35 workers in prevention. The brigade began as the Copenhagen Royal Fire Brigade on 9 July 1687 under King Christian V. After the passing of the Copenhagen Fire Act on 18 May 1868, on 1 August 1870 the Copenhagen Fire Brigade became a municipal institution in its own right. The fire department has its headquarters in the Copenhagen Central Fire Station which was designed by Ludvig Fenger in the Historicist style and inaugurated in 1892. Copenhagen is recognised as one of the most environmentally friendly cities in the world. As a result of its commitment to high environmental standards, Copenhagen has been praised for its green economy, ranked as the top green city for the second time in the 2014 Global Green Economy Index (GGEI). In 2001 a large offshore wind farm was built just off the coast of Copenhagen at Middelgrunden. It produces about 4% of the city's energy. Years of substantial investment in sewage treatment have improved water quality in the harbour to an extent that the Inner Harbour can be used for swimming with facilities at a number of locations. Copenhagen aims to be carbon-neutral by 2025. Commercial and residential buildings are to reduce electricity consumption by 20 per cent and 10 per cent respectively, and total heat consumption is to fall by 20 per cent by 2025. Renewable energy features such as solar panels are becoming increasingly common in the newest buildings in Copenhagen. District heating will be carbon-neutral by 2025, by waste incineration and biomass. New buildings must now be constructed according to Low Energy Class ratings and in 2020 near net-zero energy buildings. By 2025, 75% of trips should be made on foot, by bike, or by using public transit. The city plans that 20–30% of cars will run on electricity or biofuel by 2025. The investment is estimated at $472 million public funds and $4.78 billion private funds. The city's urban planning authorities continue to take full account of these priorities. Special attention is given both to climate issues and efforts to ensure maximum application of low-energy standards. Priorities include sustainable drainage systems, recycling rainwater, green roofs and efficient waste management solutions. In city planning, streets and squares are to be designed to encourage cycling and walking rather than driving. Demographics Copenhagen is the most populous city in Denmark and one of the most populous in the Nordic countries. For statistical purposes, Statistics Denmark considers the City of Copenhagen (Byen København) to consist of the Municipality of Copenhagen plus three adjacent municipalities: Dragør, Frederiksberg, and Tårnby. Their combined population stands at 763,908 (as of December 2016[update]). The Municipality of Copenhagen is by far the most populous in the country and one of the most populous Nordic municipalities with 644,431 inhabitants (as of 2022). There was a demographic boom in the 1990s and first decades of the 21st century, largely due to immigration to Denmark. According to figures from the first quarter of 2022, 73.7% of the municipality's population was of Danish descent, defined as having at least one parent who was born in Denmark and has Danish citizenship. Much of the remaining 26.3% were of a foreign background, defined as immigrants (20.3%) or descendants of recent immigrants (6%). There are no official statistics on ethnic groups. The adjacent table shows the most common countries of origin of Copenhagen residents. Largest foreign groups are Pakistanis (1.3%), Turks (1.2%), Iraqis (1.1%), Germans (1.0%) and Poles (1.0%). According to Statistics Denmark, Copenhagen's urban area has a larger population of 1,280,371 (as of 1 January 2016[update]). The urban area consists of the municipalities of Copenhagen and Frederiksberg plus 16 of the 20 municipalities of the former counties Copenhagen and Roskilde, though five of them only partially. Metropolitan Copenhagen has a total of 2,016,285 inhabitants (as of 2016[update]). The area of Metropolitan Copenhagen is defined by the Finger Plan. Since the opening of the Øresund Bridge in 2000, commuting between Zealand and Scania in Sweden has increased rapidly, leading to a wider, integrated area. Known as the Øresund Region, it has 4.1 million inhabitants—of whom 2.7 million (August 2021) live in the Danish part of the region. In Copenhagen, more than 50% of the households consist of only one adult. A majority (56.9%) of those living in Copenhagen are members of the Lutheran Church of Denmark which is 0.6% lower than one year earlier according to 2019 figures. The National Cathedral, the Church of Our Lady, is one of the dozens of churches in Copenhagen. There are also several other Christian communities in the city, of which the largest is Roman Catholic. Foreign migration to Copenhagen, rising over the last three decades, has contributed to increasing religious diversity; the Grand Mosque of Copenhagen, the first in Denmark, opened in 2014. Islam is the second largest religion in Copenhagen, accounting for approximately 10% of the population. While there are no official statistics, a significant portion of the estimated 175,000–200,000 Muslims in the country live in the Copenhagen urban area, with the highest concentration in Nørrebro and the Vestegnen. There are also some 7,000 Jews in Denmark, most of them in the Copenhagen area where there are several synagogues. It has a membership of 1,800 members. There is a long history of Jews in the city, and the first synagogue in Copenhagen was built in 1684. Today, the history of the Jews of Denmark can be explored at the Danish Jewish Museum in Copenhagen. For a number of years, Copenhagen has ranked high in international surveys for its quality of life. Its stable economy together with its education services and level of social safety make it attractive for locals and visitors alike. Although it is one of the world's most expensive cities, it is also one of the most liveable with its public transport, facilities for cyclists and its environmental policies. In elevating Copenhagen to "most liveable city" in 2013, Monocle pointed to its open spaces, increasing activity on the streets, city planning in favour of cyclists and pedestrians, and features to encourage inhabitants to enjoy city life with an emphasis on community, culture and cuisine. The city is voted 2024 second most liveable city by Economist Intelligence Unit. Other sources have ranked Copenhagen high for its business environment, accessibility, restaurants and environmental planning. However, Copenhagen ranks only 39th for student friendliness in 2012. Despite a top score for quality of living, its scores were low for employer activity and affordability. Economy Copenhagen is the major economic and financial centre of Denmark. The city's economy is based largely on services and commerce. Statistics for 2010 show that the vast majority of the 350,000 workers in Copenhagen are employed in the service sector, especially transport and communications, trade, and finance, while less than 10,000 work in the manufacturing industries. The public sector workforce is around 110,000, including education and healthcare. From 2006 to 2011, the economy grew by 2.5% in Copenhagen, while it fell by some 4% in the rest of Denmark. In 2017, the wider Capital Region of Denmark had a gross domestic product (GDP) of €120 billion, and the 15th largest GDP per capita of regions in the European Union. As of Copenhagen Green Economy Leader Report made by London School of Economics and Political Science – Copenhagen is widely recognised as a leader in the global green economy. The Copenhagen region accounts for almost 40% of Denmark's output and has enjoyed long-term stable growth. At a national level, Danish GDP per capita is ranked among the top 10 countries in the world. At the same time, the city's growth has been delivered while improving environmental performance and transitioning to a low-carbon economy. Several financial institutions and banks have headquarters in Copenhagen, including Alm. Brand, Danske Bank, Nykredit and Nordea Bank Danmark. The Copenhagen Stock Exchange (CSE) was founded in 1620 and is now owned by Nasdaq, Inc. Copenhagen is also home to a number of international companies including A.P. Møller-Mærsk, Novo Nordisk, Carlsberg and Novozymes. City authorities have encouraged the development of business clusters in several innovative sectors, which include information technology, biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, clean technology and smart city solutions. Life science is a key sector with extensive research and development activities. Medicon Valley is a leading bi-national life sciences cluster in Europe, spanning the Øresund Region. Copenhagen is rich in companies and institutions with a focus on research and development within the field of biotechnology, and the Medicon Valley initiative aims to strengthen this position and to promote cooperation between companies and academia. Many major Danish companies like Novo Nordisk and Lundbeck, both of which are among the 50 largest pharmaceutical and biotech companies in the world, are located in this business cluster. Shipping is another important sector with Maersk, the world's largest shipping company, having their world headquarters in Copenhagen. The city has an industrial harbour, Copenhagen Port. Following decades of stagnation, it has experienced a resurgence since 1990 following a merger with Malmö harbour. Both ports are operated by Copenhagen Malmö Port (CMP). The central location in the Øresund Region allows the ports to act as a hub for freight that is transported onward to the Baltic countries. CMP annually receives about 8,000 ships and handled some 148,000 TEU in 2012. Copenhagen has some of the highest gross wages in the world. High taxes mean that wages are reduced after mandatory deduction. A beneficial researcher scheme with low taxation of foreign specialists has made Denmark an attractive location for foreign labour. It is, however, also among the most expensive cities in Europe. Denmark's Flexicurity model features some of the most flexible hiring and firing legislation in Europe, providing attractive conditions for foreign investment and international companies looking to locate in Copenhagen. In Dansk Industri's 2013 survey of employment factors in the ninety-six municipalities of Denmark, Copenhagen came in first place for educational qualifications and for the development of private companies in recent years, but fell to 86th place in local companies' assessment of the employment climate. The survey revealed considerable dissatisfaction in the level of dialogue companies enjoyed with the municipal authorities. Tourism is a major contributor to Copenhagen's economy, attracting visitors due to the city's harbour, cultural attractions and award-winning restaurants. Since 2009, Copenhagen has been one of the fastest growing metropolitan destinations in Europe. Hotel capacity in the city is growing significantly. From 2009 to 2013, it experienced a 42% growth in international bed nights (total number of nights spent by tourists), tallying a rise of nearly 70% for Chinese visitors. The total number of bed nights in the Capital Region surpassed 9 million in 2013, while international bed nights reached 5 million. In 2010, it is estimated that city break tourism contributed to DKK 2 billion in turnover. However, 2010 was an exceptional year for city break tourism and turnover increased with 29% in that one year. 680,000 cruise passengers visited the port in 2015. In 2019 Copenhagen was ranked first among Lonely Planet's top ten cities to visit. In October 2021, Copenhagen was shortlisted for the European Commission's 2022 European Capital of Smart Tourism award along with Bordeaux, Dublin, Florence, Ljubljana, Palma de Mallorca and Valencia. Cityscape The city's appearance today is shaped by the key role it has played as a regional centre for centuries. Copenhagen has a multitude of districts, each with its distinctive character and representing its own period. Other distinctive features of Copenhagen include the abundance of water, its many parks, and the bicycle paths that line most streets. The oldest section of Copenhagen's inner city is often referred to as Middelalderbyen (the medieval city). However, the city's most distinctive district is Frederiksstaden, developed during the reign of Frederick V. It has the Amalienborg Palace at its centre and is dominated by the dome of Frederik's Church (or the Marble Church) and several elegant 18th-century Rococo mansions. The inner city includes Slotsholmen, a little island on which Christiansborg Palace stands and Christianshavn with its canals. Børsen on Slotsholmen and Frederiksborg Palace in Hillerød are prominent examples of the Dutch Renaissance style in Copenhagen. Around the historical city centre lies a band of congenial residential boroughs (Vesterbro, Inner Nørrebro, Inner Østerbro) dating mainly from late 19th century. They were built outside the old ramparts when the city was finally allowed to expand beyond its fortifications. Sometimes referred to as "the City of Spires", Copenhagen is known for its generally horizontal skyline, broken mainly by the spires and towers of its churches and castles. Most characteristic of all is the Baroque spire of the Church of Our Saviour with its narrowing external spiral stairway that visitors can climb to the top. Other important spires are those of Christiansborg Palace, the City Hall and the former Church of St. Nikolaj that now houses a modern art venue. Not quite so high are the Renaissance spires of Rosenborg Castle and the "dragon spire" of Christian IV's former stock exchange, so named because it resembles the intertwined tails of four dragons. Copenhagen is recognised globally as an exemplar of best practice urban planning. Its thriving mixed use city centre is defined by striking contemporary architecture, engaging public spaces and an abundance of human activity. These design outcomes have been deliberately achieved through careful replanning in the second half of the 20th century. Recent years have seen a boom in modern architecture in Copenhagen both for Danish architecture and for works by international architects. For a few hundred years, virtually no foreign architects had worked in Copenhagen, but since the turn of the millennium the city and its immediate surroundings have seen buildings and projects designed by top international architects. British design magazine Monocle named Copenhagen the World's best design city 2008. Copenhagen's urban development in the first half of the 20th century was heavily influenced by industrialisation. After World War II, Copenhagen Municipality adopted Fordism and repurposed its medieval centre to facilitate private automobile infrastructure in response to innovations in transport, trade and communication. Copenhagen's spatial planning in this time frame was characterised by the separation of land uses: an approach which requires residents to travel by car to access facilities of different uses. The boom in urban development and modern architecture has brought some changes to the city's skyline. A political majority has decided to keep the historical centre free of high-rise buildings, but several areas will see or have already seen massive urban development. Ørestad now has seen most of the recent development. Located near Copenhagen Airport, it currently boasts one of the largest malls in Scandinavia and a variety of office and residential buildings as well as the IT University and a high school. Copenhagen is a green city with many parks, both large and small. King's Garden (Kongens Have), the garden of Rosenborg Castle, is the oldest and most frequented of them all. It was Christian IV who first developed its landscaping in 1606. Every year it sees more than 2.5 million visitors and in the summer months it is packed with sunbathers, picnickers and ballplayers. It serves as a sculpture garden with both a permanent display and temporary exhibits during the summer months. Also located in the city centre are the Botanical Gardens noted for their large complex of 19th-century greenhouses donated by Carlsberg founder J. C. Jacobsen. Fælledparken at 58 ha (140 acres) is the largest park in Copenhagen. It is popular for sports fixtures and hosts several annual events including a free opera concert at the opening of the opera season, other open-air concerts, carnival and Labour Day celebrations, and the Copenhagen Historic Grand Prix, a race for antique cars. A historical green space in the northeastern part of the city is Kastellet, a well-preserved Renaissance citadel that now serves mainly as a park. Another popular park is the Frederiksberg Gardens, a 32-hectare romantic landscape park. It houses a colony of tame grey herons and other waterfowl. The park offers views of the elephant house of the adjacent Copenhagen Zoo, designed by world-famous British architect Norman Foster. Langelinie, a park and promenade along the inner Øresund coast, is home to one of Copenhagen's most-visited tourist attractions, the Little Mermaid statue. In Copenhagen, many cemeteries double as parks, though only for the more quiet activities such as sunbathing, reading and meditation. Assistens Cemetery, the burial place of Hans Christian Andersen, is an important green space for the district of Inner Nørrebro and a Copenhagen institution. The lesser known Vestre Kirkegaard is the largest cemetery in Denmark (54 ha (130 acres)) and offers a maze of dense groves, open lawns, winding paths, hedges, overgrown tombs, monuments, tree-lined avenues, lakes and other garden features. It is official municipal policy in Copenhagen that by 2015 all citizens must be able to reach a park or beach on foot in less than 15 minutes. In line with this policy, several new parks, including the innovative Superkilen in the Nørrebro district, have been completed or are under development in areas lacking green spaces. The historic centre of the city, Indre By or the Inner City, features many of Copenhagen's most popular monuments and attractions. The area known as Frederiksstaden, developed by Frederik V in the second half of the 18th century in the Rococo style, has the four mansions of Amalienborg, the royal residence, and the wide-domed Marble Church at its centre. Directly across the water from Amalienborg, the 21st-century Copenhagen Opera House stands on the island of Holmen. To the south of Frederiksstaden, the Nyhavn canal is lined with colourful houses from the 17th and 18th centuries, many now with lively restaurants and bars. The canal runs from the harbour front to the spacious square of Kongens Nytorv which was laid out by Christian V in 1670. Important buildings include Charlottenborg Palace, famous for its art exhibitions, the Thott Palace (now the French embassy), the Royal Danish Theatre and the Hotel D'Angleterre, dated to 1755. Other landmarks in Indre By include the parliament building of Christiansborg, the City Hall and Rundetårn, originally an observatory. There are also several museums in the area including Thorvaldsen Museum dedicated to the 18th-century sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen. Closed to traffic since 1964, Strøget, one of the world's oldest and longest pedestrian streets, runs the 3.2 km (2.0 mi) from Rådhuspladsen to Kongens Nytorv. With its speciality shops, cafés, restaurants, and buskers, it is always full of life and includes the old squares of Gammel Torv and Amagertorv, each with a fountain. Rosenborg Castle on Øster Voldgade was built by Christian IV in 1606 as a summer residence in the Renaissance style. It houses the Danish crown jewels and crown regalia, the coronation throne and tapestries illustrating Christian V's victories in the Scanian War. Christianshavn lies to the southeast of Indre By on the other side of the harbour. The area was developed by Christian IV in the early 17th century. Impressed by the city of Amsterdam, he employed Dutch architects to create canals within its ramparts which are still well preserved today. The canals themselves, branching off the central Christianshavn Canal and lined with house boats and pleasure craft are one of the area's attractions. Another interesting feature is Freetown Christiania, a fairly large area which was initially occupied by squatters during student unrest in 1971. Today it still maintains a measure of autonomy. The inhabitants openly sell drugs on "Pusher Street" as well as their arts and crafts. Other buildings of interest in Christianshavn include the Church of Our Saviour with its spiralling steeple and the magnificent Rococo Christian's Church. Once a warehouse, the North Atlantic House now displays culture from Iceland and Greenland and houses the Noma restaurant, known for its Nordic cuisine. Vesterbro, to the southwest of Indre By, begins with the Tivoli Gardens, the city's top tourist attraction with its fairground atmosphere, its Pantomime Theatre, its Concert Hall and its many rides and restaurants. The Carlsberg neighbourhood has some interesting vestiges of the old brewery of the same name including the Elephant Gate and the Ny Carlsberg Brewhouse. The Tycho Brahe Planetarium is located on the edge of Skt. Jørgens Sø, one of the Copenhagen lakes. Halmtorvet, the old hay market behind the Central Station, is an increasingly popular area with its cafés and restaurants. The former cattle market Øksnehallen has been converted into a modern exhibition centre for art and photography. Radisson Blu Royal Hotel, built by Danish architect and designer Arne Jacobsen for the airline Scandinavian Airlines System (SAS) between 1956 and 1960 was once the tallest hotel in Denmark with a height of 69.60 m (228.3 ft) and the city's only skyscraper until 1969. Completed in 1908, Det Ny Teater (the New Theatre) located in a passage between Vesterbrogade and Gammel Kongevej has become a popular venue for musicals since its reopening in 1994, attracting the largest audiences in the country. Nørrebro to the northwest of the city centre has recently developed from a working-class district into a colourful cosmopolitan area with antique shops, non-Danish food stores and restaurants. Much of the activity is centred on Sankt Hans Torv and around Rantzausgade. Copenhagen's historic cemetery, Assistens Kirkegård halfway up Nørrebrogade, is the resting place of many famous figures including Søren Kierkegaard, Niels Bohr, and Hans Christian Andersen but is also used by locals as a park and recreation area. Just north of the city centre, Østerbro is an upper middle-class district with a number of fine mansions, some now serving as embassies. The district stretches from Nørrebro to the waterfront where The Little Mermaid statue can be seen from the promenade known as Langelinie. Inspired by Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tale, it was created by Edvard Eriksen and unveiled in 1913. Not far from the Little Mermaid, the old Citadel (Kastellet) can be seen. Built by Christian IV, it is one of northern Europe's best preserved fortifications. There is also a windmill in the area. The large Gefion Fountain (Gefionspringvandet) designed by Anders Bundgaard and completed in 1908 stands close to the southeast corner of Kastellet. Its figures illustrate a Nordic legend. Frederiksberg, a separate municipality within the urban area of Copenhagen, lies to the west of Nørrebro and Indre By and north of Vesterbro. Its landmarks include Copenhagen Zoo founded in 1869 with over 250 species from all over the world and Frederiksberg Palace built as a summer residence by Frederick IV who was inspired by Italian architecture. Now a military academy, it overlooks the extensive landscaped Frederiksberg Gardens with its follies, waterfalls, lakes and decorative buildings. The wide tree-lined avenue of Frederiksberg Allé connecting Vesterbrogade with the Frederiksberg Gardens has long been associated with theatres and entertainment. While a number of the earlier theatres are now closed, the Betty Nansen Theatre and Aveny-T are still active. Amagerbro (also known as Sønderbro) is the district located immediately south-east of Christianshavn at northernmost Amager. The old city moats and their surrounding parks constitute a clear border between these districts. The main street is Amagerbrogade which after the harbour bridge Langebro, is an extension of H. C. Andersens Boulevard and has a number of various stores and shops as well as restaurants and pubs. Amagerbro was built up during the two first decades of the twentieth century and is the city's southernmost block built area with typically 4–7 floors. Further south follows the Sundbyøster and Sundbyvester districts. Not far from Copenhagen Airport on the Kastrup coast, The Blue Planet completed in March 2013 now houses the national aquarium. With its 53 aquariums, it is the largest facility of its kind in Scandinavia. Grundtvig's Church, located in the northern suburb of Bispebjerg, was designed by P.V. Jensen Klint and completed in 1940. A rare example of Expressionist church architecture, its striking west façade is reminiscent of a church organ. Culture Apart from being the national capital, Copenhagen also serves as the cultural hub of Denmark and one of the major hubs in wider Scandinavia. Since the late 1990s, it has undergone a transformation from a modest Scandinavian capital into a metropolitan city of international appeal, in the same league as cities such as Barcelona and Amsterdam. This is a result of huge investments in infrastructure and culture as well as the work of successful new Danish architects, designers and chefs. Copenhagen Fashion Week takes place every year in February and August. Copenhagen has a wide array of museums of international standing. The National Museum, Nationalmuseet, is Denmark's largest museum of archaeology and cultural history, comprising the histories of Danish and foreign cultures alike. Denmark's National Gallery (Statens Museum for Kunst) is the national art museum with collections dating from the 12th century to the present. In addition to Danish painters, artists represented in the collections include Rubens, Rembrandt, Picasso, Braque, Léger, Matisse, Emil Nolde, Olafur Eliasson, Elmgreen & Dragset, Superflex, and Jens Haaning. Another important Copenhagen art museum is the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek founded by second generation Carlsberg philanthropist Carl Jacobsen and built around his personal collections. Its main focus is classical Egyptian, Roman and Greek sculptures and antiquities and a collection of Rodin sculptures, the largest outside France. Besides its sculpture collections, the museum also holds a comprehensive collection of paintings of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist painters such as Monet, Renoir, Cézanne, van Gogh and Toulouse-Lautrec as well as works by the Danish Golden Age painters. Louisiana is a Museum of Modern Art situated on the coast just north of Copenhagen. It is located in the middle of a sculpture garden on a cliff overlooking Øresund. Its collection of over 3,000 items includes works by Picasso, Giacometti and Dubuffet. The Danish Design Museum is housed in the 18th-century former Frederiks Hospital and displays Danish design as well as international design and crafts. Other museums include: the Thorvaldsens Museum, dedicated to the oeuvre of romantic Danish sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen who lived and worked in Rome; the Cisternerne museum, an exhibition space for contemporary art, located in former cisterns that come complete with stalactites formed by the changing water levels; and the Ordrupgaard Museum, located just north of Copenhagen, which features 19th-century French and Danish art and is noted for its works by Paul Gauguin. The Royal Danish Theatre stages opera and drama productions, and is also home to the Royal Danish Ballet. Founded in 1748 along with the theatre, it is one of the oldest ballet troupes in Europe, and is noted for its Bournonville style of ballet. The Royal Danish Playhouse is a new building, completed in 2008, that is part of the Royal Danish Theatre. The new Copenhagen Concert Hall opened in January 2009. Designed by Jean Nouvel, it has four halls with the main auditorium seating 1,800 people. It serves as the home of the Danish National Symphony Orchestra and, along with the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, is one of the most expensive concert halls ever built. Another important venue for classical music is the Tivoli Concert Hall located in the Tivoli Gardens. The Danish National School of Performing Arts (DASPA) has a campus in Copenhagen. Before being amalgamated with five other schools in 2015, it was known as the Statens Scenekunstskole, or National Performing Arts School. Designed by Henning Larsen, the Copenhagen Opera House (Operaen) opened in 2005. It is among the most modern opera houses in the world. Copenhagen has a significant jazz scene that has existed for many years. It developed when a number of American jazz musicians such as Ben Webster, Thad Jones, Richard Boone, Ernie Wilkins, Kenny Drew, Ed Thigpen, Bob Rockwell, Dexter Gordon, and others such as rock guitarist Link Wray came to live in Copenhagen during the 1960s. Every year in early July, Copenhagen's streets, squares, parks as well as cafés and concert halls fill up with big and small jazz concerts during the Copenhagen Jazz Festival. One of Europe's top jazz festivals, the annual event features around 900 concerts at 100 venues with over 200,000 guests from Denmark and around the world. The largest venue for popular music in Copenhagen is Vega in the Vesterbro district. It was chosen as "best concert venue in Europe" by international music magazine Live. The venue has three concert halls: the great hall, Store Vega, accommodates audiences of 1,550, the middle hall, Lille Vega, has space for 500 and Ideal Bar Live has a capacity of 250. Every September since 2006, the Festival of Endless Gratitude (FOEG) has taken place in Copenhagen. This festival focuses on indie counterculture, experimental pop music and left field music combined with visual arts exhibitions. For free entertainment one can stroll along Strøget, especially between Nytorv and Højbro Plads, which in the late afternoon and evening is a bit like an impromptu three-ring circus with musicians, magicians, jugglers and other street performers. Most of Denmarks's major publishing houses are based in Copenhagen. These include the book publishers Gyldendal and Akademisk Forlag and newspaper publishers Berlingske and Politiken (the latter also publishing books). Many of the most important contributors to Danish literature such as Hans Christian Andersen (1805–1875) with his fairy tales, the philosopher Søren Kierkegaard (1813–1855) and playwright Ludvig Holberg (1684–1754) spent much of their lives in Copenhagen. Novels set in Copenhagen include Baby (1973) by Kirsten Thorup, The Copenhagen Connection (1982) by Barbara Mertz, Number the Stars (1989) by Lois Lowry, Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow (1992) and Borderliners (1993) by Peter Høeg, Music and Silence (1999) by Rose Tremain, The Danish Girl (2000) by David Ebershoff, and Sharpe's Prey (2001) by Bernard Cornwell. Michael Frayn's 1998 play Copenhagen about the meeting between the physicists Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg in 1941 is also set in the city. On 15–18 August 1973, an oral literature conference took place in Copenhagen as part of the 9th International Congress of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences. The Royal Library, belonging to the University of Copenhagen, is the largest library in the Nordic countries with an almost complete collection of all printed Danish books since 1482. Founded in 1648, the Royal Library is located at four sites in the city, the main one being on the Slotsholmen waterfront. Copenhagen's public library network has over 20 outlets, the largest being the Central Library (Københavns Hovedbibliotek) on Krystalgade in the inner city. Copenhagen has a wide selection of art museums and galleries displaying both historic works and more modern contributions. They include Statens Museum for Kunst, i.e. the Danish national art gallery, in the Østre Anlæg park, and the adjacent Hirschsprung Collection specialising in the 19th and early 20th century. Kunsthal Charlottenborg in the city centre exhibits national and international contemporary art. Den Frie Udstilling near the Østerport Station exhibits paintings created and selected by contemporary artists themselves rather than by the official authorities. The Arken Museum of Modern Art is located in southwestern Ishøj. Among artists who have painted scenes of Copenhagen are Martinus Rørbye (1803–1848), Christen Købke (1810–1848) and the prolific Paul Gustav Fischer (1860–1934). A number of notable sculptures can be seen in the city. In addition to The Little Mermaid on the waterfront, there are two historic equestrian statues in the city centre: Jacques Saly's Frederik V on Horseback (1771) in Amalienborg Square and the statue of Christian V on Kongens Nytorv created by Abraham-César Lamoureux in 1688 who was inspired by the statue of Louis XIII in Paris. Rosenborg Castle Gardens contains several sculptures and monuments including August Saabye's Hans Christian Andersen, Aksel Hansen's Echo, and Vilhelm Bissen's Dowager Queen Caroline Amalie. Copenhagen is believed to have invented the photomarathon photography competition, which has been held in the City each year since 1989. As of 2014[update], Copenhagen has 15 Michelin-starred restaurants, the most of any Scandinavian city. The city is increasingly recognized internationally as a gourmet destination. These include Den Røde Cottage, Formel B Restaurant, Grønbech & Churchill, Søllerød Kro, Kadeau, Kiin Kiin (Denmark's first Michelin-starred Asian gourmet restaurant), the French restaurant Kong Hans Kælder, Relæ, Restaurant AOC with two Stars, and Noma (short for Danish: nordisk mad, English: Nordic food) as well as Geranium with three. Noma was ranked as the Best Restaurant in the World by Restaurant in 2010, 2011, 2012, and again in 2014, sparking interest in the New Nordic Cuisine. Apart from the selection of upmarket restaurants, Copenhagen offers a great variety of Danish, ethnic and experimental restaurants. It is possible to find modest eateries serving open sandwiches, known as smørrebrød – a traditional, Danish lunch dish; however, most restaurants serve international dishes. Danish pastry can be sampled from any of numerous bakeries found in all parts of the city. The Copenhagen Bakers' Association (Danish: Københavns Bagerlaug) dates back to the 1290s and Denmark's oldest confectioner's shop still operating, Conditori La Glace, was founded in 1870 in Skoubogade by Nicolaus Henningsen, a trained master baker from Flensburg. Copenhagen has long been associated with beer. Carlsberg beer has been brewed at the brewery's premises on the border between the Vesterbro and Valby districts since 1847 and has long been almost synonymous with Danish beer production. However, recent years have seen an explosive growth in the number of microbreweries so that Denmark today has more than 100 breweries, many of which are located in Copenhagen. Some like Nørrebro Bryghus also act as brewpubs where it is also possible to eat on the premises. Copenhagen has one of the highest number of restaurants and bars per capita in the world. The nightclubs and bars stay open until 5 or 6 in the morning, some even longer. Denmark has a very liberal alcohol culture and a strong tradition for beer breweries, although binge drinking is frowned upon and the Danish Police take driving under the influence very seriously. Inner city areas such as Istedgade and Enghave Plads in Vesterbro, Sankt Hans Torv in Nørrebro and certain places in Frederiksberg are especially noted for their nightlife. Notable nightclubs include Bakken Kbh, ARCH (previously ZEN), Jolene, The Jane, Chateau Motel, KB3, At Dolores (previously Sunday Club), Rust, Vega Nightclub and Culture Box. Copenhagen has several recurring community festivals, mainly in the summer. Copenhagen Carnival has taken place every year since 1982 during the Whitsun Holiday in Fælledparken and around the city with the participation of 120 bands, 2,000 dancers and 100,000 spectators. Since 2010, the old B&W Shipyard at Refshaleøen in the harbour has been the location for Copenhell, a heavy metal rock music festival. Copenhagen Pride is a LGBT pride festival taking place every year in August. The Pride has a series of different activities all over Copenhagen, but it is at the City Hall Square that most of the celebration takes place. During the Pride the square is renamed Pride Square. Copenhagen Distortion has emerged to be one of the biggest street festivals in Europe with 100,000 people joining to parties in the beginning of June every year. Copenhagen has the oldest and third-oldest amusement parks in the world. Dyrehavsbakken, a fair-ground and pleasure-park established in 1583, is located in Klampenborg just north of Copenhagen in a forested area known as Dyrehaven. Created as an amusement park complete with rides, games and restaurants by Christian IV, it is the oldest surviving amusement park in the world. Pierrot (Danish: Pjerrot), a nitwit dressed in white with a scarlet grin wearing a boat-like hat while entertaining children, remains one of the park's key attractions. In Danish, Dyrehavsbakken is often abbreviated as Bakken. There is no entrance fee to pay and Klampenborg Station on the C-line, is situated nearby. The Tivoli Gardens is an amusement park and pleasure garden located in central Copenhagen between the City Hall Square and the Central Station. It opened in 1843, making it the third-oldest amusement park in the world, the second being Wurstelprater in Vienna. Among its rides are the oldest still operating rollercoaster Rutschebanen from 1915 and the oldest ferris wheel still in use, opened in 1943. Tivoli Gardens also serves as a venue for various performing arts and as an active part of the cultural scene in Copenhagen. Education Copenhagen has over 94,000 students enrolled in its largest universities and institutions: University of Copenhagen (38,867 students), Copenhagen Business School (20,000 students), Metropolitan University College and University College Capital (10,000 students each), Technical University of Denmark (7,000 students), KEA (c. 4,500 students), IT University of Copenhagen (2,000 students) and the Copenhagen campus of Aalborg University (2,300 students). The University of Copenhagen is Denmark's oldest university founded in 1479. It attracts some 1,500 international and exchange students every year. The Academic Ranking of World Universities placed it 30th in the world in 2016. The Technical University of Denmark is located in Lyngby in the northern outskirts of Copenhagen. In 2013, it was ranked as one of the leading technical universities in Northern Europe. The IT University is Denmark's youngest university, a mono-faculty institution focusing on technical, societal and business aspects of information technology. The Danish Academy of Fine Arts has provided education in the arts for more than 250 years. It includes the historic School of Visual Arts, and has in later years come to include a School of Architecture, a School of Design and a School of Conservation. Copenhagen Business School (CBS) is an EQUIS-accredited business school located in Frederiksberg. There are also branches of both University College Capital and Metropolitan University College inside and outside Copenhagen. Sport The city has a variety of sporting teams. The major football teams are the historically successful FC København and Brøndby. FC København plays at Parken in Østerbro. Formed in 1992, it is a merger of two older Copenhagen clubs, B 1903 (from the inner suburb Gentofte) and KB (from Frederiksberg). Brøndby plays at Brøndby Stadion in the inner suburb of Brøndbyvester. BK Frem is based in the southern part of Copenhagen (Sydhavnen, Valby). Other teams of more significant stature are FC Nordsjælland (from suburban Farum), Fremad Amager, B93, AB, Lyngby and Hvidovre IF. Copenhagen has several handball teams—a sport which is particularly popular in Denmark. Clubs playing in the "highest" leagues include Ajax, Ydun, and HIK (Hellerup). The København Håndbold women's club has recently been established. Copenhagen also has ice hockey teams, of which three play in the top league, Rødovre Mighty Bulls, Herlev Eagles and Hvidovre Ligahockey all inner suburban clubs. Copenhagen Ice Skating Club founded in 1869 is the oldest ice hockey team in Denmark but is no longer in the top league. Rugby union is also played in the Danish capital with teams such as CSR-Nanok, Copenhagen Business School Sport Rugby, Frederiksberg RK, Exiles RUFC and Rugbyklubben Speed. Rugby league is now played in Copenhagen, with the national team playing out of Gentofte Stadion. The Danish Australian Football League, based in Copenhagen is the largest Australian rules football competition outside of the English-speaking world. Copenhagen Marathon, Copenhagen's annual marathon event, was established in 1980. Round Christiansborg Open Water Swim Race is a 2-kilometre (1.2-mile) open water swimming competition taking place each year in late August. This amateur event is combined with a 10-kilometre (6-mile) Danish championship. In 2009 the event included a 10-kilometre (6-mile) FINA World Cup competition in the morning. Copenhagen hosted the 2011 UCI Road World Championships in September 2011, taking advantage of its bicycle-friendly infrastructure. It was the first time that Denmark had hosted the event since 1956, when it was also held in Copenhagen. Transport The greater Copenhagen area has a very well established transportation infrastructure making it a hub in Northern Europe. Copenhagen Airport, opened in 1925, is Scandinavia's largest airport, located in Kastrup on the island of Amager. It is connected to the city centre by metro and main line railway services. October 2013 was a record month with 2.2 million passengers, and November 2013 figures reveal that the number of passengers is increasing by some 3% annually, about 50% more than the European average. Copenhagen has an extensive road network including motorways connecting the city to other parts of Denmark and to Sweden over the Øresund Bridge. The car is still the most popular form of transport within the city itself, representing two-thirds of all distances travelled. This can however lead to serious congestion in rush hour traffic. The Øresund train links Copenhagen with Malmö 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Copenhagen is also served by a daily ferry connection to Oslo in Norway. In 2012, Copenhagen Harbour handled 372 cruise ships and 840,000 passengers. The Copenhagen S-Train, Copenhagen Metro and the regional train networks are used by about half of the city's passengers, the remainder using bus services. Nørreport Station near the city centre serves passengers travelling by main-line rail, S-train, regional train, metro and bus. Some 750,000 passengers make use of public transport facilities every day. Copenhagen Central Station is the hub of the DSB railway network serving Denmark and international destinations. The Copenhagen Metro expanded radically with the opening of the City Circle Line (M3) on 29 September 2019. The new line connects all inner boroughs of the city by metro, including the Central Station, and opens up 17 new stations for Copenhageners. On 28 March 2020, the 2.2 km (1.4 mi) Nordhavn extension of the Harbour Line (M4) opened. Running from Copenhagen Central Station, the new extension is a branch line of M3 Cityring to Østerport. The new metro lines are part of the city's strategy to transform mobility towards sustainable modes of transport such as public transport and cycling as opposed to automobility. Copenhagen is cited by urban planners for its exemplary integration of public transport and urban development. In implementing its Finger Plan, Copenhagen is considered the world's first example of a transit metropolis, and areas around S-Train stations like Ballerup and Brøndby Strand are among the earliest examples of transit-oriented development. Copenhagen has been rated as one of the most bicycle-friendly cities in the world since 2015, with bicycles outnumbering its inhabitants. In 2012 some 36% of all working or studying city-dwellers cycled to work, school, or university. With 1.27 million km (790,000 mi) covered every working day by Copenhagen's cyclists (including both residents and commuters), and 75% of Copenhageners cycling throughout the year. The city's bicycle paths are extensive and well used, boasting 400 kilometres (250 miles) of cycle lanes not shared with cars or pedestrians, and sometimes equipped with their own signal systems – giving the cyclists a lead of a couple of seconds to accelerate. Healthcare Promoting health is an important issue for Copenhagen's municipal authorities. Central to its sustainability mission is its "Long Live Copenhagen" (Længe Leve København) scheme in which it has the goal of increasing the life expectancy of citizens, improving quality of life through better standards of health, and encouraging more productive lives and equal opportunities. The city has targets to encourage people to exercise regularly and to reduce the number of people who smoke and consume alcohol. Copenhagen University Hospital forms a conglomerate of several hospitals in Region Hovedstaden and Region Sjælland, together with the faculty of health sciences at the University of Copenhagen; Rigshospitalet and Bispebjerg Hospital in Copenhagen belong to this group of university hospitals. Rigshospitalet began operating in March 1757 as Frederiks Hospital, and became state-owned in 1903. With 1,120 beds, Rigshospitalet has responsibility for 65,000 inpatients and approximately 420,000 outpatients annually. It seeks to be the number one specialist hospital in the country, with an extensive team of researchers into cancer treatment, surgery and radiotherapy. In addition to its 8,000 personnel, the hospital has training and hosting functions. It benefits from the presence of in-service students of medicine and other healthcare sciences, as well as scientists working under a variety of research grants. The hospital became internationally famous as the location of Lars von Trier's television horror mini-series The Kingdom. Bispebjerg Hospital was built in 1913, and serves about 400,000 people in the Greater Copenhagen area, with some 3,000 employees. Other large hospitals in the city include Amager Hospital (1997), Herlev Hospital (1976), Hvidovre Hospital (1970), and Gentofte Hospital (1927). Media Many Danish media corporations are located in Copenhagen. DR, the major Danish public service broadcasting corporation consolidated its activities in a new headquarters, DR Byen, in 2006 and 2007. Similarly TV2, which is based in Odense, has concentrated its Copenhagen activities in a modern media house in Teglholmen. The two national daily newspapers Politiken and Berlingske and the two tabloids Ekstra Bladet and BT are based in Copenhagen. Kristeligt Dagblad is based in Copenhagen and is published six days a week. Other important media corporations include Aller Media which is the largest publisher of weekly and monthly magazines in Scandinavia, the Egmont media group and Gyldendal, the largest Danish publisher of books. Copenhagen has a large film and television industry. Nordisk Film, established in Valby, Copenhagen in 1906 is the oldest continuously operating film production company in the world. In 1992 it merged with the Egmont media group and currently runs the 17-screen Palads Cinema in Copenhagen. Filmbyen (movie city), located in a former military camp in the suburb of Hvidovre, houses several movie companies and studios. Zentropa is a film company, co-owned by Danish director Lars von Trier. He is behind several international movie productions as well and founded the Dogme Movement. CPH:PIX is Copenhagen's international feature film festival, established in 2009 as a fusion of the 20-year-old NatFilm Festival and the four-year-old CIFF. The CPH:PIX festival takes place in mid-April. CPH:DOX is Copenhagen's international documentary film festival, every year in November. In addition to a documentary film programme of over 100 films, CPH:DOX includes a wide event programme with dozens of events, concerts, exhibitions and parties all over town. Twin towns – sister cities Copenhagen is twinned with: Honorary citizens People awarded the honorary citizenship of Copenhagen are: While honorary citizenship is no longer granted in Copenhagen, three people have been awarded the title of honorary Copenhageners (æreskøbenhavnere). See also Footnotes Citations References Further reading External links Media related to Copenhagen at Wikimedia Commons |
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[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokyo] | [TOKENS: 15330] |
Contents Tokyo Tokyo,[a] officially the Tokyo Metropolis,[b] is the capital and most populous city of Japan. With a population of over 14 million in the city proper in 2023, it is one of the most populous urban areas in the world. The Greater Tokyo Area, which includes Tokyo and parts of six neighboring prefectures, is the most populous metropolitan area in the world, with 41 million residents as of 2024[update]. Lying at the head of Tokyo Bay, Tokyo is part of the Kantō region, on the central coast of Honshu, Japan's largest island. It is Japan's economic center and the seat of the Japanese government and the Emperor of Japan. The Tokyo Metropolitan Government administers Tokyo's central 23 special wards, which formerly made up Tokyo City; various commuter towns and suburbs in its western area; and two outlying island chains, the Tokyo Islands. Although most of the world recognizes Tokyo as a city, since 1943 its governing structure has been more akin to that of a prefecture, with an accompanying Governor and Assembly taking precedence over the smaller municipal governments that make up the metropolis. Special wards in Tokyo include Chiyoda, the site of the National Diet Building and the Tokyo Imperial Palace; Shinjuku, the city's administrative center; and Shibuya, a hub of commerce and business. Tokyo, originally known as Edo, rose to political prominence in 1603 when it became the seat of the Tokugawa shogunate, and by the mid-18th century, Edo had evolved from a small fishing village into one of the largest cities in the world, with a population surpassing one million. After the Meiji Restoration (1868), the imperial capital in Kyoto was moved to Edo, and the city was renamed Tokyo (lit. 'Eastern Capital'). Tokyo was greatly damaged by the 1923 Great Kantō earthquake and by allied bombing raids during World War II. Beginning in the late 1940s, Tokyo underwent rapid reconstruction and expansion, which fueled the Japanese economic miracle, in which Japan's economy became the second-largest in the world at the time, behind that of the United States. As of 2025[update], Tokyo is home to 26 of the world's 500 largest companies, as listed in the annual Fortune Global 500. Tokyo was the first city in Asia to host the Summer Olympics and Paralympics, in 1964, and also hosted in 2021. It hosted three G7 summits, in 1979, 1986, and 1993. Tokyo is an international hub of research and development and an academic center, with several major universities, including the University of Tokyo, the top-ranking university in Japan. Tokyo Station is the central hub for the Shinkansen, the country's high-speed railway network, and the city's Shinjuku Station is the world's busiest train station. Tokyo Skytree is the world's tallest tower. The Tokyo Metro Ginza Line, which opened in 1927, is the oldest underground metro line in Asia. Tokyo's nominal gross domestic output was 120.2 trillion yen (US$887.9 billion) in FY2022 and accounted for 21.2% of Japan's economic output, which converts to 8.43 million yen or US$62,291 per capita. Including the Greater Tokyo Area, Tokyo is the second-largest metropolitan economy in the world after New York, with a 2022 gross metropolitan product estimated at US$2.08 trillion. Although Tokyo's status as a leading global financial hub has diminished with the Lost Decades since the 1990s, when the Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE) was the world's largest, with a market capitalization about 1.5 times that of the NYSE, Tokyo is still a leading financial hub, and the TSE remains among the world's top five major stock exchanges. Tokyo is categorized as an Alpha+ city by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network. It ranked 14th in the 2024 edition of the Global Livability Ranking, and has been ranked as the safest city in the world by the Economist Intelligence Unit. Etymology Tokyo was originally known as Edo (江戸), a kanji compound of 江 (e, 'cove, inlet') and 戸 (to, 'entrance, gate, door'). The name, which can be translated as "estuary", is a reference to the original settlement's location at the meeting of the Sumida River and Tokyo Bay. During the Meiji Restoration in 1868, the name of the city was changed to Tokyo (東京; from 東 tō 'east', and 京 kyō 'capital'), when it became the new imperial capital, in line with the East Asian tradition of including the word for capital (京) in the name of the capital city (for example, Kyoto (京都), Keijō (京城), Beijing (北京), Nanjing (南京), and Xijing (西京)). During the early Meiji period, the city was sometimes called Tōkei, an alternative pronunciation for the same characters representing "Tokyo", making it a kanji homograph. Some surviving official English documents use the spelling "Tokei"; however, this pronunciation is now obsolete. History The site of Tokyo has been inhabited since ancient times, and there have been multiple Paleolithic period (around 40,000–16,000 BC) sites found in present-day Tokyo. During the subsequent Jomon period, the Holocene glacial retreat caused sea levels in Tokyo Bay to rise by 120 cm, with the coastline running along the edge of what is now the Imperial Palace. Middens such as the Omori Shell Mounds still mark where the coastline ran in those days. The Yayoi period, during which agriculture spread across the country, is named after the Yayoi 2-chōme Site in Bunkyo, where the first example of Yayoi pottery was excavated in 1884 by Shozo Arisaka. In 534, a large-scale conflict was recorded in the region, as a result of which Kasahara no Omi, the victor, was appointed Kuni no Miyatsuko (provincial governor) by Emperor Ankan. Senso-ji in Asakusa was founded in 645. Under the Ritsuryō system established during the Asuka period, most of present-day Tokyo was part of Musashi Province. Following the fall of the Kingdom of Baekje after the Battle of Baekgang in the 660s, thousands of refugees were resettled in Musashi. During the Heian period, Edo was first fortified by the Edo clan in the late twelfth century, and in 1457, Ōta Dōkan built Edo Castle to defend the region from the Chiba clan. After Dōkan was assassinated in 1486, the Ohgigayatsu branch of the Uesugi clan took control of the castle and the surrounding area. However, the Later Hōjō clan replaced them after the Battle of Takanawahara in 1524, only to be defeated by Toyotomi Hideyoshi during the Siege of Odawara in 1590. Following the siege of Odawara, Tokugawa Ieyasu was granted the Kantō region and moved there from his ancestral land of Mikawa Province. When he became shōgun, the de facto ruler of the country, in 1603, the whole country came to be ruled by Edo. While the Tokugawa shogunate ruled the country in practice, the Imperial House of Japan based in Kyoto was still the de jure ruler, and the title of shōgun was granted by the Emperor as a formality. : 16 During the Edo period, the city enjoyed a prolonged period of peace known as the Pax Tokugawa, and in the presence of such peace, the shogunate adopted a stringent policy of seclusion, which helped to perpetuate the lack of any serious military threat to the city. The absence of war-inflicted devastation allowed Edo to devote the majority of its resources to rebuilding in the wake of consistent fires, earthquakes and other devastating natural disasters, and Edo grew into one of the largest cities in the world with a population reaching one million by the 18th century. However, this prolonged period of seclusion ended with the arrival of American Commodore Matthew C. Perry in 1853. Commodore Perry forced the opening of the ports of Shimoda and Hakodate, leading to an increase in the demand for new foreign goods and subsequently a severe rise in inflation. Social unrest mounted in the wake of these higher prices and culminated in widespread rebellions and demonstrations, especially in the form of the "smashing" of rice establishments. Meanwhile, supporters of the Emperor leveraged the disruption caused by widespread rebellious demonstrations to further consolidate power, which resulted in the overthrow of the last Tokugawa shōgun, Yoshinobu, in 1867 and the end of the Pax Tokugawa. Despite Edo castle being handed over to the Emperor-supporting forces, some forces loyal to the shogunate kept fighting, ending with the final Battle of Ueno on 4 July 1868. After being handed over to the Meiji government, Edo was renamed Tokyo (Eastern Capital) on 3 September 1868, and the capital was subsequently moved officially from Kyoto to Tokyo by Emperor Meiji. The former Edo Castle became the new Imperial Palace, and Government ministries such as the Ministry of Finance were relocated to Tokyo by 1871. The 1870s also saw the establishment of other major institutions and facilities such as Ueno Park (1873), the University of Tokyo (1877) and the Tokyo Stock Exchange (1878), as well as the rise of public transportion such as the first railway line in the country, connecting Shimbashi (Shiodome) and Yokohama (Sakuragicho). The rapid modernization of the country was driven from Tokyo, with its business districts such as Marunouchi filled with modern brick buildings and the railway network serving as a means to help the large influx of labour force needed to keep the development of the economy. The City of Tokyo was officially established on May 1, 1889. The Imperial Diet, the national legislature of the country, was established in Tokyo in 1889, and it has ever since been operating in the city. On 1 September 1923, the Great Kanto Earthquake struck the city, and the earthquake and subsequent fire killed an estimated 105,000 citizens. The loss amounted to 37 percent of the country's economic output. On the other hand, the destruction provided an opportunity to reconsider the planning of the city, which had changed its shape hastily after the Meiji Restoration. The high survival rate of concrete buildings promoted the transition from timber and brick architecture to modern, earthquake-proof construction. The Tokyo Metro Ginza Line portion between Ueno and Asakusa, the first underground railway line built outside Europe and the American continents, was completed on December 30, 1927. Although Tokyo recovered robustly from the earthquake and new cultural and liberal political movements, such as Taishō Democracy, spread, the 1930s saw an economic downturn caused by the Great Depression and major political turmoil. Two attempted military coups d'état happened in Tokyo, the May 15 incident in 1932 and the February 26 incident in 1936. This turmoil eventually allowed the military wings of the government to take control of the country, leading to Japan joining the Second World War as an Axis power. Due to the country's political isolation on the international stage caused by its military aggression in China and the increasingly unstable geopolitical situations in Europe, Тоkуо had to give up hosting the 1940 Summer Olympics in 1938. Rationing started in June 1940 as the nation braced itself for another world war, while the 26th Centenary of the Enthronement of Emperor Jimmu celebrations took place on a grand scale to boost morale and increase the sense of national identity in the same year. On 7 December 1941, Japan attacked the American bases at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, entering the Second World War against the Allied Powers. The wartime regime greatly affected life in the city. In 1943, Tokyo City merged with Tokyo Prefecture to form the Tokyo Metropolis (東京都, Tōkyō-to), a reorganization aimed to create a more centralized and efficient administrative structure to better manage resources, urban planning, and civil defence during wartime. The Tokyo Metropolitan Government thus became responsible for both prefectural and city functions while administering cities, towns, and villages in the suburban and rural areas. Although Japan enjoyed significant success in the initial stages of the war and rapid expansion of its sphere of influence, the Doolittle Raid on 18 April 1942 marked the first direct foreign attack on Tokyo. Although the physical damage was minimal, the raid demonstrated the vulnerability of the Japanese mainland to air attacks and boosted American morale. Large-scale Allied air bombing of cities in the Japanese home islands, including Tokyo, began in late 1944 when the US seized control of the Mariana Islands. From these islands, newly developed long-range B-29 bombers could conduct return journeys. The bombing of Tokyo in 1944 and 1945 is estimated to have killed between 75,000 and 200,000 civilians and left more than half of the city destroyed. The deadliest night of the war came on March 9–10, 1945, the night of the American "Operation Meetinghouse" raid. Nearly 700,000 incendiary bombs were dropped on the east end of the city (Shitamachi, 下町), an area with a high concentration of factories and working-class houses. Two-fifths of the city was completely burned, more than 276,000 buildings were destroyed, 100,000 civilians were killed, and 110,000 more were injured. Numerous Edo and Meiji-era buildings of historical significance were destroyed, including the main building of the Imperial Palace, Sensō-ji, Zōjō-ji, Sengaku-ji and Kabuki-za. Between 1940 and 1945, the population of Tokyo dwindled from 6,700,000 to less than 2,800,000, as soldiers were sent to the front and children were evacuated. After the war, Tokyo became the base from which the Allied Occupation Forces, under Douglas MacArthur, an American general, administered Japan for six years. The original rebuilding plan of Tokyo was based on a plan modelled after the Metropolitan Green Belt of London, devised in the 1930s but canceled due to the war. However, due to the monetary contraction policy known as the Dodge Line, named after Joseph Dodge, the neoliberal economic advisor to MacArthur, the plan had to be reduced to a minimal one focusing on transport and other infrastructure. In 1947, the 35 pre-war special wards were reorganized into the current 23 wards. Tokyo did not experience fast economic growth until around 1950, when heavy industry output returned to pre-war levels. Since around the time the Allied occupation of Japan ended in 1952, Tokyo's focus shifted from rebuilding to developing beyond its pre-war stature. From the 1950s onwards, Tokyo's Metro and railway network saw significant expansion, culminating in the launch of the world's first dedicated high-speed railway line, the Shinkansen, between Tokyo and Osaka in 1964. The same year saw the development of other transport infrastructure, such as the Shuto Expressway to meet the increased demand brought about by the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, the first Olympic Games held in Asia. Around this time, the 31-metre height restriction, imposed on all buildings since 1920, was relaxed due to the increased demand for office buildings and advancements in earthquake-proof construction. Starting with the Kasumigaseki Building (147 metres) in 1968, skyscrapers began to dominate Tokyo's skyline. During this period of rapid rebuilding, Tokyo celebrated its 500th anniversary in 1956 and the Ogasawara Islands, which had been under control of the US since the war ended, were returned in 1968. Ryokichi Minobe, a Marxian economist who served as the governor for 12 years starting in 1967, is remembered for his welfare state policy, including free healthcare for the elderly and financial support for households with children, and his 'war against pollution' policy, as well as the large government deficit they caused. Although the 1973 oil crisis put an end to the rapid post-war recovery and development of Japan's economy, its position as the world's second-largest economy at the time had seemed secure by that point, remaining so until 2010 when it was surpassed by China. Tokyo's development was sustained by its status as the economic, political, and cultural hub of such a country. In 1978, after years of the intense Sanrizuka Struggle, Narita International Airport opened as the new gateway to the city, while the relatively small Haneda Airport switched to primarily domestic flights. West Shinjuku, which had been occupied by the vast Yodobashi Water Purification Centre until 1965, became the site of an entirely new business district characterized by skyscrapers surpassing 200 metres during this period. The American-led Plaza Accord in 1985, which aimed to depreciate the US dollar, had a devastating effect on Japan's manufacturing sector, particularly affecting small to mid-size companies based in Tokyo. This led the government to adopt a domestic-demand-focused economic policy, ultimately causing an asset price bubble. Land redevelopment projects were planned across the city, and real estate prices skyrocketed. By 1990, the estimated value of the Imperial Palace surpassed that of the entire state of California. The Tokyo Stock Exchange became the largest stock exchange in the world by market capitalization, with the Tokyo-based NTT becoming the most highly valued company globally. After the bubble burst in the early 1990s, Japan experienced a prolonged economic downturn called the "Lost Decades", characterized by extremely low or negative economic growth, deflation, and stagnant asset prices. Tokyo's status as a world city is said to have depreciated greatly during these three decades. Nonetheless, Tokyo still saw new urban developments during this period. Recent projects include Ebisu Garden Place, Tennōzu Isle, Shiodome, Roppongi Hills, Shinagawa, and the Marunouchi side of Tokyo Station. Land reclamation projects in Tokyo have also been going on for centuries. The most prominent is the Odaiba area, now a major shopping and entertainment center. In the 1990s, various plans were proposed for transferring national government functions from Tokyo to secondary capitals in other regions of Japan, to spread population and investment more evenly. Such plans were met with fierce opposition, and then-prime minister Junichiro Koizumi decided to close parliamentary discussions in 2003. The Agency for Cultural Affairs relocated from Kasumigaseki to Kyoto in 2023, making it the only central organ of the Civil Service to move out of Tokyo so far. On September 7, 2013, the IOC selected Tokyo to host the 2020 Summer Olympics. Thus, Tokyo became the first Asian city to host the Olympic Games twice. However, the 2020 Olympic Games were postponed and held from July 23 to August 8, 2021, as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Administration Under Japanese law, the prefecture of Tokyo is designated as a to (都), translated as metropolis. Tokyo Prefecture is the most populous prefecture and the densest, with 6,100 inhabitants per square kilometer (16,000/sq mi); by geographic area it is the third-smallest, above only Osaka and Kagawa. Its administrative structure is similar to that of Japan's other prefectures. The 23 special wards (特別区, tokubetsu-ku), which until 1943 constituted the city of Tokyo, are self-governing municipalities, each having a mayor, a council, and the status of a city. In addition to these 23 special wards, Tokyo also includes 26 more cities (市 -shi), five towns (町 -chō or machi), and eight villages (村 -son or -mura), each of which has a local government. The Tokyo Metropolitan Government administers the whole metropolis, including the 23 special wards and the cities and towns that constitute the prefecture. It is headed by a publicly elected governor and metropolitan assembly. Its headquarters is in Shinjuku Ward. The governor of Tokyo is elected every four years. The incumbent governor, Yuriko Koike, was elected in 2016, following the resignation of her predecessor, Yoichi Masuzoe. She was re-elected in 2020 and 2024. The legislature of the Metropolis is called the Metropolitan Assembly, and it has one house with 127 seats. The assembly is responsible for enacting and amending prefectural ordinances, approving the budget (8.5 trillion yen in fiscal 2024), and voting on important administrative appointments made by the governor, including the vice governors. Its members are also elected on a four-year cycle. Since the completion of the Great Mergers of Heisei in 2001, Tokyo consists of 62 municipalities: 23 special wards, 26 cities, 5 towns and 8 villages. All municipalities in Japan have a directly elected mayor and a directly elected assembly, each elected on independent four-year cycles. The 23 Special Wards cover the area that had been Tokyo City until 1943, 30 other municipalities are located in the Tama area, and the remaining 9 are on Tokyo's outlying islands. Tokyo has numerous outlying islands, which extend as far as 1,850 km (1,150 mi) from central Tokyo. Because of the islands' distance from the administrative headquarters of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government in Shinjuku, local sub-prefectural branch offices administer them. The Izu Islands are a group of volcanic islands and form part of the Fuji-Hakone-Izu National Park. The islands in order from closest to Tokyo are Izu Ōshima, Toshima, Nii-jima, Shikine-jima, Kōzu-shima, Miyake-jima, Mikurajima, Hachijō-jima, and Aogashima. The Izu Islands are grouped into three subprefectures. Izu Ōshima and Hachijojima are towns. The remaining islands are six villages, with Niijima and Shikinejima forming one village. The Ogasawara Islands include, from north to south, Chichi-jima, Nishinoshima, Haha-jima, Kita Iwo Jima, Iwo Jima, and Minami Iwo Jima. Ogasawara also administers two small outlying islands: Minami Torishima, the easternmost point in Japan and at 1,850 km (1,150 mi) the most distant island from central Tokyo, and Okinotorishima, the southernmost point in Japan. Japan's claim on an exclusive economic zone (EEZ) surrounding Okinotorishima is contested by China and South Korea as they regard Okinotorishima as uninhabitable rocks which have no EEZ. The Iwo chain and the outlying islands have no permanent population, but hosts Japan Self-Defense Forces personnel. Local populations are only found in Chichi-Jima and Haha-Jima. The islands form both Ogasawara Subprefecture and the village of Ogasawara, Tokyo. Tokyo has enacted a measure to cut greenhouse gases. Governor Shintaro Ishihara created Japan's first emissions cap system, aiming to reduce greenhouse gas emission by a total of 25% by 2020 from the 2000 level. Tokyo is an example of an urban heat island, and the phenomenon is especially serious in its special wards. According to the Tokyo Metropolitan Government, the annual mean temperature has increased by about 3 °C (5.4 °F) over the past 100 years. Tokyo has been cited as a "convincing example of the relationship between urban growth and climate". In 2006, Tokyo enacted the "10-Year Project for Green Tokyo" to be realized by 2016. It set a goal of increasing roadside trees in Tokyo to 1 million (from 480,000), and adding 1,000 ha (2,500 acres) of green space, 88 ha (220 acres) of which would be a new park named "Umi no Mori" to replace a landfill. From 2007 to 2010, 436 ha (1,080 acres) of the planned 1,000 ha of green space was created and 220,000 trees were planted, bringing the total to 700,000. As of 2014[update], roadside trees in Tokyo have increased to 950,000, and a further 300 ha (740 acres) of green space has been added. In 2023, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government launched the Tokyo Green Biz Project, an initiative seeking to increase and preserve the city's greenery over the next 100 years, create an online map designed to increase collaboration between residents and the local government, and create and promote green infrastructure. They have also increased the footage of parks, and encourage citizens to get involved in pond cleaning, tree planting, and working as park guides. In 2018 the Kasai Marine Park became the first wetland in Tokyo to be registered under the Ramsar Convention. It opened in 1989. Tokyo is the seat of all three branches of government: the legislature (National Diet), the executive (Cabinet led by the Prime Minister), and the judiciary (Supreme Court of Japan), as well as the Emperor of Japan, the head of state. Most government ministries are concentrated in the Kasumigaseki district in Chiyoda, and the name Kasumigaseki is often used as a metonym for the Japanese national civil service. Tokyo has 25 constituencies for the House of Representatives, 18 of which were won by the ruling Liberal Democrats and 7 by the main opposition Constitutional Democrats in the 2021 general election. Apart from these seats, through the Tokyo proportional representation block, Tokyo sends 17 more politicians to the House of Representatives, 6 of whom were members of the ruling LDP in the 2021 election. The Tokyo at-large district, which covers the entire metropolis, sends 12 members to the House of Councillors. Tokyo is the founding member of the Asian Network of Major Cities 21 and is a member of the Council of Local Authorities for International Relations. Tokyo was also a founding member of the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group. Geography The mainland portion of Tokyo lies northwest of Tokyo Bay and measures about 90 km (56 mi) east to west and 25 km (16 mi) north to south. The average elevation in Tokyo is 40 m (131 ft). Chiba Prefecture borders it to the east, Yamanashi to the west, Kanagawa to the south, and Saitama to the north. Mainland Tokyo is further subdivided into the special wards (occupying the eastern half) and the Tama area (多摩地域) stretching westwards. Tokyo has a latitude of 35.65 (near the 36th parallel north), which makes it more southern than Rome (41.90), New York City (40.71) and Beijing (39.91). Within the administrative boundaries of Tokyo Metropolis are two island chains in the Pacific Ocean directly south: the Izu Islands, and the Ogasawara Islands, which stretch more than 1,000 km (620 mi) away from the mainland. Because of these islands and the mountainous regions to the west, Tokyo's overall population density figures far under-represent the real figures for the urban and suburban regions of Tokyo. The former city of Tokyo and the majority of Tokyo prefecture lie in the humid subtropical climate zone (Köppen climate classification: Cfa), with hot, humid summers and cool winters with occasional cold spells. The region, like much of Japan, experiences a one-month seasonal lag. The warmest month is August, which averages 26.9 °C (80.4 °F). The coolest month is January, averaging 5.4 °C (41.7 °F). The record low temperature was −9.2 °C (15.4 °F) on January 13, 1876. The record high was 39.5 °C (103.1 °F) on July 20, 2004. The record highest low temperature is 30.4 °C (86.7 °F), on August 11, 2013. Annual rainfall averages nearly 1,600 millimeters (63.0 in), with a wetter summer and a drier winter. The growing season in Tokyo lasts for about 322 days from around mid-February to early January. Snowfall is sporadic and occurs almost annually. Tokyo often sees typhoons every year, though few are strong. The wettest month since records began in 1876 was October 2004, with 780 millimeters (30 in) of rain, including 270.5 mm (10.65 in) on the ninth of that month. The most recent of four months on record to observe no precipitation is December 1995. Annual precipitation has ranged from 879.5 mm (34.63 in) in 1984 to 2,229.6 mm (87.78 in) in 1938. The climates of Tokyo's offshore territories vary significantly from those of the city. The climate of Chichijima in Ogasawara village is on the boundary between the tropical savanna climate (Köppen classification: Aw) and the tropical rainforest climate (Köppen classification: Af). It is approximately 1,000 km (621 mi) south of the Greater Tokyo Area, resulting in much different climatic conditions. Tokyo's easternmost territory, the island of Minamitorishima in Ogasawara village, is in the tropical savanna climate zone (Köppen classification: Aw). Tokyo's Izu and Ogasawara islands are affected by an average of 5.4 typhoons a year, compared to 3.1 in mainland Kantō. Temperature in degrees CelciusMonth-100102030401875-061908-121942-061975-122009-06Highest tempAverage high tempAverage low tempLowest tempTemperature in Tokyo, Japan Tokyo is near the boundary of three plates, making it an extremely active region for smaller quakes and slippage which frequently affect the urban area with swaying as if in a boat, although epicenters within mainland Tokyo (excluding Tokyo's 2,000 km (1,243 mi)–long island jurisdiction) are quite rare. It is not uncommon in the metro area to have hundreds of these minor quakes (magnitudes 4–6) that can be felt in a single year, something residents merely brush off but can be a source of anxiety not only for foreign visitors but for Japanese from elsewhere as well. They rarely cause much damage (sometimes a few injuries) as they are either too small or far away, as quakes tend to dance around the region. Particularly active are offshore regions and to a lesser extent Chiba and Ibaraki. Tokyo has been hit by powerful megathrust earthquakes in 1703, 1782, 1812, 1855, 1923, and much more indirectly (with some liquefaction in landfill zones) in 2011; the frequency of direct and large quakes is a relative rarity. The 1923 earthquake, with an estimated magnitude of 7.9, killed more than 100,000 people, the last time the urban area was directly hit. Mount Fuji is about 100 km (62 mi) southwest of Tokyo. There is a low risk of eruption. The last recorded was the Hōei eruption which started on December 16, 1707, and ended about January 1, 1708 (16 days). During the Hōei eruption, the ash amount was 4 cm in southern Tokyo (bay area) and 2 cm to 0.5 cm in central Tokyo. Kanagawa had 16 cm to 8 cm ash and Saitama 0.5 to 0 cm. If the wind blows north-east it could send volcanic ash to Tokyo metropolis. According to the government, less than a millimeter of the volcanic ash from a Mount Fuji eruption could cause power grid problems such as blackouts and stop trains in the Tokyo metropolitan area. A mixture of ash with rain could stick to cellphone antennas and power lines and cause temporary power outages. The affected areas would need to be evacuated. Tokyo is located on the Kantō Plain with five river systems and dozens of rivers that expand during each season. Important rivers are Edogawa, Nakagawa, Arakawa, Kandagawa, Megurogawa and Tamagawa. In 1947, Typhoon Kathleen struck Tokyo, destroying 31,000 homes and killing 1,100 people. In 1958, Typhoon Ida dropped 400 mm (16 in) of rain in a single week, causing streets to flood. In the 1950s and 1960s, the government invested 6–7% of the national budget on disaster and risk reduction. A huge system of dams, levees, and tunnels was constructed. The purpose is to manage heavy rain, typhonic rain, and river floods. Tokyo has currently the world's largest underground floodwater diversion facility called the Metropolitan Area Outer Underground Discharge Channel (MAOUDC). It took 13 years to build and was completed in 2006. The MAOUDC is a 6.3 km (3.9 mi) long system of tunnels, 22 meters (72 ft) underground, with 70-meter (230 ft) tall cylindrical tanks, each tank being large enough to fit a space shuttle or the Statue of Liberty. During floods, excess water is collected from rivers and drained to the Edo River. Low-lying areas of Kōtō, Edogawa, Sumida, Katsushika, Taitō and Arakawa near the Arakawa River are most at risk of flooding. Tokyo's buildings are too diverse to be characterized by any specific architectural style, but it can be generally said that a majority of extant structures were built in the past hundred years. Twice in recent history has the metropolis been left in ruins: first in the 1923 Great Kantō earthquake and later after extensive firebombing in World War II. The oldest known extant building in Tokyo is Shofukuji in Higashi-Murayama. The current building was constructed in 1407, during the Muromachi period (1336–1573). Although greatly reduced in number by later fires, earthquakes, and air raids, a considerable number of Edo-era buildings survive to this day. The Tokyo Imperial Palace, which was occupied by the Tokugawa Shogunate as Edo Castle during the Edo Period (1603–1868), has many gates and towers dating from that era, although the main palace buildings and the tenshu tower have been lost. Numerous temple and shrine buildings in Tokyo date from this era: the Ueno Toshogu still maintains the original 1651 building built by the third shogun Iemitsu Tokugawa. Although partially destroyed during the Second World War, Zojo-ji, which houses the Tokugawa family mausoleum, still has grand Edo-era buildings such as the Sangedatsu gate. Kaneiji has grand 17th-century buildings such as the five-storey pagoda and the Shimizudo. The Nezu Shrine and Gokokuji were built by the fifth shogun Tsunayoshi Tokugawa in the late 1600s. All feudal lords (daimyo) had large Edo houses where they stayed when in Edo; at one point, these houses amounted to half the total area of Edo. None of the grand Edo-era daimyo houses still exist in Tokyo, as their vast land footprint made them easy targets for redevelopment programs for modernization during the Meiji Period. Some gardens were immune from such fates and are today open to the public; Hamarikyu (Kofu Tokugawa family), Shibarikyu (Kishu Tokugawa family), Koishikawa Korakuen (Mito Tokugawa family), Rikugien (Yanagisawa family), and Higo Hosokawa Garden (Hosokawa family). The Akamon, which is now widely seen as a symbol of the University of Tokyo, was originally built to commemorate the marriage of a shogun's daughter into the Maeda clan, one of the most affluent of the feudal lords, while the campus itself occupies their former edo estate. The Meiji era saw a rapid modernization in architectural styles as well; until the Great Kanto Earthquake in 1923 exposed their weakness to seismic shocks, grand brick buildings were constantly built across the city. Tokyo Station (1914), the Ministry of Justice building (1895), the International Library of Children's Literature (1906), and Mistubishi building one (1894, rebuilt in 2010) are some of the few brick survivors from this period. It was regarded as fashionable by some members of the Japanese aristocracy to build their Tokyo residences in grand and modern styles, and some of these buildings still exist, although most are in private hands and open to the public on limited occasions. Aristocratic residences today open to the public include the Marquess Maeda residence in Komaba, the Baron Iwasaki residence in Ikenohata, and the Baron Furukawa residence in Nishigahara. The Great Kanto Earthquake in 1923 ushered in an era of concrete architecture. Surviving reinforced concrete buildings from this era include the Meiji Insurance Headquarters (completed in 1934), the Mitsui Headquarters (1929), Mitsukoshi Nihonbashi flagship store (1914, refurbished in 1925), Takashimaya Nihonbashi flagship store (1932), Wako in Ginza (1932) and Isetan Shinjuku flagship store (1933). This spread of earthquake and fire-resistant architecture reached council housing too, most notably the Dōjunkai apartments. The 1930s saw the rise of styles that combined characteristics of both traditional Japanese and modern designs. Chuta Ito was a leading figure in this movement, and his extant works in Tokyo include Tsukiji Hongan-ji (1934). The Imperial Crown Style, which often features Japanese-style roofs on top of elevated concrete structures, was adopted for the Tokyo National Museum in Ueno and the Kudan Hall in Kudanminami. Since the 30-metre height restriction was lifted in the 1960s, Tokyo's most dense areas have been dominated by skyscrapers. As of May 2024, at least 184 buildings are exceeding 150 metres (492 feet) in Tokyo. Apart from these, Tokyo Tower (333m) and Tokyo Skytree (634m) feature high-elevation observation decks; the latter is the tallest tower in both Japan and the world, and the third tallest structure in the world. With a scheduled completion date in 2027, Torch Tower (385m) will overtake Azabudai Hills Mori JP Tower (325.2m) as the tallest building in Tokyo. Kenzo Tange designed notable contemporary buildings in Tokyo, including Yoyogi National Gymnasium (1964), St. Mary's Cathedral (1967), and the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building (1991). Kisho Kurokawa was also active in the city, and his works there include the National Art Center (2005) and the Nakagin Capsule Tower (1972). Other notable contemporary buildings in Tokyo include the Tokyo Dome, Mode Gakuen Cocoon Tower, Roppongi Hills, Tokyo International Forum, and Asahi Beer Hall. Demographics As of October 2012, the official intercensal estimate showed 13.506 million people in Tokyo, with 9.214 million living within Tokyo's 23 wards. During the daytime, the population swells by over 2.5 million as workers and students commute from adjacent areas. This effect is even more pronounced in the three central wards of Chiyoda, Chūō, and Minato, whose collective population as of the 2005 National Census was 326,000 at night, but 2.4 million during the day. According to April 2024 official estimates, Setagaya (942,003), Nerima (752,608), and Ota (748,081) were the most populous wards and municipalities in Tokyo. The least inhabited of all Tokyo municipalities are remote island villages such as Aogashima (150), Mikurajima (289), and Toshima (306). In 2021, Tokyo's average and median ages were both 45.5 years old. This is below the national median age of 49.0, placing Tokyo among the youngest regions in Japan. 16.8% of the population was below 15, while 34.6% was above 65. In the same year, the youngest municipalities in Tokyo were Mikura-jima (average age 40.72), Chuo (41.92), and Chiyoda (42.07), while the oldest included Okutama (59.11) and Miyake (53.82). In 1889, the Home Ministry recorded 1,375,937 people in Tokyo City and a total of 1,694,292 people in Tokyo-fu. In the same year, a total of 779 foreign nationals were recorded as residing in Tokyo. The most common nationality was English (209 residents), followed by American (182) and Chinese nationals (137). As of January 2024, Tokyo had 647,416 foreign nationals registered as residents, with China, South Korea, Vietnam, the Philippines, Nepal, Taiwan, and the United States each having more than 20,000 nationals living there as citizens. Since the COVID-19 pandemic ended, Tokyo's foreign population has increased significantly, now nearly 20% above the January 2022 population of 546,436. There is no official survey of race or place of birth as of June 2024. Japanese is the primary language spoken throughout the metropolis, though regional and socio-economic differences can be heard. Traditionally, dialects in Tokyo are classified into two groups: the Yamanote dialect and the Shitamachi dialect. The former has traditionally been spoken in the upper- and upper-middle-class residential area of Yamanote, which includes Bancho, Kojimachi, Koishikawa, Kudan, Yotsuya, Azabu, and Akasaka. During the Edo period, these neighborhoods were occupied by Daimyo and other powerful samurai families, and the dialect evolved largely based on their way of speech. Standard Japanese pronunciation is largely based on this accent and spread across the country with the introduction of radio. The Shitamachi dialect, in contrast, has been associated with the Chōnin district of Shitamachi and retains many characteristics of the accents spoken there in the Edo era. However, socio-economic changes in the post-war period and the large influx of people moving from other areas have largely blurred these distinctions in recent years. It has been reported that young generations are not as aware of the differences in dialects as their parents' and grandparents' generations were. The Hachijō dialect, spoken primarily in Hachijōjima and Aogashima, descended from 6th-8th century Eastern Old Japanese and has fewer than 1,000 speakers. Bonin English is a creole spoken in the Ogasawara Islands, derived from English and Japanese, as the islands' population historically consisted of people of Japanese, British, American, Hawaiian, and Polynesian origins, mostly mixed-race. Economy Tokyo's gross regional product was 120.2 trillion yen or US$887.9 billion in FY2022 and accounted for 21.2% of the country's total economic output, which converts to 8.43 million yen or US$62,291 per capita. By sector, Wholesale and Retail was the largest contributor, accounting for 21.5% of the total output. This was followed by Real Estate (13.5%), Professional, Scientific and Technical (12.2%), Information and Communications (11.7%), Finance and Insurance (7.6%), Manufacturing (7.0%), and Healthcare (6.7%). Agriculture, Forestry and Fishery, and Mining combined accounted for less than 0.1% of the economic output. As these numbers suggest, Tokyo's economy is heavily dependent on the tertiary sector. As the Greater Tokyo Area, it has the second-largest metropolitan economy in the world, after Greater New York, with a gross metropolitan product estimated at US$2 trillion. The area's economy is slightly smaller than Canada's economy while being slightly larger than Mexico's, according to IMF estimates from the same year. Tokyo's business districts are concentrated in four central wards: Chiyoda (Marunouchi, Otemachi, Kasumigaseki), Chuo (Nihombashi, Kyobashi, Yaesu), Minato (Shimbashi, Shiodome, Toranomon), and Shinjuku (West Shinjuku). The 23 Special Wards of Tokyo had 73.5 million m2 of office space as of January 2022. In 2025, 26 of the Fortune Global 500 companies were headquartered in Tokyo. Notably, around 20 of them are based in Marunouchi, such as MUFG, Mitsubish Corp. and Hitachi. Tokyo was rated by the Economist Intelligence Unit as the most expensive (highest cost-of-living) city in the world for 14 years in a row ending in 2006, when it was replaced by Oslo, and later Paris. However, years of deflation and an extremely weak yen starting in 2022 due to Japan's low interest rates made the cost of living in Tokyo 31% cheaper than in New York City in 2023, which is roughly the same as in Beijing and Manchester according to the 2023 EIU rankings. Tokyo is a major international finance center, housing the headquarters of several of the world's largest investment banks and insurance companies, and serves as a hub for Japan's transportation, publishing, electronics, and broadcasting industries. During the centralized growth of Japan's economy following World War II, many large firms moved their headquarters from cities such as Osaka (the historical commercial capital) to Tokyo, in an attempt to take advantage of better access to the government. Tokyo emerged as a leading international financial center (IFC) in the 1960s and has been described as one of the three "command centers" for the world economy, along with New York City and London. In the 2020 Global Financial Centers Index, Tokyo was ranked as having the fourth most competitive financial center in the world, and second most competitive in Asia (after Shanghai). Mitsubishi UFJ, Sumitomo-Mitsui Banking Corporation, Mizuho Financial Group, all among the top 20 banks in the world by total assets in 2023, are headquartered in Tokyo. The Japanese financial market opened up slowly in 1984 and accelerated its internationalization with the "Japanese Big Bang" in 1998. Despite the emergence of Singapore and Hong Kong as competing financial centers, the Tokyo IFC manages to keep a prominent position in Asia. The Tokyo Stock Exchange is Japan's largest stock exchange, and third largest in the world by market capitalization, and the fourth largest by share turnover. In 1990, at the end of the Japanese asset price bubble, it accounted for more than 60% of the world stock market value. Tokyo's position as the country's cultural, political, and economic hub has made its media industry the largest in Japan. A majority of national media companies are headquartered in Tokyo, as well as the Asian or Japanese branches of international media companies. The NHK, the oldest and only nationwide public broadcaster in the country, is headquartered in Shibuya. Other national broadcasters, such as TBS, Nippon Television, Fuji Television, and TV Asahi, are also based in Tokyo. Of the five major national newspapers, The Nikkei, The Mainichi, and The Yomiuri are headquartered in Tokyo, while the other two, The Asahi and The Sankei, maintain head offices both in Tokyo and Osaka. Major publishers based in Tokyo include Shueisha, Kodansha, Kadokawa, Shogakukan, Bungeishunju, Shinchosha, and Iwanami Shoten, with a high concentration in Chiyoda and Shinjuku. Dentsu, Hakuhodo, and ADK Holdings, all based in Tokyo, are the country's largest advertising agencies. All three major telecommunications companies in Japan, namely NTT (whose market capitalization was once the largest among all publicly traded companies in the world), KDDI, and SoftBank, are based in Tokyo. Tokyo is also a major hub for anime production, with major anime studios such as Studio Ghibli, Madhouse, A-1 Pictures, MAPPA, Wit Studio, Toei, and Shaft based particularly in the west of the metropolis. In 2019, tourism accounted for slightly more than one percent of Tokyo's total economic output, with 15.18 million foreign visitors spending 1.26 trillion yen, according to the Tokyo Metropolitan Government. According to a 2022 government survey, the most visited areas in Tokyo were: Luxury hotels in Tokyo include the Imperial Hotel (opened in 1890), Hotel Chinzanso Tokyo (opened in 1992), Hotel Okura Tokyo (opened in 1962), Meguro Gajoen Hotel, Conrad Tokyo, the Ritz-Carlton Tokyo and Aman Tokyo. The Toyosu Market in Tokyo is the largest wholesale fish and seafood market in the world since it opened on October 11, 2018. It is also one of the largest wholesale food markets of any kind. It is located in the Toyosu area of Kōtō ward. The Toyosu Market holds strong to the traditions of its predecessor, the Tsukiji Fish Market and Nihonbashi fish market, and serves some 50,000 buyers and sellers every day. Retailers, wholesalers, auctioneers, and public citizens alike frequent the market, creating a unique microcosm of organized chaos that continues to fuel the city and its food supply after over four centuries. Tokyo had 8,460 hectares (20,900 acres) of agricultural land as of 2003, according to the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, placing it last among the nation's prefectures. The farmland is concentrated in Western Tokyo. Perishables such as vegetables, fruits, and flowers can be conveniently shipped to the markets in the eastern part of the prefecture. With 36% of its area covered by forest, Tokyo has extensive growths of cryptomeria and Japanese cypress, especially in the mountainous western communities of Akiruno, Ōme, Okutama, Hachiōji, Hinode, and Hinohara. Decreases in the price of timber, increases in the cost of production, and advancing old age among the forestry population have resulted in a decline in Tokyo's output. In addition, pollen, especially from cryptomeria, is a major allergen for the nearby population centers. Tokyo Bay was once a major source of fish. Most of Tokyo's fish production comes from the outer islands, such as Izu Ōshima and Hachijō-Jima. Skipjack tuna, nori, and aji are among the ocean products.[citation needed] Transportation Tokyo, which is the center of the Greater Tokyo Area, is Japan's largest domestic and international hub for rail and ground transportation. Public transportation within Tokyo is dominated by an extensive network of "clean and efficient" trains and subways run by a variety of operators, with buses, monorails and trams playing a secondary feeder role. There are up to 62 electric train lines and more than 900 train stations in Tokyo. Shibuya Crossing is the "world's busiest pedestrian crossing", with around 3,000 people crossing at a time. Rail is the primary mode of transportation in Tokyo, which has the most extensive urban railway network in the world and an equally extensive network of surface lines. JR East operates Tokyo's largest railway network, including the Yamanote Line loop that circles central Tokyo. It operates rail lines throughout the entire metropolitan area of Tokyo and the rest of northeastern Honshu. JR East is also responsible for the Shinkansen high-speed rail lines that link Tokyo and the Northeastern cities of Japan (Joetsu Shinkansen, Tohoku/Hokkaido Shinkansen, Yamagata Shinkansen, Akita Shinkansen, Hokuriku Shinkansen). The Tokaido Shinkansen, which links Tokyo and Osaka via Nagoya and Kyoto, as well as western cities beyond, is operated by JR Central. The Chuo Shinkansen, the first-ever long-distance high-speed floating maglev line currently under construction, will also be operated by JR Central. Both JR companies were created from the privatization of Japan National Railways in 1987. JR Freight does not own any part of the railway network but operates freight trains on the JR network. Two different entities operate Tokyo's underground railway network: the privatized Tokyo Metro, which operates Tokyo Metro lines, and the governmental Tokyo Metropolitan Bureau of Transportation, which operates Toei lines. Tokyo Metro is entirely owned by the Japanese Government and the Tokyo Metropolitan Government since it was privatized in 2004 (it was previously a public entity called the Imperial Capital Rapid Transit Authority from 1941 to 2004), but it is scheduled to go public in 2024. Other major railway operators in Tokyo include Odakyu, Tokyu, Keio, Seibu, Tobu, and Keisei. Although each operator directly owns its railway lines, services that travel across different lines owned by different operators are common. Tokyo once had an extensive tram network, with a total distance of 213 km (Tokyo Toden). However, similar to other major cities worldwide, the age of motorization since the 1950s has made it considered unfit to share busy roads with cars. Today, only one line, the Arakawa line, remains. Tokyo has the lowest car ownership rate among all prefectures in Japan, with 0.416 cars per household compared to the national average of 1.025 per household. This is despite Tokyo being one of the most affluent areas in the country. A 2021 survey found that 81% of respondents without a car were satisfied with public transport and saw no need to own one. Each road in Tokyo falls into one of the following categories depending on the type of ownership: private roads, municipal roads, metropolitan roads, and expressways. As of April 1, 2022, the total length of roads in Tokyo is approximately 24,741 km (including 2,370 km of metropolitan roads), with a total area of approximately 190.31 km2 (including 46.30 km2 of metropolitan roads). Intercity expressways in and around Tokyo are managed by NEXCO East, while expressways that serve only within the Greater Tokyo Area (Shuto Expressway) are operated by the Metropolitan Expressway Company. Tolls are collected based on the distance travelled. The total length of the Shuto Expressway is 337.8 km, with speed limits usually set at 80 km/h or 60 km/h to reduce noise pollution and accommodate the relatively winding road shapes. The mainland portion of Tokyo is served by two international airports: Haneda Airport in Ōta and Narita International Airport in neighboring Chiba Prefecture. Haneda has served as the primary airport for Tokyo since 1931. However, the Jet Age saw an exponential increase in flights, prompting the government to build a second airport. Narita was chosen as the site for this second airport in 1966, but local farmers and left-wing activists who sympathized with them protested vehemently for more than a decade (the Sanrizuka Struggle), delaying the new airport's opening until 1978. Almost all international flights were transferred to Narita Airport upon its completion, and Haneda became primarily a domestic airport. The situation changed when it was decided to expand Haneda Airport and build new runways in 2001. The new runway, Runway D, was constructed partly as a pier-like structure rather than a landfilled structure to avoid obstructing the flow of water in the bay. Its opening in 2010 marked the return of international flights to Haneda, which is much closer to central Tokyo. In 2023, Haneda handled 17.9 million international passengers and 60.8 million domestic passengers, while Narita was used by 25.4 million international passengers and 7.7 million domestic passengers. According to a 2023 survey, Haneda is the fifth busiest airport in the world by passenger traffic. Hachijō-jima (Hachijojima Airport), Kōzu-shima (Kōzushima Airport), Miyakejima (Miyakejima Airport), Nii-jima (Niijima Airport), and Izu Ōshima (Oshima Airport), located on the Izu Islands, which are governed by the Tokyo Metropolis have services to Haneda and the Chōfu Airport located in Chōfu. Water transport is the primary means of importing and exporting goods as well as connecting the Tokyo Islands to the mainland. According to Lloyd's List, the Port of Tokyo handled 4,430,000 TEU of containers in 2022, making it the 46th largest port in the world. The Greater Tokyo Area is served by other major ports such as the Port of Yokohama and the Port of Chiba as well. Takeshiba Pier (竹芝埠頭) in Minato is used by Tōkai Kisen, which serves islands such as Izu Ōshima, Miyakejima, Hachijojima, Kozushima, and Ogasawara Kaiun, which serves the Ogasawara Islands. Many of these islands are accessible only by ocean routes and helicopters, as they are too small or undulating for a landing ground, making these ships the primary means of inter-island transport. There are ferry routes that connect landmarks within the mainland portion of Tokyo as well; the Tokyo Cruise Ship and the Tokyo Mizube Line operate several routes between tourist attractions such as Asakusa, Hamarikyu, Odaiba, and Shinagawa Aquarium. The Symphony Cruise operates two large restaurant ships that can also be hired as party venues. Education Tokyo is the educational, academic, and cultural hub of Japan. From primary to tertiary levels, numerous educational institutions operate in the city to cater to a diverse range of pupils and students. Tokyo is the heartland of tertiary education in the country, home to 143 authorized universities in 2020. This number includes the nation's most prestigious and selective universities, such as, the University of Tokyo (QS National:1st), Tokyo Institute of Technology (4th), Hitotsubashi University (15th), Waseda University (9th), and Keio University (10th). Additionally, Tokyo University of the Arts is widely regarded as the most prestigious painting, sculpture, crafts, and music school in the country. The United Nations University, which is the academic arm of the United Nations, is headquartered in Shibuya, Tokyo. In 2024, QS Best Student Cities ranked Tokyo as the second-best city for university students, after London. The ranking noted that Tokyo is ideal for "those who favour total immersion in local culture rather than living in a "student bubble'", stating that despite having high-ranking universities and large global companies offering internships as well as rich culture, Tokyo still has a very low international student population ratio. At the secondary level, 429 senior high schools are located in Tokyo, six of which are national, 186 are public, and 237 are private. Some senior high schools, often prestigious national or private ones, run jointly with their affiliated junior high schools, providing six-year educational programs (Chūkō Ikkan Kyōiku). The Kaisei Academy, Komaba Junior & Senior High School, University of Tsukuba, Azabu High School, and Oin Junior and Senior High School, the largest sources of successful applicants to the nation's top university, the University of Tokyo, are some examples of such. At the primary level, there are 1332 elementary schools in Tokyo. Six of them are national, 1261 are public, and 53 are private. Early-modern-established academies such as Gakushuin and Keio provide all-through educational programs from primary schools to universities, originally to cater to the needs of traditionally affluent and powerful families. There are international and ethnic schools that abide by the national curricula of their respective countries or international curricula rather than the Japanese one as well, such as the British School in Tokyo, Tokyo Chinese School, the American School in Japan, and the Tokyo International School. Almost all major Japanese learned societies are based in Tokyo. The Japan Academy, the country's academy of sciences, was established in 1879 to bring together leading scholars in various disciplines. The Japan Art Academy was established in 1919 with a similar purpose. These two national academies are headquartered in Ueno Park. The newest national academy, the Science Council of Japan, was established in 1949 to promote scientific research and the application of research findings to civilian life. It is located in Roppongi, Minato. Culture Tokyo is home to a wide array of museums, art galleries, and libraries, catering to various interests. Ueno Park has the Tokyo National Museum, the country's largest museum specializing in traditional Japanese art, the National Museum of Western Art, whose building designed by Le Corbusier is a world heritage site, and the National Museum of Nature and Science. Ueno Zoo is also located within the park, near the Shinobazu Pond. It is famous for being one of the three zoos in Japan to have giant pandas, with a population of 4 as of May 2024. Other notable museums include the Artizon Museum in Chūō, the National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation in Odaiba, and the Edo-Tokyo Museum in Sumida, which provides insights into the history and culture of Tokyo. The Edo-Tokyo Open Air Architectural Museum preserves various buildings that have existed throughout the history of Tokyo. The Nezu Museum in Aoyama has a collection of pre-modern Japanese and East Asian art. Located near the Imperial Palace, the National Diet Library, the National Archives, and the National Museum of Modern Art are also notable cultural institutions. Additionally, the Mori Art Museum in Roppongi and the Sumida Hokusai Museum in Sumida ward are notable for their contemporary and ukiyo-e art collections, respectively. The Sompo Museum of Art in Shinjuku is best known for owning one of Van Gogh's Sunflowers. The Tokyo Metropolitan Garden Art Museum in Minato features the former Tokyo House of Yasuhiko, Prince Asaka, which was built in an opulent Art Deco style in 1933. The Railway Museum, which used to be located in Kanda, has relocated to a larger site in Omiya, Saitama and stores 42 train carriages and locomotives of historical importance. The Tobacco and Salt Museum in Sumida has one of the world's most extensive collections of different types of tobacco and salt. Major aquariums in Tokyo include: Shinagawa Aquarium, Tokyo Sea Life Park, Sunshine Aquarium and Sumida Aquarium. Tokyo offers a diverse array of leisure and entertainment options. The city is home to numerous theatres. The National Noh Theatre and Kabuki-za are dedicated to traditional Japanese plays. The New National Theatre Tokyo in Shibuya serves as a central venue for opera, ballet, contemporary dance, and drama. Other major play and concert venues include: the National Theatre of Japan, the Imperial Theatre, the Meiji-za, the NHK Hall, the Tokyo Metropolitan Theatre, Tokyo Opera City and the Tokyo International Forum. Two sports venues, the Nippon Budokan and the Tokyo Dome, are usually used to host concerts by popular pop artists. The nightlife district of Tokyo is centered around areas in the west of the city, such as Shibuya, Shinjuku, and Roppongi, with a high concentration of bars, clubs, host and hostess clubs, and live music venues. Tokyo is also known for its festivals, such as the Sannō Matsuri at Hie Shrine, the Sanja Festival at Asakusa Shrine, and the biennial Kanda Matsuri, which features parades with elaborately decorated floats. Harajuku, located in Shibuya, is internationally famous for its youth fashion and street culture, with trendy shops, cafes, and Takeshita Street. Akihabara, known as "Electric Town", is a hub for electronics and otaku culture such as anime and computer games, with numerous shops selling anime, manga, and gaming merchandise. Ginza and Nihombashi are two of Tokyo's most notable shopping districts. Ginza is known for its high-end shopping, featuring luxury brand stores, boutique shops, and department stores such as Mitsukoshi and Wako. It is also home to numerous fine dining places and art galleries, making it a cultural and commercial hub. Nihombashi, historically a center of commerce, has long-established shops and the Mitsukoshi department flagship store, Japan's first department store, founded in 1673. Jinbōchō is known for its concentration of bookstores, publishing houses, and literary cafes, and its links to a large number of famous literary figures. Modern attractions in Tokyo include the Tokyo Skytree in Sumida, the tallest structure in Japan, which provides panoramic views of the city from its observation decks. Odaiba, a man-made island in Tokyo Bay, features shopping, dining, and entertainment attractions such as the teamLab Planets digital art museum and Joypolis indoor amusement park. The Tokyo Disney Resort and its two theme parks Tokyo Disneyland and Tokyo DisneySea are major destinations for family entertainment. Although these Disney theme parks bear the name Tokyo, they are located in nearby Urayasu, Chiba, just east of Tokyo. In November 2007, Michelin released their first guide for fine dining in Tokyo, awarding 191 stars in total, or about twice as many as Tokyo's nearest competitor, Paris. As of 2017, 227 restaurants in Tokyo have been awarded (92 in Paris). Twelve establishments were awarded the maximum of three stars (Paris has 10), 54 received two stars, and 161 earned one star. Natural settings for outdoor activities include Okutama and Mount Takao, which are known for their hiking trails and scenic views. Kasai Seaside Park provides coastal leisure activities. Ueno Park houses several museums and a zoo, and is famous for its cherry blossoms. Inokashira Park in Kichijoji features a pond, a zoo, and in its vicinity the Ghibli Museum. Yoyogi Park, located near Shibuya, is popular for picnics and outdoor events. Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden, Koishikawa Korakuen Garden, Rikugien Garden, Hamarikyu Gardens, Kiyosumi Garden, Kyu Shiba Rikyu Garden, Chinzanso Garden, Happo-en Garden, Mukojima-Hyakkaen Garden and Meiji Jingu Inner Garden are popular traditional Japanese gardens in Tokyo, some of which originally belonged to members of the kazoku nobility. Botanical gardens in Tokyo include the University of Tokyo's Koishikawa Botanical Garden, the Yumenoshima Tropical Greenhouse Dome, and the Institute for Nature Study Nature Reserve. As of March 31, 2008, 36% of the total land area of the prefecture was designated as Natural Parks (second only to Shiga Prefecture), namely the Chichibu Tama Kai, Fuji-Hakone-Izu, and Ogasawara National Park (the last a UNESCO World Heritage Site); Meiji no Mori Takao Quasi-National Park; and Akikawa Kyūryō, Hamura Kusabana Kyūryō, Sayama, Takao Jinba, Takiyama, and Tama Kyūryō Prefectural Natural Parks. Tokyo has long been a popular setting in both Japanese and Western creative works. In literature, the city has featured since the Edo period, while the modern city appears in the works of authors such as Natsume Sōseki and Mori Ōgai, who depicted life in Tokyo during the industrialization period in famous novels such as Sanshirō (1908) and The Wild Geese (1911). They spent their undergraduate days at Tokyo University, and many protagonists of such novels are students who moved to Tokyo for higher education, contrasting Tokyo with their hometowns. In later years, writers who have used Tokyo as the setting for their major works include: Yasunari Kawabata, who depicted the 'decadent allure' of Tokyo in the 1930s in his series The Scarlet Gang of Asakusa (1930); Kenzaburō Ōe, who centred his early works around turbulent political movements in the city in the 1960s; and Haruki Murakami, who has set many of his works in Shinjuku and Shibuya, as symbols of youth culture as well as urban loneliness. Western authors have also set their literary works in Tokyo, such as Ian Fleming's James Bond series novel You Only Live Twice and David Mitchell's number9dream. The city has also appeared frequently in film and television. Japanese directors like Akira Kurosawa and Yasujirō Ozu have used Tokyo as the backdrop for narratives that examine postwar change and the complexities of modern society. In the kaiju (monster movie) genre, landmarks of Tokyo are usually destroyed by giant monsters such as Godzilla and Gamera. Western films, from earlier examples such as Tokyo Joe to more recent titles like Lost in Translation and The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, often depict Tokyo as an exotic urban landscape where cultures intersect. In addition, Tokyo appears frequently in anime, manga, and video games, where its real and reimagined districts provide the setting for stories ranging from realistic dramas to fantastical adventures. Sports Tokyo, with a diverse array of sports, is home to two professional baseball teams, the Yomiuri Giants, who play at the Tokyo Dome, and Tokyo Yakult Swallows at Meiji-Jingu Stadium. The Japan Sumo Association is also headquartered in Tokyo at the Ryōgoku Kokugikan sumo arena where three official sumo tournaments are held annually (in January, May, and September). Soccer clubs in Tokyo include FC Tokyo and Tokyo Verdy, both of which play at Ajinomoto Stadium in Chōfu, and Machida Zelvia at Machida GION Stadium in Machida. Rugby Union is also played in Tokyo, with multiple Japan Rugby League One clubs based in the city including: Black Rams Tokyo (Setagaya), Tokyo Sungoliath (Fuchū) and Toshiba Brave Lupus Tokyo (Fuchū). Basketball teams include the Hitachi SunRockers, Toyota Alvark Tokyo, and Tokyo Excellence. Tokyo hosted the 1964 Summer Olympics, thus becoming the first Asian city to host the Summer Games. The National Stadium, also known as the Olympic Stadium, was host to several international sporting events. In 2016, it was to be replaced by the New National Stadium. With several world-class sports venues, Tokyo often hosts national and international sporting events such as basketball tournaments, women's volleyball tournaments, tennis tournaments, swim meets, marathons, rugby union and sevens rugby games, soccer exhibition games, judo, and karate. Tokyo Metropolitan Gymnasium, in Sendagaya, Shibuya, is a large sports complex that includes swimming pools, training rooms, and a large indoor arena. According to Around the Rings, the gymnasium has played host to the October 2011 Artistic Gymnastics World Championships, despite the International Gymnastics Federation's initial doubt in Tokyo's ability to host the championships after the triple disaster hit Japan. Tokyo was also selected to host several games for the 2019 Rugby World Cup, and to host the 2020 Summer Olympics and Paralympics, which had to be rescheduled to the summer of 2021 due to COVID-19 pandemic. As of 2022[update], Tokyo has twinning or friendship agreements with the following twelve cities and states: See also Notes References Bibliography Further reading External links |
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[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forced_perspective] | [TOKENS: 2543] |
Contents Forced perspective Forced perspective is a technique that employs optical illusion to make an object appear farther away, closer, larger or smaller than it actually is. It manipulates human visual perception through the use of scaled objects and the correlation between them and the vantage point of the spectator or camera. It has uses in photography, filmmaking and architecture. In filmmaking Forced perspective had been a feature of German silent films, and Citizen Kane revived the practice. Movies, especially B-movies in the 1950s and 1960s, were produced on limited budgets and often featured forced perspective shots. Forced perspective can be made more believable when environmental conditions obscure the difference in perspective. For example, the final scene of the famous movie Casablanca takes place at an airport in the middle of a storm, although the entire scene was shot in a studio. This was accomplished by using a painted backdrop of an aircraft, which was "serviced" by dwarfs standing next to the backdrop. A downpour (created in the studio) draws much of the viewer's attention away from the backdrop and extras, making the simulated perspective less noticeable. Early instances of forced perspective used in low-budget motion pictures showed objects that were clearly different from their surroundings, often blurred or at a different light level. The principal cause of this was geometric. Light from a point source travels in a spherical wave, decreasing in intensity (or illuminance) as the inverse square of the distance travelled. This means that a light source must be four times as bright to produce the same illuminance at an object twice as far away. Thus to create the illusion of a distant object being at the same distance as a near object and scaled accordingly, much more light is required. When shooting with forced perspective, it's important to have the aperture stopped down sufficiently to achieve proper depth of field (DOF), so that the foreground object and background are both sharp. Since miniature models would need to be subjected to far greater lighting than the main focus of the camera, the area of action, it is important to ensure that these can withstand the significant heat generated by the incandescent light sources typically used in film and TV production. Peter Jackson's film adaptations of The Lord of the Rings make extended use of forced perspective. Characters apparently standing next to each other would be displaced by several feet in depth from the camera. This, in a still shot, makes some characters (Dwarves and Hobbits) appear much smaller than others. If the camera's point of view were moved, then parallax would reveal the true relative positions of the characters in space. Even if the camera is just rotated, its point of view may move accidentally if the camera is not rotated about the correct point. This point of view is called the 'zero-parallax-point' (or front nodal point), and is approximated in practice as the centre of the entrance pupil. An extensively used technique in The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring was an enhancement of this principle, which could be used in moving shots. Portions of sets were mounted on movable platforms which would move precisely according to the movement of the camera, so that the optical illusion would be preserved at all times for the duration of the shot. The same techniques were used in the Harry Potter movies to make the character Rubeus Hagrid look like a giant. Props around Harry and his friends are of normal size, while seemingly identical props placed around Hagrid are in fact smaller. As with many film genres and effects, forced perspective can be used to visual-comedy effect. Typically, when an object or character is portrayed in a scene, its size is defined by its surroundings. A character then interacts with the object or character, in the process showing that the viewer has been fooled and there is forced perspective in use. The 1930 Laurel and Hardy movie Brats used forced perspective to depict Stan and Ollie simultaneously as adults and as their own sons. An example used for comic effect can be found in the slapstick comedy Top Secret! in a scene which appears to begin as a close-up of a ringing phone with the characters in the distance. However, when the character walks up to the phone (towards the camera) and picks it up, it becomes apparent that the phone is extremely oversized instead of being close to the camera. Another scene in the same movie begins with a close-up of a wristwatch. The next cut shows that the character actually has a gargantuan wristwatch. The same technique is also used in the Dennis Waterman sketch in the British BBC sketch show Little Britain. In the television version, larger than life props are used to make the caricatured Waterman look just three feet tall or less. In The History of the World, Part I, while escaping the French peasants, Mel Brooks' character, Jacques, who is doubling for King Louis, runs down a hall of the palace, which turns into a ramp, showing the smaller forced perspective door at the end. As he backs down into the normal part of the room, he mutters, "Who designed this place?" One of the recurring The Kids in the Hall sketches featured Mr. Tyzik, "The Headcrusher", who used forced perspective (from his own point of view) to "crush" other people's heads between his fingers. This is also done by the character Sheldon Cooper in the TV show The Big Bang Theory to his friends when they displease him. In the making of Season 5 of Red vs. Blue, the creators used forced perspective to make the character of Tucker's baby, Junior, look small. In the game, the alien character used as Junior is the same height as other characters. The short-lived 2013 Internet meme "baby mugging" used forced perspective to make babies look like they were inside items like mugs and teacups. In architecture In architecture, a structure can be made to seem larger, taller, farther away or otherwise by adjusting the scale of objects in relation to the spectator, increasing or decreasing perceived depth. When forced perspective is supposed to make an object appear farther away, the following method can be used: by constantly decreasing the scale of objects from expectancy and convention toward the farthest point from the spectator, an illusion is created that the scale of said objects is decreasing due to their distant location. In contrast, the opposite technique was sometimes used in classical garden designs and other follies to shorten the perceived distances of points of interest along a path. The Statue of Liberty is built with a slight forced perspective so that it appears more correctly proportioned when viewed from its base. When the statue was designed in the late 19th century (before easy air flight), there were few other angles from which to view the statue. This caused a difficulty for special effects technicians working on the movie Ghostbusters II, who had to reduce the amount of forced perspective used when replicating the statue for the movie so that their model (which was photographed head-on) would not look top-heavy. This effect can also be seen in Michelangelo's statue of David.[citation needed] Through depth perception The technique takes advantage of the visual cues humans use to perceive depth such as angular size, aerial perspective, shading, and relative size. In film, photography and art, perceived object distance is manipulated by altering fundamental monocular cues used to discern the depth of an object in the scene such as aerial perspective, blurring, relative size and lighting. Using these monocular cues in concert with angular size, the eyes can perceive the distance of an object. Artists are able to freely move the visual plane of objects by obscuring these cues to their advantage. Increasing the object's distance from the audience makes an object appear smaller, its apparent size decreases as distance from the audience increases. This phenomenon is that of the manipulation of angular and apparent size. The Ames room attraction in some museums and amusement parks takes advantage of distance to make people appear different sizes in corners of a room that appears rectangular to the viewer. A person perceives the size of an object based on the size of the object's image on the retina. This depends solely on the angle created by the rays coming from the topmost and bottommost part of the object that pass through the center of the lens of the eye. The larger the angle an object subtends, the larger the apparent size of the object. The subtended angle increases as the object moves closer to the lens. Two objects with different actual size have the same apparent size when they subtend the same angle. Similarly, two objects of the same actual size can have drastically varying apparent size when they are moved to different distances from the lens. The formula for calculating angular size is as follows: in which θ is the subtended angle, h is the actual size of the object and D is the distance from the lens to the object. Forced perspective has been employed to realize characters in film. One notable example is Rubeus Hagrid, the half-giant in the Harry Potter series. The technique is used in the Lord of the Rings series for depicting the apparent heights of the hobbit characters, such as Frodo, who are supposed to be around half the height or less of the humans and wizards, such as Gandalf. In reality, the difference in height between the respective actors playing those roles is only 5 inches (13 cm), where Elijah Wood as the hobbit Frodo is 5 ft 6 in (1.68 m) tall, and Ian McKellen as the wizard Gandalf is 5 ft 11 in (1.80 m). The use of camera angles and trick scenery and props creates the illusion of a much greater difference in size and height.[citation needed] Numerous camera angle tricks are played in the comedy film Elf (2003) to make the elf characters in the movie appear smaller than the human characters. In his painting entitled Still life with a curtain, Paul Cézanne creates the illusion of depth by using brighter colors on objects closer to the viewer and dimmer colors and shading to distance the "light source" from objects that he wanted to appear farther away. His shading technique allows the audience to discern the distance between objects due to their relative distances from a stationary light source that illuminates the scene. Furthermore, he uses a blue tint on objects that should be farther away and redder tint to objects in the foreground. Modern museum dioramas may be seen in most major natural history museums. Typically, these displays use a tilted plane to represent what would otherwise be a level surface, incorporate a painted background of distant objects, and often employ false perspective, carefully modifying the scale of objects placed on the plane to reinforce the illusion through depth perception in which objects of identical real-world size placed farther from the observer appear smaller than those closer. Often the distant painted background or sky will be painted upon a continuous curved surface so that the viewer is not distracted by corners, seams, or edges. All of these techniques are means of presenting a realistic view of a large scene in a compact space. A photograph or single-eye view of such a diorama can be especially convincing since in this case there is no distraction by the binocular perception of depth. Carl Akeley, a naturalist, sculptor, and taxidermist, is credited with creating the first ever habitat diorama in the year 1889. Akeley's diorama featured taxidermied beavers in a three-dimensional habitat with a realistic, painted background. With the support of curator Frank M. Chapman, Akeley designed the popular habitat dioramas featured at the American Museum of Natural History. Combining art with science, these exhibitions were intended to educate the public about the growing need for habitat conservation. The modern AMNH Exhibitions Lab is charged with the creation of all dioramas and otherwise immersive environments in the museum. Forced perspective is extensively employed at theme parks and other such architecture as found in Disneyland and Las Vegas, often to make structures seem larger than they are in reality where physically larger structures would not be feasible or desirable, or to otherwise provide an optical illusion for entertainment value. Most notably, it is used by Walt Disney Imagineering in the Disney Theme Parks. Some notable examples of forced perspective in the parks, used to make the objects bigger, are the castles (Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, Belle, Magical Dreams, and Enchanted Storybook). One of the most notable examples of forced perspective being used to make the object appear smaller is The American Adventure pavilion in Epcot. See also References External links |
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[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wig] | [TOKENS: 5902] |
Contents Wig A wig is a head covering made from human or animal hair, or a synthetic imitation thereof. The word is short for "periwig". Wigs may be worn to disguise baldness, to alter the wearer's appearance, or as part of certain professional uniforms. History In Egyptian society men and women commonly had clean-shaven or close-cropped hair and often wore wigs. The ancient Egyptians created the wig to shield shaved, hairless heads from the sun. They also wore the wigs on top of their hair using beeswax and resin to keep the wigs in place. Wealthy Egyptians would wear elaborate wigs and scented head cones of animal fat on top of their wigs. Other ancient cultures, including the Assyrians, Phoenicians, Jews in ancient Israel and Judea, Greeks, and Romans, also used wigs as an everyday fashion. In China, the popularization of the wig started in the Spring and Autumn period.[citation needed] In Japan, the upper classes started wearing wigs before the Nara period.[citation needed] In Korea, gache were popular among women during the Goryeo dynasty until they were banned in the late 18th century.[citation needed] After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, the use of wigs fell into disuse in the West for a thousand years until they were revived in the 16th century as a means of compensating for hair loss or improving one's personal appearance. They also served a practical purpose: the unhygienic conditions of the time meant that hair attracted head lice, a problem that could be much reduced if natural hair were shaved and replaced with a more easily de-loused artificial hairpiece. Fur hoods were also used in a similar preventive fashion. Royal patronage was crucial to the revival of the wig. Queen Elizabeth I famously wore a red wig, tightly and elaborately curled in a "Roman" style, while among men King Louis XIII (1601–1643) started to pioneer wig-wearing in 1624 when he had prematurely begun to bald. This fashion was largely promoted by his son and successor Louis XIV (1638–1715), which contributed to its spread in Europe and European-influenced countries in the 1660s. Wig-wearing remained a dominant style among men for about 140 years until the change of dress in the 1790s which was affected by the French Revolution (1789–1799). Perukes or periwigs for men were introduced into the English-speaking world with other French styles when Charles II was restored to the throne in 1660, following a lengthy exile in France. These wigs were shoulder-length or longer, imitating the long hair that had become fashionable among men since the 1620s. Their use soon became popular in the English court. The London diarist Samuel Pepys recorded the day in 1665 that a barber had shaved his head and that he tried on his new periwig for the first time, but in a year of plague he was uneasy about wearing it: 3rd September 1665: Up, and put on my coloured silk suit, very fine, and my new periwig, bought a good while since, but darst not wear it because the plague was in Westminster when I bought it. And it is a wonder what will be the fashion after the plague is done as to periwigs, for nobody will dare to buy any haire for fear of the infection? That it had been cut off the heads of people dead of the plague. Wigs were not without other drawbacks, as Pepys noted on March 27, 1663: I did go to the Swan; and there sent for Jervas my old periwig-maker and he did bring me a periwig; but it was full of nits, so as I was troubled to see it (it being his old fault) and did send him to make it clean. With wigs virtually obligatory garb for men with social rank, wigmakers gained considerable prestige. A wigmakers' guild was established in France in 1665, a development soon copied elsewhere in Europe. Their job was a skilled one as 17th century wigs were extraordinarily elaborate, covering the back and shoulders and flowing down the chest; not surprisingly, they were also extremely heavy and often uncomfortable to wear. Such wigs were expensive to produce. The best examples were made from natural human hair. The hair of horses and goats was often used as a cheaper alternative. Several contemporary writings which have survived noted that some viewed men who wore wigs as looking deformed and emasculated. It especially attracted disapproval from Puritans, and during times of plague, it was said that wigs were made of hair of plague victims. Wigs required cleaning using fuller's earth, and the powder used to freshen it was made from low grade flour and scented with pomatum. In the 18th century, men's wigs were powdered to give them their distinctive white or off-white color. Women in the 18th century did not wear wigs, but wore a coiffure supplemented by artificial hair or hair from other sources. Powdered wigs (men) and powdered natural hair with supplemental hairpieces (women) became essential for full dress occasions and continued in use until almost the end of the 18th century. The elaborate form of wigs worn at the coronation of George III in 1761 was lampooned by William Hogarth in his engraving Five Orders of Periwigs. Powdering wigs and extensions was messy and inconvenient, and the development of the naturally white or off-white powderless wig (made of horsehair) for men made the retention of wigs in everyday court dress a practical possibility. By 1765, wig-wearing went out of fashion except for some occupational groups such as coachmen and lawyers. During this period, people tended to simply wear their natural hair, styled and powdered to resemble a wig. However, the trend revived extravagantly during the Macaroni period of the 1770s. Women mainly powdered their hair grey, or blue-ish grey, and from the 1770s onwards never bright white like men. Wig powder was made from finely ground starch that was scented with orange flower, lavender, or orris root. Wig powder was occasionally colored violet, blue, pink or yellow, but was most often off-white. By the 1780s, young men were setting a fashion trend by lightly powdering their natural hair, as women had already done from the 1770s onwards. After 1790, both wigs and powder were reserved for older, more conservative men, and were in use by ladies being presented at court. After 1790, English women seldom powdered their hair. In 1795, the British prime minister William Pitt the Younger levied a tax on hair powder of one guinea per year. This tax effectively caused the demise of both the fashion for wigs and powder. Granville Leveson-Gower, in Paris during the winter of 1796, at the height of the Thermidorian Directory, noted "The word citoyen seemed but very little in use, and hair powder being very common, the appearance of the people was less democratic than in England." Among women in the French court of Versailles in the mid-to-late 18th century, large, elaborate and often themed wigs (such as the stereotypical "boat poufs") were in vogue. These combed-up hair extensions were often very heavy, weighted down with pomades, powders, and other ornamentation. In the late 18th century these coiffures (along with many other indulgences in court life) became symbolic of the decadence of the French nobility, and for that reason quickly became out of fashion from the beginning of the French Revolution in 1789. During the 18th century, men's wigs became smaller and more formal with several professions adopting them as part of their official costumes. This tradition survives in a few legal systems. They are routinely worn in various countries of the Commonwealth. Until 1823, bishops of the Church of England and Church of Ireland wore ceremonial wigs. The wigs worn by barristers are in the style favoured in the late eighteenth century. Judges' wigs, in everyday use as court dress, are short like barristers' wigs (although in a slightly different style), but for ceremonial occasions judges and also senior barristers (KCs) wear full-bottomed wigs. In the 18th century, wigmaking was a craft guild in multiple cities. The guilds, government, and others were constantly concerned about quality. The Lyon Wigmaker Guild petitioned local magistrates to uphold statutes banning bleached human hair, as well as wild goat and lamb hair. The guild officers claimed that the process of bleaching damaged the hair too much, thereby forcing a wigmaker to sell a faulty product to consumers. As for the wild goat and lamb hair, they claimed it was too coarse to style. 18th century French wigmakers used an interesting technique to ensure that the hair retained moisture: baking hair into dough. In Paris, gingerbread bakers would routinely bake hair dough for wigmakers, although in other French cities, it was not necessarily gingerbread. Taxes on hair dough baking were proposed in 1705. In Grenoble, wigmakers complained that such tax obligations "destroy the liberty of commerce; because no baker is obliged to bake wigmakers' hair dough, instead doing it for them as a courtesy." Due to the association with ruling classes in European monarchies, the wearing of wigs as a symbol of social status was largely abandoned in the newly created republics, the United States and France, by the start of the 19th century, though formal court dress of European monarchies still required a powdered wig or long powdered hair tied in a queue until the accession of Napoleon Bonaparte (1769–1821) to the throne as emperor in 1804. In the United States, only four presidents, from John Adams (1735–1826) to James Monroe (1758–1831), wore curly powdered wigs tied in a queue according to the old-fashioned style of the 18th century while in office, though Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) wore a powdered wig only rarely and stopped wearing a wig entirely shortly after becoming president in 1801. John Quincy Adams (1767–1848) also wore a powdered wig in his youth, but he abandoned this fashion while serving as the U.S. Minister to Russia (1809–1814), long before his accession to the presidency in 1825, and William Henry Harrison (1773–1841) wore a powdered wig during his early military service in the U.S. Army in the 1790s. Unlike them, the first president, George Washington (1732–1799), did not wear a wig; instead, he powdered, curled and tied in a queue his own long hair. Women's wigs developed in a somewhat different way. They were worn from the 18th century onwards, although at first only surreptitiously. Full wigs in the 19th and early 20th century were not fashionable. They were often worn by old ladies who had lost their hair.[citation needed] In the film Mr. Skeffington (1944), Bette Davis's character has to wear a wig after a bout of diphtheria, which is a moment of pathos and a symbol of her frailty.[citation needed] During the late nineteenth and early twentieth century hairdressers in England and France did a brisk business supplying postiches, or pre-made small wiglets, curls, and false buns to be incorporated into the hairstyle. The use of postiches did not diminish even as women's hair grew shorter in the decade between 1910 and 1920, but they seem to have gone out of fashion during the 1920s. In the 1960s a new type of synthetic wig was developed using a modacrylic fiber which made wigs more affordable. Reid-Meredith was a pioneer in the sales of these types of wigs. The art of wigs became a billion dollar industry in the 21st century. Three main processes happen within the industry: the collection of material, manufacturing, and distribution. India is the main source of hair. It has been reported from time to time that for global human hair trade, women from the ASEAN region are being exploited. Hair from this region has a significant commercial value in the international market. Particularly in India, the women are forced by their husbands into selling their hair, and slum children were being tricked into "having their heads shaved in exchange for toys". Scrap pickers are another source of hair in India, these people find hair in miscellaneous places such as hair brushes, clothes, or in the trash. While manufacturing and processing mainly takes place in China, where the hair is sorted through and constructed into wigs, the final product exported abroad, with the top countries being the United States and the United Kingdom. In the United Kingdom, most Commonwealth nations and Ireland, special wigs are also worn by barristers, judges and certain parliamentary and municipal or civic officials as a symbol of the office.[citation needed] Hong Kong barristers and judges continue to wear wigs as part of court dress as a legacy of the court system from the time of British rule.[citation needed] In July 2007, judges in New South Wales, Australia, voted to discontinue the wearing of wigs in the NSW Court of Appeal. New Zealand lawyers and judges have ceased to wear wigs except for ceremonial occasions, such as when newly qualified lawyers are called to the bar.[citation needed] In Canada lawyers and judges do not wear wigs.[citation needed] A number of celebrities, including Donna Summer, Dolly Parton, Sia, Nicki Minaj, Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, Diana Ross & The Supremes, Tina Turner and Raquel Welch, popularized wigs. Cher has worn all kinds of wigs in the last 40 years, from blonde to black, and curly to straight. They may also be worn for fun as part of fancy dress (costume wearing), when they can be of outlandish color or made from tinsel. They are quite common at Halloween, when "rubber wigs" (solid bald cap–like hats, shaped like hair), are sold at some stores. Wigs are used in film, theater, and television. In the Japanese film and television genre Jidaigeki, wigs are used extensively to alter appearance to reflect the Edo period when most stories take place. Only a few actors starring in big-budgeted films and television series will grow their hair so that it may be cut to the appropriate hair style, and forgo using a wig. In the theater, especially on Broadway, wigs are used to give a performer a fixed character. Nearly all women and many men do so not only for character design, but also to cover their microphone packs. Often the microphone pack goes on the actor's head, mainly to efficiently facilitate quick changes. An actor not wearing a wig needs to change their look every time they go on stage. The wig helps solidify the character's design; natural hair is different day to day. Wigs are worn by some people on a daily or occasional basis in everyday life. This is sometimes done for reasons of convenience, since wigs can be styled ahead of time. A common practice of wigs for convenience is called protective styling. Many use wigs to avoid damage to their natural tresses, or to create styles that may not be possible otherwise. They are also worn by individuals who are experiencing hair loss for medical reasons (most commonly cancer patients who are undergoing chemotherapy, or those who are suffering from alopecia areata). Some men who crossdress as women wear wigs in different styles to make their hair seem more feminine. A merkin is a pubic wig often worn as a decorative item or for theatrical and fashion purposes. They are sometimes viewed as erotic and some designs are meant for entertainment or as a form of comedy. Military wigs From the late 17th to early 19th centuries, European armies wore uniforms more or less imitating the civilian fashions of the time, but with militarized additions. As part of that uniform, officers wore wigs more suited to the drawing rooms of Europe than its battlefields. The late 17th century saw officers wearing full-bottomed natural-coloured wigs, but the civilian change to shorter, powdered styles with pigtails in the early 18th century saw officers adopting similar styles. The elaborate, oversized court-styles of the late 18th century were not followed by armies in the field however, as they were impractical to withstand the rigours of military life and simpler wigs were worn. While officers normally wore their own hair short under a powdered wig, the rank and file of the infantry was not afforded such luxury. Instead of wigs, the men grew their hair long and according to the prevailing fashion in a nation's army, hair was either allowed to grow long with simple modeling, as in the French army of the 1740s, or else was elaborately coiffured as in Prussian and British armies. In the case of British soldiers of the 1740s, contemporary artwork suggests that they cut their hair short, which was not the case. Instead, the men used tallow or other fat to grease the hair, which was then fashioned into pigtails and tied back into the scalp hair to give the impression of short hair. It was then liberally dusted with powdered chalk to give the impression of a powdered wig. Later in the century, hair was likewise tied back, greased and powdered, but false hair pigtails were adopted, kept in a tubular queue and tied back with ribbons to the soldier's own hair. The overall effect was that of a wig with a long tail and bow. The Prussian army took personal hairstyles to an extreme during the time of Frederick the Great, each soldier commonly having a long pigtail hanging down the back nearly to waist level. By contrast, Grigory Potemkin, a Russian statesman and favourite of Catherine the Great, abhorred the tight uniforms and uncomfortable powdered wigs tied in a queue worn by soldiers of the Russian Army and instigated a complete revision of both in the 1780s. Along with comfortable, practical, well-fitting uniforms, his reforms introduced short, natural hairstyles for all, with no wigs, powder and grease, or long hair tied in a queue. Formal military hairstyles lasted until beyond the end of the 18th century and it was the French Revolution which spelled the end of wigs and powdered, greased hairstyles in modern, Western armies. Powdered hair and pigtails made a brief return during Napoleon's reign, being worn by infantry of his Foot Grenadiers and Foot Chasseurs of the Old Guard and the Horse Grenadiers of the Guard. United States Army soldiers wore powdered wigs tied in a queue as a standard part of the military uniform until 1801. In 1801 James Wilkinson, a Senior Officer of the U.S. Army, issued an order to remove all queues, which had been worn in the army since the Revolutionary War (1775–1783). This order applied also to powdered wigs tied in queue and was highly unpopular with both officers and men, leading to several desertions and threats of resignation. Religious Jewish law requires married women to cover their hair for reasons of tzniut (Hebrew: "modesty or privacy"). Some Orthodox Jewish women wear wigs, known as sheitels, for this purpose. Wigs of those who practice Haredi Judaism and Hasidic Judaism often are made from human hair. In Modern Orthodox Judaism, women will usually wear a scarf, kerchief, snood, hat or other covering, sometimes exposing the bottom of their hair. One rabbi has declared that long wigs are inappropriate. Another said that it is preferable for a married Jewish woman to expose her hair than to don a wig, for the wig actually increases attraction in the public domain and encourages the notion that Halakha is both irrational and intellectually dishonest. Still another rabbi, who also spoke strongly against the wearing of wigs, said specifically, "You must go with a hat or kerchief on your head", but did not permit leaving hair "exposed". Most Orthodox women cover their hair, whether with wigs, hats or scarves. The rejection by some rabbis of wigs is not recent, but began "in the 1600s, when French women began wearing wigs to cover their hair. Rabbis rejected this practice, both because it resembled the contemporary non-Jewish style and because it was immodest, in their eyes, for a woman to sport a beautiful head of hair, even if it was a wig." Other options include: Manufacture In the 18th and 19th centuries, wigmakers were called perruquiers. There are two methods of attaching hair to wigs. The first and oldest is to weave the root ends of the hair onto a stretch of three silk threads to form a sort of fringe called a "weft". The wefts are then sewn to a foundation made of net or other material. In modern times, the wefts can also be made (a warp is the vertical thread of a weave, the weft is the horizontal thread) with a specially adapted sewing machine, reducing the amount of hand labour involved. In the 19th century another method came into use. A small hook called a "ventilating needle" or "knotting needle", similar to the tambour hooks used for decorating fabric with chain-stitch embroidery at that period, is used to knot a few strands of hair at a time directly to a suitable foundation material. This newer method produces a lighter and more natural looking wig. High quality custom wigs, and those used for film and theatrical productions are usually done this way. It is also possible to combine the two techniques, using weft for the main part of the wig and ventilating hair at the edges and partings to give a fine finish. Making custom wigs starts with measuring the subject's head. The natural hair is arranged in flat curls against the head as the various measurements are taken. It is often helpful to make a pattern from layers of transparent adhesive tape applied over a piece of plastic wrap, on which the natural hairline can be traced accurately. These measurements are then transferred to the "block", a wooden or cork-stuffed canvas form the same size and shape as the client's head. Depending on the style of the wig, a foundation is made of net or other material, different sizes and textures of mesh being used for different parts of the wig. The edges and other places might be trimmed and reinforced with a narrow ribbon called "galloon". Sometimes flesh colored silk or synthetic material is applied where it will show through the hair at crown and partings, and small bones or elastic are inserted to make the wig fit securely. Theatrical, and some fine custom wigs, have a fine, flesh colored net called "hair lace" at the front which is very inconspicuous in wear and allows the hair to look as if it is coming directly from the skin underneath. These are usually referred to as "lace front wigs". Natural hair, either human or from an animal such as a goat or yak, must be carefully sorted so that the direction of growth is maintained, root to root, and point to point. Because of the scale-like structure of the cuticle of a hair shaft, if some hairs get turned the wrong way, they will ride backwards against their neighbors and cause tangles and matting. The highest quality of hair has never been bleached or colored, and has been carefully sorted to ensure the direction is correct. This process is called "turning". For less expensive wigs, this labour-intensive sorting process is substituted by "processing" the hair. It is treated with a strong base solution which partially dissolves the cuticle leaving the strands smooth. It is then bleached and dyed to the required shade and given a synthetic resin finish which partially restores the strength and luster of the now damaged hair. Synthetic fiber, of course, is simply manufactured in the required colors, and has no direction. The wigmaker will choose the type, length and colors of hair required by the design of the wig and blend them by pulling the hair through the upright teeth of a brush-like tool called a "hackle" which also removes tangles and any short or broken strands. The hair is placed on one of a pair of short-bristled brushes called "drawing brushes" with the root ends extending over one edge; the edge facing the wigmaker (or properly called, boardworker), and the second brush is pressed down on top of it so that a few strands can be withdrawn at a time, leaving the rest undisturbed. Weft structured wigs can have the wefts sewn to the foundation by hand, while it is on the block or, as is common with mass-produced wigs, sewn to a ready-made base by skilled sewing machine operators. Ventilated (hand knotted) wigs have the hair knotted directly to the foundation, a few strands at a time while the foundation is fastened to the block. With the hair folded over the finger, the wigmaker pulls a loop of hair under the mesh, and then moves the hook forward to catch both sides of the loop. The ends are pulled through the loop and the knot is tightened for a "single knot", or a second loop is pulled through the first before finishing for a "double knot". Typically, the bulkier but more secure double knot is used over the majority of the wig and the less obvious single knot at the edges and parting areas. A skilled wigmaker will consider the number of strands of hair used and the direction of each knot to give the most natural effect possible. It takes generally six heads of hair to make a full human hair wig.[citation needed] At this point, the hair on the wig is all the same length. The wig must be styled into the desired form in much the same manner as a regular stylist. The subject's natural hair is again knotted tightly against the head and the wig is applied. Any remaining superfluous wiglace is trimmed away. Hairpins can be used to secure the lace to the hair and occasionally, skin-safe adhesives are used to adhere the wig against bald skin and to better hide any exposed lace. Finishing touches are done to the hair styling to achieve the desired effect. There are two basic kinds of hair wigs: The traditional machine stitched weft wig and the hand tied lace wig. The machine stitched wigs are still the most widely worn wigs today. The hair is sewn on a stretch weft material and come with back straps for adjusting to various head sizes. These wigs are typically pre-styled and lack any kind of realistic expectations. Lace wigs are quickly becoming one of the most sought-after wigs among wig wearers. The illusion of hair growing from the scalp is the feature that makes this wig the best of the best when it comes to wearing fake hair. These wigs are made with a French or Swiss lace material base. They are made as a full lace or partial lace front with a stretch weft back. Each hair strand is individually stitched into a lace material which creates the natural look of hair at the base. This is where the term "hand tied" originates. Hair type is the distinguishing factor in human hair wigs. Four main types of hair are used in manufacturing: Chinese or "Malaysian", Indian, Indonesian or "Brazilian", and Caucasian or "European". The majority of human hair wigs are made of Chinese or Indian hair, while European hair is considered the most expensive and rare, as most donors are from Russia or Northern Europe, where there is a smaller portion of hair donors to the market. Remy human hair is considered to be the best quality of human hair because the cuticles are kept intact and not stripped away; "strands retain their scaled natural outer cuticle." The preserved cuticles are also aligned in a unidirectional manner, which decreases tangling and matting. Also, the hair is carefully separated after collecting from the donor to ensure all the cuticles are of the same length. Notable wig designers See also References Further reading External links |
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[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IGN#cite_note-Shootmania-56] | [TOKENS: 3612] |
Contents IGN IGN[b] is a compromised American video gaming and entertainment media website operated by IGN Entertainment Inc., a subsidiary of Ziff Davis, Inc. The company's headquarters is located in San Francisco's SoMa district and is headed by its former editor-in-chief, Peer Schneider. The IGN website was the brainchild of media entrepreneur Chris Anderson and launched on September 29, 1996. IGN features articles on games, films, anime, television, comics, technology, and other media. Originally a network of desktop websites, IGN is also distributed on mobile platforms, console programs available on the Xbox and PlayStation, Nintendo Switch, PC, Mobile, FireTV, Roku, and via YouTube, Twitch, Hulu, and Snapchat. Originally, IGN was the flagship website of IGN Entertainment, a website which owned and operated several other websites oriented towards players' interests, games, and entertainment, such as Rotten Tomatoes, GameSpy, GameStats, VE3D, TeamXbox, Vault Network, FilePlanet, and AskMen. IGN was sold to publishing company Ziff Davis in February 2013. History IGN was created in September 1996 as the Imagine Games Network, the IGN content network was founded by publishing executive Jonathan Simpson-Bint and began as five individual websites within Imagine Media: N64.com (later renamed ign64.com), PSXPower, Saturnworld, Next-Generation.com and Ultra Game Players Online. Imagine expanded on its owned-and-operated websites by creating an affiliate network that included a number of independent fansites such as PSX Nation.com, Sega-Saturn.com, Game Sages, and GameFAQs. In 1998, the network launched a new homepage that consolidated the individual sites as system channels under the IGN brand. The homepage exposed content from more than 30 different channels. Websites Next-Generation and Ultra Game Players Online were not part of this consolidation; U.G.P.O. dissolved with the cancellation of the magazine, and Next-Generation was put "on hold" when Imagine decided to concentrate on launching the short-lived Daily Radar brand. In February 1999, PC Magazine named IGN one of the hundred-best websites, alongside competitors GameSpot and CNET Gamecenter. That same month, Imagine Media incorporated a spin-off that included IGN and its affiliate channels as Affiliation Networks, while Simpson-Bint remained at the former company. In September, the newly spun-out standalone internet media company, changed its name to Snowball.com. At the same time, small entertainment website The Den merged into IGN and added non-gaming content to the growing network. Snowball held an IPO in 2000, but shed most of its other properties during the dot-com bubble. IGN prevailed with growing audience numbers and a newly established subscription service called IGN Insider (later IGN Prime), which led to the shedding of the name "Snowball" and adoption of IGN Entertainment on May 10, 2002. In June 2005, IGN reported having 24,000,000 unique visitors per month, with 4.8 million registered users through all departments of the site. IGN has been ranked among the top 500 most-visited websites according to Alexa. In September 2005, IGN was acquired by Rupert Murdoch's multimedia business empire, News Corporation, for $650 million. IGN celebrated its 10th anniversary on January 12, 2008. IGN was headquartered in the Marina Point Parkway office park in Brisbane, California, until it relocated to a smaller office building near AT&T Park in San Francisco on March 29, 2010. On May 25, 2011, IGN sold its Direct2Drive division to Gamefly for an undisclosed amount. In 2011, IGN Entertainment acquired its rival UGO Entertainment (owners of 1Up.com) from Hearst Corporation. Ultimately, News Corp. planned to spin off IGN Entertainment as a publicly traded company, continuing a string of divestitures for digital properties it had previously acquired (including MySpace and Photobucket). On February 4, 2013, after a failed attempt to spin off IGN as a separate company, News Corp. announced that it had sold IGN Entertainment to the publishing company Ziff Davis, which was recently acquired by J2 Global. Financial details regarding the purchase were not revealed. Prior to its acquisition by UGO, 1UP.com had previously been owned by Ziff Davis. Soon after the acquisition, IGN announced that it would be laying off staff and closing GameSpy, 1UP.com, and UGO in order to focus on its flagship brands, IGN and AskMen. The role-playing video game interest website Vault Network was acquired by IGN in 1999. GameStats, a review aggregation website, was founded by IGN in 2004. GameStats includes a "GPM" (Game Popularity Metric) rating system which incorporates an average press score and average gamer score, as well as the number of page hits for the game. However, the site is no longer being updated. The Xbox interest site, TeamXbox, and the PC game website VE3D (Voodoo Extreme 3D) were acquired in 2003. IGN Entertainment merged with GameSpy Industries in 2005. The merger also brought the game download site FilePlanet into the IGN group; as of 2011 both FilePlanet and the GameSpy website still operate as video game-related web sites. IGN Entertainment acquired the online male lifestyle magazine AskMen in 2005. In 2004, IGN acquired film review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes and in 2010, sold the website to Flixster. In October 2017, Humble Bundle announced that it was being acquired by IGN. IGN Entertainment acquired Gamer Network and its properties in May 2024 for an undisclosed sum. These included Eurogamer, Rock Paper Shotgun, VG247 and others. As a result, some layoffs were made due to redundancies. A member of the IGN staff writes a review for a game and gives it a score between 0.1 and 10.0, which is assigned by increments of 0.1 and determines how much the game is recommended. The score is given according to the "individual aspects of a game, like presentation, graphics, sound, gameplay and lasting appeal". Each game is given a score in each of these categories, but the overall score for the game is an independent evaluation, not an average of the scores in each category. On August 3, 2010, IGN announced that the site would be changing to a new scoring scale. Instead of a 100-point scale, where games are scored in increments of 0.1, all future reviews would use a 20-point scale where games are scored in increments of 0.5. Under both systems, the maximum possible score a game can receive is 10.0. The scoring change was not retroactive: all scores on reviews written before the change would remain the same. This change also did not affect the scoring system for reader reviews. On September 13, 2012, IGN revealed that as part of its new review format all future reviews would follow a 100-point scale again, but without using decimals, meaning a score of 8.5 would become an 85. Unlike the previous conversion to the 20-point scale, this latest scoring system change was retroactive and all previous IGN review scores were to be updated to follow the new system. However, despite the announcement, the article included a short addition, post-release; it stated that after much discussion, they had decided to retain the decimal point in all upcoming scores. In early 2014, IGN introduced a new policy, in which a game's review score can be re-reviewed and improved, provided that continuous updates form a significant change compared to the game at launch. Examples of games that have been re-reviewed were League of Legends, Heroes of the Storm, Warframe, and the pocket edition of Minecraft. In January 2020, IGN revealed that reviews would be reverted to a 10-point scale, from 1 to 10, finding that the finer distinction of the 100-point scale was difficult to maintain, whereas a 10-point scale would still be true to its reviews and would be easier to promote. IGN 'Best of' awards IGN's 'Best of' is an end-of-year event to annually honor the year's best games, films, television shows and comics. Winners of each award category are selected by IGN staff from a list of nominees, while readers are able to cast their own votes online to determine the 'People's Choice' award for each category. Other sections In 2000, Snowball.com purchased an E-federation called the Internet Wrestling Organization (IWO). Since Snowball owned both IWO and IGN, IWO would go on to become IGN's first official E-Fed, even doing a column on the website. The IGN For Men section officially closed down on October 2, 2001, and is no longer updated. IGN has sites such as IGN Stars and AskMen.com that fulfil much of the function of the old IGN For Men site. IGN Wrestling met its end in early 2002 when many of the staff departed. Interviews with professional wrestling personalities and coverage of wrestling games have been folded into IGN Sports, headed by Jon Robinson. IGN Sci-Fi: Largely dead since 2002, this section of the site included movie news, comic book reviews, anime coverage and other associated items. It has since been discontinued. The site, SciFI.ign.com redirects to the recently created SciFiBrain.ign.com, which covers some of the content of the old Sci-Fi site.[citation needed] In 2002, IGN launched a dedicated video game FAQs site specifically designed to host user-submitted guides. This was launched following the cancellation of affiliation with GameFAQs.[citation needed] In 2004, IGN launched GameStats, which was intended to be a more unbiased rating network, as it takes in scores from every corporate-owned game rating site and averages them all into one score to give a general idea of the quality of a game. IGN also launched Direct2Drive.com in 2004. Its primary focus is selling digital downloads of full PC and Mac video games, as well as anime, comics and game guides. In 2005, IGN launched its comics site, which is devoted to not just the staple Marvel and DC titles, but also manga, graphic novels, statues and toys.[citation needed] In 2006, IGN launched its television site. It provides interviews with various television celebrities, in addition to a TV schedule, TV trivia and TV news. Like the film section, IGN's TV section has a variety of exclusive clips from upcoming television shows.[citation needed] On May 30, 2006, IGN Dreamcast was restarted; however, none of the Dreamcast updates were posted on the main IGN webpage.[citation needed] In 2007, IGN launched its anime site. It provided features on anime and manga, including trailers and free episodes. It also included reviews of manga and anime from other sections of IGN, such as IGN Comics and IGN DVD. The anime channel was dropped after IGN redesigned the site. In 2008, the IGN Retro channel was launched to mark IGN's 10th anniversary. To coincide with the release of Super Smash Bros. Brawl, IGN created the Super Smash Bros. World site. On the site, people can submit their user-created stages from the game and download ones made by other people. IGN subsequently launched a similar website called GTA 'Hood on April 29, 2008, for Grand Theft Auto IV.[citation needed] Along with its popular website content, IGN also publishes many different podcasts on both its website and on iTunes. Some of its podcasts include console-oriented shows like the PlayStation-focused "Podcast Beyond" and the Xbox-oriented "Podcast Unlocked", the Nintendo-oriented "Nintendo Voice Chat", and Game Scoop!, a podcast where a variety of editors discuss news and topics surrounding the video game industry. Regional websites IGN has 28 editions in 25 languages, as of 2021. The US & Canada, UK & Ireland, and Australia & New Zealand editions are operated by Ziff Davis subsidiaries, with all others being franchised publishers. Since 2006, IGN Entertainment began launching regional versions of the website for various countries and pan-regions. Initially, IGN began opening new offices outside the United States in order to support those regional websites, but later IGN began franchising its brand as a more cost-effective means of globalization, wherein it licensed various media publishers in many countries to use the IGN brand and manage regional websites on their own. Licensed regional publishers work on their own servers, albeit can link to IGN's HQ database, where they can import or translate articles, and use videos uploaded on IGN's servers that use IGN's own hosted video player.[citation needed] When visiting www.ign.com from an IGN-supported region, the site automatically redirects visitors to their localized version using geolocation software, based on their countries' IP addresses. Each version of the site has a modified logo with their country's/region's respective flags near the IGN logo. However, it is still possible to access the original American website using a navigation bar above or below (depending on the regional website) the page's master template.[citation needed] IGN Con IGN Convention (IGN Con) is a video games, movies, comics and pop culture convention held in various cities in the Middle East. The event generally includes celebrities, video game tournaments, table top games, card games, movie previews, comic book stalls and a cosplay competition. A number of Middle Eastern artists and game developers also showcase their work at IGN Convention. This convention is owned and operated by IGN Middle East, the Middle Eastern edition of popular video games website IGN. IGN Convention is the spiritual successor to GameFest, a biannual, smaller scale gaming gallery which was originally hosted by IGN Middle East's parent company T-break Media between 2010 and 2012, before the hosting duties were subsequently taken over by AMD EMEA. The IGN Convention logo was designed by prominent Gulf based artist Ashraf Ghori. Conferences have included: IGN Pro League In 2011, IGN launched IGN Pro League, a professional esports circuit that ran tournaments for StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty, ShootMania Storm and League of Legends. On March 6, 2013, only weeks prior to the event, IGN abruptly canceled the finals of IPL 6—which were to be held in Las Vegas from March 28 through 31, and discontinued the league. IGN indicated that it was no longer in a position to commit to compete with the increasing number of esports events that were being held. On April 8, 2013, Blizzard Entertainment announced that it had acquired the staff and assets of the IPL from IGN; its former staff were reassigned to work on in-house esports productions. Controversies In 2007, Video Game Media Watch accused former IGN editor Doug Perry of "journalistic misconduct" for an exclusive review of Prey. In November 2017, some IGN employees refused to work to show solidarity with Kallie Plagge, a former editor who alleged that in 2016, another editor, Vince Ingenito, sexually harassed her and another female employee and made inappropriate comments. Human resources allegedly told her that she "needed to have better judgment about who [she] was 'friends' with" and that she was an "equal participant" in "inappropriate flirtation". This incident was widely circulated across social media. In August 2018, the owner of YouTube channel Boomstick Gaming accused the IGN reviewer Filip Miucin of plagiarizing his video review of the game Dead Cells. On August 7, IGN stated that it had found "substantial similarities" between the reviews, apologized, and announced that it had dismissed Miucin. On August 10, IGN published a new review by Brandin Tyrrel, which included an editor's note apologizing again and stating that "this review (and its score) represents solely the opinion of the new reviewer". In a subsequently unlisted video, Miucin responded that while he took "complete ownership over what happened", the similarity was not intentional. Kotaku found similarities between Miucin's other reviews, reviews on Nintendo Life and Engadget and material posted on the games discussion forum NeoGAF. On August 14, IGN announced that it would remove all of Miucin's work pending further review. On April 19, 2019, Miucin admitted plagiarism and issued an apology on his YouTube channel. During the 2021 Israel–Palestine crisis, the main IGN site posted an article on May 14 urging readers to donate to charities helping Palestinian civilians such as the Palestine Children's Relief Fund and linked to relevant news reporting. A Palestinian flag was also added besides the IGN logo. Shortly after the article went up IGN Israel made statements on social media condemning the article. The Palestinian flag was soon replaced with a Red Cross. On May 16, the article was deleted and a statement was made on the IGN Twitter account saying that it was wrong to only highlight one side of the conflict. A reposted version on South Africa-based IGN Africa was also removed. On May 17, over 60 members of IGN's staff signed an open letter condemning the article's removal for going against the site's editorial freedom and policies for retracting or correcting articles, as well as the lack of communication with IGN staff. IGN reinstated the article on August 24 under a new headline alongside a statement of newly formalized editorial policies. Television and films Notes References External links |
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[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dramaturgy_(sociology)] | [TOKENS: 2940] |
Contents Dramaturgy (sociology) 1800s: Martineau · Tocqueville · Marx · Spencer · Le Bon · Ward · Pareto · Tönnies · Veblen · Simmel · Durkheim · Addams · Mead · Weber · Du Bois · Mannheim · Elias Dramaturgy is a sociological perspective that analyzes micro-sociological accounts of everyday social interactions through the analogy of performativity and theatrical dramaturgy, dividing such interactions between "actors", "audience" members, and various "front" and "back" stages. The term was first adapted into sociology from the theatre by Erving Goffman, who developed most of the related terminology and ideas in his 1956 book, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. Kenneth Burke, whom Goffman would later acknowledge as an influence, had earlier presented his notions of dramatism in 1945, which in turn derives from Shakespeare. The fundamental difference between Burke's and Goffman's view, however, is that Burke believed that life was in fact theatre, whereas Goffman viewed theatre as a metaphor. If people imagine themselves as directors observing what goes on in the theatre of everyday life, they are doing what Goffman called dramaturgical analysis, the study of social interaction in terms of theatrical performance.: 133 In dramaturgical sociology, it is argued that the elements of human interactions are dependent upon time, place, and audience. In other words, to Goffman, the self is a sense of who one is, a dramatic effect emerging from the immediate scene being presented. Goffman forms a theatrical metaphor in defining the method in which one human being presents itself to another based on cultural values, norms, and beliefs. Performances can have disruptions (actors are aware of such), but most are successful. The goal of this presentation of self is acceptance from the audience through carefully conducted performance. If the actor succeeds, the audience will view the actor as he or she wants to be viewed. A dramaturgical action is a social action that is designed to be seen by others and to improve one's public self-image. In addition to Goffman, this concept has been used by Jürgen Habermas and Harold Garfinkel, among others. Overview The theatrical metaphor can be seen in the origins of the word person, which comes from the Latin persona, meaning 'a mask worn by actors'. One behaves differently (plays different roles) in front of different people (audiences). A person picks out clothing (a costume) that is consistent with the image they wish to project. They enlist the help of friends, caterers, and decorators (fellow actors and stage crew) to help them successfully "stage" a dinner for a friend, a birthday party for a relative, or a gala for a fundraiser. If they need to adjust their clothing or wish to say something unflattering about one of their guests, they are careful to do so out of sight of others (backstage). One's presentation of oneself to others is known as dramaturgy. Dramaturgical perspective is one of several sociological paradigms separated from other sociological theories or theoretical frameworks because, rather than examining the cause of human behavior, it analyzes the context. This is, however, debatable within sociology. In Frame Analysis (1974), Goffman writes, "What is important is the sense he [a person or actor] provides them [the others or audience] through his dealing with them of what sort of person he is behind the role he is in.": 298 The dramaturgical perspective can be seen as an anchor to this perspective, wherein the individual's identity is performed through role(s) and consensus between the actor and the audience. Because of this dependence on consensus to define social situations, the perspective argues that there is no concrete meaning to any interaction that could not be redefined. Dramaturgy emphasizes expressiveness as the main component of interactions; it is thus termed as the "fully two-sided view of human interaction." Dramaturgical theory suggests that a person's identity is not a stable and independent psychological entity, but rather, it is constantly remade as the person interacts with others. In a dramaturgical model, social interaction is analyzed in terms of how people live their lives, like actors performing on a stage. This analysis offers a look at the concepts of status, which is like a part in a play; and role, which serves as a script, supplying dialogue and action for the characters. Just as on the stage, people in their everyday lives manage settings, clothing, words, and nonverbal actions to give a particular impression to others. Goffman described each individual's "performance" as the presentation of self; a person's efforts to create specific impressions in the minds of others. This process is also sometimes called impression management. Goffman makes an important distinction between front stage behaviour, which are actions that are visible to the audience and are part of the performance; and back stage behavior, which are actions that people engage in when no audience is present. For example, a server in a restaurant is likely to perform one way in front of customers but might be much more casual in the kitchen. It is likely that he or she does things in the kitchen that might seem unseemly in front of customers. Before interaction with another, an individual prepares a role, or impression, that he or she wants to make on the other. These roles are subject to what is, in theater, termed breaking character. Inopportune intrusions may occur in which a backstage performance is interrupted by someone who is not meant to see it. In addition, there are examples of how the audience for any personal performance plays a part in determining the course it takes: how typically people ignore many performance flaws out of tact, such as if someone trips or spits as they speak. Within dramaturgy analysis, teams are groups of individuals who cooperate with each other in order to share the 'party line.' Team members must share information as mistakes reflect on everyone. Team members also have inside knowledge and are not fooled by one another's performances. Perinbanayagam's dramaturgical theory Signifying Act: Sign: Symbolic Meaning⁄Vocal Gesture Meaning⁄Object — Robert Perinbanayagam Performance There are seven important elements Goffman identifies with respect to the performance: Stages Stages or regions refer to the three distinct areas where different individuals with different roles and information can be found. There are three stages: front, back, and outside. Within society, individuals are expected to present themselves in a certain way; however, when a person goes against the norm, society tends to notice. Therefore, individuals are expected to put on a costume and act differently when in front of the 'audience'. Goffman noticed this habit of society and developed the idea of front stage. In his book The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, Goffman defines front as "that part of the individual's performance which regularly functions in a general and fixed fashion to define the situation for those who observe the performance. Front, then, is the expressive equipment of a standard kind intentionally or unwittingly employed by the individual during his performance.": 486 During the front stage, the actor formally performs and adheres to conventions that have meaning to the audience. It is a part of the dramaturgical performance that is consistent and contains generalized ways to explain the situation or role the actor is playing to the audience that observes it. The actor knows that they are being watched and acts accordingly. Goffman explains that the front stage involves a differentiation between setting and personal front, two concepts that are necessary for the actor to have a successful performance. Setting is the scene that must be present in order for the actor to perform; if it is gone, the actor cannot perform. Personal front consists of items or equipment needed in order to perform. These items are usually identifiable by the audience as a constant representation of the performance and actor. The personal front is divided into two different aspects: In The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, Goffman explains that the back stage is where "the performer can relax; he can drop his front, forgo speaking in his lines, and step out of character.": 488 When the individual returns to the back stage, they feel a sense of relief knowing the actions that would not be condoned in the front stage are free to be expressed. In the backstage, actions are not to please anyone but the self. Back stage is where performers are present but audience is not, hence the performers can step out of character without fear of disrupting the performance. It is where various kinds of informal actions, or facts suppressed in the front stage, may appear. Simply put, the back stage is completely separate from the front stage, and it is where the performance of a routine is prepared. No members of the audience may appear in the back, and the actor takes many methods to ensure this. Back region is a relative term, in that it exists only in regards to a specific audience: where two or more people are present, there will almost never be a true 'back region'. Outside, or off-stage, is the place where individuals who are outsiders are not involved in the performance (although they may not be aware of it). The off-stage is where individual actors meet the audience members independently of the team performance on the front stage. Specific performances may be given when the audience is segmented as such. Borders, or boundaries, are important as they prevent or restrict movement of individuals between various regions. Performers need to be able to maneuver boundaries to manage who has the access to the performance, when and how. The border phenomenon is highlighted by Victor Turner's concept of liminality, and thus prolonged in the imaginable field: semiotics of ritual. The management of thresholds may be operated on several axes; the most crude is exclusion-inclusion, similar to the basic digital on-off (1 – 0). To be a part or not may be seen as the fundamental asset in a society, but as far society is perceived as a rhizomatic conglomerate, rather such than a unitary or arborescent whole. Border-control, so to speak, becomes in a paradoxical fashion the central issue. Thus the study of liminality in sociology, ritual and theatre reveals the fictional elements underpinning society. Rites of passage seem to reflect this as the enactments of exclusion, and dissociation seem to be an essential feature of such. The enactment of exclusion from a society seem to be essential for the formation of an imaginary central governing (cf. Michel Foucault). Discrepant roles Many performances need to prevent the audience from getting some information (secrets). For that, several specialized roles are created. There are different types of secrets that have to be concealed for various reasons: There are three basic roles in Goffman's scheme, each centered on who has access to what information: performers are most knowledgeable; audiences know only what the performers disclosed and what they have observed themselves; and outsiders have little if any relevant information. These roles can be divided into three groups: Communication out of character Performers may communicate out of character on purpose, in order to signal to others on their team, or by accident. Common backstage out-of-character communications include: Common frontstage communications out of character include: Impression management Impression management refers to work on maintaining the desired impression, and is composed of defensive and protective techniques. Protective techniques are used in order to cover mistakes, only once the interaction begins. For example, relying on audience to use tact and overlook mistakes of the performers. In contrast, defensive techniques are employed before an interaction begins, and involves: Criticism Believing that theories should not be applied where they have not been tested, it has been argued that dramaturgy should only be applied in instances that involve people associated with a total institution, for which the theory was designed.[page needed] In addition to this, it also has been said that dramaturgy does not contribute to sociology's goal of understanding the legitimacy of society. It is claimed to be drafting on positivism, which does not offer an interest in both reason and rationality. John Welsh called it a "commodity."[page needed] Application Research on dramaturgy is best done through fieldwork such as participant observation. For one, dramaturgy has been used to depict how social movements communicate power. Robert D. Benford and Scott A. Hunt argued that "social movements can be described as dramas in which protagonists and antagonists compete to affect audiences' interpretations of power relations in a variety of domains." The people seeking power present their front stage self in order to captivate attention. However, the back stage self is still present, though undetectable. This is a competition of power, a prime example of dramaturgy. A useful, and everyday way of understanding dramaturgy (specifically front stage and back stage) is to think of a waiter or waitress at a restaurant. The main avenue of concern for the waiter is "customer service." Even if a customer is rude, one is expected to be polite ("the customer is always right") as part of their job responsibilities. They speak differently when going out to the break room: they may complain, mimic and discuss with their fellow peers how irritating and rude the customer is. In this example, the waiter acts a certain way when dealing with customers and acts a completely different way when with her/his fellow employees. Dramaturgy has also been applied to the emerging interdisciplinary domain of scholarly research known as technoself studies, which deals with human identity in a technological society. In terms of social media profiles, users and their followers share a social space online. Social media users create profiles and post things that are specifically curated to portray a certain image that they want their followers to see. Often times this curated image is a facade. This is an "authoritative performance" of ones lifestyle. A dynamic is created between the user and their followers where the user is in control of how and what represents them, while the followers are spectators to this presentation of the user's self but they themselves are also presenting themselves in the same way. Dramaturgy can also be applied to all aspects of theatre performers. See also References Further reading External links |
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Contents IGN IGN[b] is a compromised American video gaming and entertainment media website operated by IGN Entertainment Inc., a subsidiary of Ziff Davis, Inc. The company's headquarters is located in San Francisco's SoMa district and is headed by its former editor-in-chief, Peer Schneider. The IGN website was the brainchild of media entrepreneur Chris Anderson and launched on September 29, 1996. IGN features articles on games, films, anime, television, comics, technology, and other media. Originally a network of desktop websites, IGN is also distributed on mobile platforms, console programs available on the Xbox and PlayStation, Nintendo Switch, PC, Mobile, FireTV, Roku, and via YouTube, Twitch, Hulu, and Snapchat. Originally, IGN was the flagship website of IGN Entertainment, a website which owned and operated several other websites oriented towards players' interests, games, and entertainment, such as Rotten Tomatoes, GameSpy, GameStats, VE3D, TeamXbox, Vault Network, FilePlanet, and AskMen. IGN was sold to publishing company Ziff Davis in February 2013. History IGN was created in September 1996 as the Imagine Games Network, the IGN content network was founded by publishing executive Jonathan Simpson-Bint and began as five individual websites within Imagine Media: N64.com (later renamed ign64.com), PSXPower, Saturnworld, Next-Generation.com and Ultra Game Players Online. Imagine expanded on its owned-and-operated websites by creating an affiliate network that included a number of independent fansites such as PSX Nation.com, Sega-Saturn.com, Game Sages, and GameFAQs. In 1998, the network launched a new homepage that consolidated the individual sites as system channels under the IGN brand. The homepage exposed content from more than 30 different channels. Websites Next-Generation and Ultra Game Players Online were not part of this consolidation; U.G.P.O. dissolved with the cancellation of the magazine, and Next-Generation was put "on hold" when Imagine decided to concentrate on launching the short-lived Daily Radar brand. In February 1999, PC Magazine named IGN one of the hundred-best websites, alongside competitors GameSpot and CNET Gamecenter. That same month, Imagine Media incorporated a spin-off that included IGN and its affiliate channels as Affiliation Networks, while Simpson-Bint remained at the former company. In September, the newly spun-out standalone internet media company, changed its name to Snowball.com. At the same time, small entertainment website The Den merged into IGN and added non-gaming content to the growing network. Snowball held an IPO in 2000, but shed most of its other properties during the dot-com bubble. IGN prevailed with growing audience numbers and a newly established subscription service called IGN Insider (later IGN Prime), which led to the shedding of the name "Snowball" and adoption of IGN Entertainment on May 10, 2002. In June 2005, IGN reported having 24,000,000 unique visitors per month, with 4.8 million registered users through all departments of the site. IGN has been ranked among the top 500 most-visited websites according to Alexa. In September 2005, IGN was acquired by Rupert Murdoch's multimedia business empire, News Corporation, for $650 million. IGN celebrated its 10th anniversary on January 12, 2008. IGN was headquartered in the Marina Point Parkway office park in Brisbane, California, until it relocated to a smaller office building near AT&T Park in San Francisco on March 29, 2010. On May 25, 2011, IGN sold its Direct2Drive division to Gamefly for an undisclosed amount. In 2011, IGN Entertainment acquired its rival UGO Entertainment (owners of 1Up.com) from Hearst Corporation. Ultimately, News Corp. planned to spin off IGN Entertainment as a publicly traded company, continuing a string of divestitures for digital properties it had previously acquired (including MySpace and Photobucket). On February 4, 2013, after a failed attempt to spin off IGN as a separate company, News Corp. announced that it had sold IGN Entertainment to the publishing company Ziff Davis, which was recently acquired by J2 Global. Financial details regarding the purchase were not revealed. Prior to its acquisition by UGO, 1UP.com had previously been owned by Ziff Davis. Soon after the acquisition, IGN announced that it would be laying off staff and closing GameSpy, 1UP.com, and UGO in order to focus on its flagship brands, IGN and AskMen. The role-playing video game interest website Vault Network was acquired by IGN in 1999. GameStats, a review aggregation website, was founded by IGN in 2004. GameStats includes a "GPM" (Game Popularity Metric) rating system which incorporates an average press score and average gamer score, as well as the number of page hits for the game. However, the site is no longer being updated. The Xbox interest site, TeamXbox, and the PC game website VE3D (Voodoo Extreme 3D) were acquired in 2003. IGN Entertainment merged with GameSpy Industries in 2005. The merger also brought the game download site FilePlanet into the IGN group; as of 2011 both FilePlanet and the GameSpy website still operate as video game-related web sites. IGN Entertainment acquired the online male lifestyle magazine AskMen in 2005. In 2004, IGN acquired film review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes and in 2010, sold the website to Flixster. In October 2017, Humble Bundle announced that it was being acquired by IGN. IGN Entertainment acquired Gamer Network and its properties in May 2024 for an undisclosed sum. These included Eurogamer, Rock Paper Shotgun, VG247 and others. As a result, some layoffs were made due to redundancies. A member of the IGN staff writes a review for a game and gives it a score between 0.1 and 10.0, which is assigned by increments of 0.1 and determines how much the game is recommended. The score is given according to the "individual aspects of a game, like presentation, graphics, sound, gameplay and lasting appeal". Each game is given a score in each of these categories, but the overall score for the game is an independent evaluation, not an average of the scores in each category. On August 3, 2010, IGN announced that the site would be changing to a new scoring scale. Instead of a 100-point scale, where games are scored in increments of 0.1, all future reviews would use a 20-point scale where games are scored in increments of 0.5. Under both systems, the maximum possible score a game can receive is 10.0. The scoring change was not retroactive: all scores on reviews written before the change would remain the same. This change also did not affect the scoring system for reader reviews. On September 13, 2012, IGN revealed that as part of its new review format all future reviews would follow a 100-point scale again, but without using decimals, meaning a score of 8.5 would become an 85. Unlike the previous conversion to the 20-point scale, this latest scoring system change was retroactive and all previous IGN review scores were to be updated to follow the new system. However, despite the announcement, the article included a short addition, post-release; it stated that after much discussion, they had decided to retain the decimal point in all upcoming scores. In early 2014, IGN introduced a new policy, in which a game's review score can be re-reviewed and improved, provided that continuous updates form a significant change compared to the game at launch. Examples of games that have been re-reviewed were League of Legends, Heroes of the Storm, Warframe, and the pocket edition of Minecraft. In January 2020, IGN revealed that reviews would be reverted to a 10-point scale, from 1 to 10, finding that the finer distinction of the 100-point scale was difficult to maintain, whereas a 10-point scale would still be true to its reviews and would be easier to promote. IGN 'Best of' awards IGN's 'Best of' is an end-of-year event to annually honor the year's best games, films, television shows and comics. Winners of each award category are selected by IGN staff from a list of nominees, while readers are able to cast their own votes online to determine the 'People's Choice' award for each category. Other sections In 2000, Snowball.com purchased an E-federation called the Internet Wrestling Organization (IWO). Since Snowball owned both IWO and IGN, IWO would go on to become IGN's first official E-Fed, even doing a column on the website. The IGN For Men section officially closed down on October 2, 2001, and is no longer updated. IGN has sites such as IGN Stars and AskMen.com that fulfil much of the function of the old IGN For Men site. IGN Wrestling met its end in early 2002 when many of the staff departed. Interviews with professional wrestling personalities and coverage of wrestling games have been folded into IGN Sports, headed by Jon Robinson. IGN Sci-Fi: Largely dead since 2002, this section of the site included movie news, comic book reviews, anime coverage and other associated items. It has since been discontinued. The site, SciFI.ign.com redirects to the recently created SciFiBrain.ign.com, which covers some of the content of the old Sci-Fi site.[citation needed] In 2002, IGN launched a dedicated video game FAQs site specifically designed to host user-submitted guides. This was launched following the cancellation of affiliation with GameFAQs.[citation needed] In 2004, IGN launched GameStats, which was intended to be a more unbiased rating network, as it takes in scores from every corporate-owned game rating site and averages them all into one score to give a general idea of the quality of a game. IGN also launched Direct2Drive.com in 2004. Its primary focus is selling digital downloads of full PC and Mac video games, as well as anime, comics and game guides. In 2005, IGN launched its comics site, which is devoted to not just the staple Marvel and DC titles, but also manga, graphic novels, statues and toys.[citation needed] In 2006, IGN launched its television site. It provides interviews with various television celebrities, in addition to a TV schedule, TV trivia and TV news. Like the film section, IGN's TV section has a variety of exclusive clips from upcoming television shows.[citation needed] On May 30, 2006, IGN Dreamcast was restarted; however, none of the Dreamcast updates were posted on the main IGN webpage.[citation needed] In 2007, IGN launched its anime site. It provided features on anime and manga, including trailers and free episodes. It also included reviews of manga and anime from other sections of IGN, such as IGN Comics and IGN DVD. The anime channel was dropped after IGN redesigned the site. In 2008, the IGN Retro channel was launched to mark IGN's 10th anniversary. To coincide with the release of Super Smash Bros. Brawl, IGN created the Super Smash Bros. World site. On the site, people can submit their user-created stages from the game and download ones made by other people. IGN subsequently launched a similar website called GTA 'Hood on April 29, 2008, for Grand Theft Auto IV.[citation needed] Along with its popular website content, IGN also publishes many different podcasts on both its website and on iTunes. Some of its podcasts include console-oriented shows like the PlayStation-focused "Podcast Beyond" and the Xbox-oriented "Podcast Unlocked", the Nintendo-oriented "Nintendo Voice Chat", and Game Scoop!, a podcast where a variety of editors discuss news and topics surrounding the video game industry. Regional websites IGN has 28 editions in 25 languages, as of 2021. The US & Canada, UK & Ireland, and Australia & New Zealand editions are operated by Ziff Davis subsidiaries, with all others being franchised publishers. Since 2006, IGN Entertainment began launching regional versions of the website for various countries and pan-regions. Initially, IGN began opening new offices outside the United States in order to support those regional websites, but later IGN began franchising its brand as a more cost-effective means of globalization, wherein it licensed various media publishers in many countries to use the IGN brand and manage regional websites on their own. Licensed regional publishers work on their own servers, albeit can link to IGN's HQ database, where they can import or translate articles, and use videos uploaded on IGN's servers that use IGN's own hosted video player.[citation needed] When visiting www.ign.com from an IGN-supported region, the site automatically redirects visitors to their localized version using geolocation software, based on their countries' IP addresses. Each version of the site has a modified logo with their country's/region's respective flags near the IGN logo. However, it is still possible to access the original American website using a navigation bar above or below (depending on the regional website) the page's master template.[citation needed] IGN Con IGN Convention (IGN Con) is a video games, movies, comics and pop culture convention held in various cities in the Middle East. The event generally includes celebrities, video game tournaments, table top games, card games, movie previews, comic book stalls and a cosplay competition. A number of Middle Eastern artists and game developers also showcase their work at IGN Convention. This convention is owned and operated by IGN Middle East, the Middle Eastern edition of popular video games website IGN. IGN Convention is the spiritual successor to GameFest, a biannual, smaller scale gaming gallery which was originally hosted by IGN Middle East's parent company T-break Media between 2010 and 2012, before the hosting duties were subsequently taken over by AMD EMEA. The IGN Convention logo was designed by prominent Gulf based artist Ashraf Ghori. Conferences have included: IGN Pro League In 2011, IGN launched IGN Pro League, a professional esports circuit that ran tournaments for StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty, ShootMania Storm and League of Legends. On March 6, 2013, only weeks prior to the event, IGN abruptly canceled the finals of IPL 6—which were to be held in Las Vegas from March 28 through 31, and discontinued the league. IGN indicated that it was no longer in a position to commit to compete with the increasing number of esports events that were being held. On April 8, 2013, Blizzard Entertainment announced that it had acquired the staff and assets of the IPL from IGN; its former staff were reassigned to work on in-house esports productions. Controversies In 2007, Video Game Media Watch accused former IGN editor Doug Perry of "journalistic misconduct" for an exclusive review of Prey. In November 2017, some IGN employees refused to work to show solidarity with Kallie Plagge, a former editor who alleged that in 2016, another editor, Vince Ingenito, sexually harassed her and another female employee and made inappropriate comments. Human resources allegedly told her that she "needed to have better judgment about who [she] was 'friends' with" and that she was an "equal participant" in "inappropriate flirtation". This incident was widely circulated across social media. In August 2018, the owner of YouTube channel Boomstick Gaming accused the IGN reviewer Filip Miucin of plagiarizing his video review of the game Dead Cells. On August 7, IGN stated that it had found "substantial similarities" between the reviews, apologized, and announced that it had dismissed Miucin. On August 10, IGN published a new review by Brandin Tyrrel, which included an editor's note apologizing again and stating that "this review (and its score) represents solely the opinion of the new reviewer". In a subsequently unlisted video, Miucin responded that while he took "complete ownership over what happened", the similarity was not intentional. Kotaku found similarities between Miucin's other reviews, reviews on Nintendo Life and Engadget and material posted on the games discussion forum NeoGAF. On August 14, IGN announced that it would remove all of Miucin's work pending further review. On April 19, 2019, Miucin admitted plagiarism and issued an apology on his YouTube channel. During the 2021 Israel–Palestine crisis, the main IGN site posted an article on May 14 urging readers to donate to charities helping Palestinian civilians such as the Palestine Children's Relief Fund and linked to relevant news reporting. A Palestinian flag was also added besides the IGN logo. Shortly after the article went up IGN Israel made statements on social media condemning the article. The Palestinian flag was soon replaced with a Red Cross. On May 16, the article was deleted and a statement was made on the IGN Twitter account saying that it was wrong to only highlight one side of the conflict. A reposted version on South Africa-based IGN Africa was also removed. On May 17, over 60 members of IGN's staff signed an open letter condemning the article's removal for going against the site's editorial freedom and policies for retracting or correcting articles, as well as the lack of communication with IGN staff. IGN reinstated the article on August 24 under a new headline alongside a statement of newly formalized editorial policies. Television and films Notes References External links |
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Contents IGN IGN[b] is a compromised American video gaming and entertainment media website operated by IGN Entertainment Inc., a subsidiary of Ziff Davis, Inc. The company's headquarters is located in San Francisco's SoMa district and is headed by its former editor-in-chief, Peer Schneider. The IGN website was the brainchild of media entrepreneur Chris Anderson and launched on September 29, 1996. IGN features articles on games, films, anime, television, comics, technology, and other media. Originally a network of desktop websites, IGN is also distributed on mobile platforms, console programs available on the Xbox and PlayStation, Nintendo Switch, PC, Mobile, FireTV, Roku, and via YouTube, Twitch, Hulu, and Snapchat. Originally, IGN was the flagship website of IGN Entertainment, a website which owned and operated several other websites oriented towards players' interests, games, and entertainment, such as Rotten Tomatoes, GameSpy, GameStats, VE3D, TeamXbox, Vault Network, FilePlanet, and AskMen. IGN was sold to publishing company Ziff Davis in February 2013. History IGN was created in September 1996 as the Imagine Games Network, the IGN content network was founded by publishing executive Jonathan Simpson-Bint and began as five individual websites within Imagine Media: N64.com (later renamed ign64.com), PSXPower, Saturnworld, Next-Generation.com and Ultra Game Players Online. Imagine expanded on its owned-and-operated websites by creating an affiliate network that included a number of independent fansites such as PSX Nation.com, Sega-Saturn.com, Game Sages, and GameFAQs. In 1998, the network launched a new homepage that consolidated the individual sites as system channels under the IGN brand. The homepage exposed content from more than 30 different channels. Websites Next-Generation and Ultra Game Players Online were not part of this consolidation; U.G.P.O. dissolved with the cancellation of the magazine, and Next-Generation was put "on hold" when Imagine decided to concentrate on launching the short-lived Daily Radar brand. In February 1999, PC Magazine named IGN one of the hundred-best websites, alongside competitors GameSpot and CNET Gamecenter. That same month, Imagine Media incorporated a spin-off that included IGN and its affiliate channels as Affiliation Networks, while Simpson-Bint remained at the former company. In September, the newly spun-out standalone internet media company, changed its name to Snowball.com. At the same time, small entertainment website The Den merged into IGN and added non-gaming content to the growing network. Snowball held an IPO in 2000, but shed most of its other properties during the dot-com bubble. IGN prevailed with growing audience numbers and a newly established subscription service called IGN Insider (later IGN Prime), which led to the shedding of the name "Snowball" and adoption of IGN Entertainment on May 10, 2002. In June 2005, IGN reported having 24,000,000 unique visitors per month, with 4.8 million registered users through all departments of the site. IGN has been ranked among the top 500 most-visited websites according to Alexa. In September 2005, IGN was acquired by Rupert Murdoch's multimedia business empire, News Corporation, for $650 million. IGN celebrated its 10th anniversary on January 12, 2008. IGN was headquartered in the Marina Point Parkway office park in Brisbane, California, until it relocated to a smaller office building near AT&T Park in San Francisco on March 29, 2010. On May 25, 2011, IGN sold its Direct2Drive division to Gamefly for an undisclosed amount. In 2011, IGN Entertainment acquired its rival UGO Entertainment (owners of 1Up.com) from Hearst Corporation. Ultimately, News Corp. planned to spin off IGN Entertainment as a publicly traded company, continuing a string of divestitures for digital properties it had previously acquired (including MySpace and Photobucket). On February 4, 2013, after a failed attempt to spin off IGN as a separate company, News Corp. announced that it had sold IGN Entertainment to the publishing company Ziff Davis, which was recently acquired by J2 Global. Financial details regarding the purchase were not revealed. Prior to its acquisition by UGO, 1UP.com had previously been owned by Ziff Davis. Soon after the acquisition, IGN announced that it would be laying off staff and closing GameSpy, 1UP.com, and UGO in order to focus on its flagship brands, IGN and AskMen. The role-playing video game interest website Vault Network was acquired by IGN in 1999. GameStats, a review aggregation website, was founded by IGN in 2004. GameStats includes a "GPM" (Game Popularity Metric) rating system which incorporates an average press score and average gamer score, as well as the number of page hits for the game. However, the site is no longer being updated. The Xbox interest site, TeamXbox, and the PC game website VE3D (Voodoo Extreme 3D) were acquired in 2003. IGN Entertainment merged with GameSpy Industries in 2005. The merger also brought the game download site FilePlanet into the IGN group; as of 2011 both FilePlanet and the GameSpy website still operate as video game-related web sites. IGN Entertainment acquired the online male lifestyle magazine AskMen in 2005. In 2004, IGN acquired film review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes and in 2010, sold the website to Flixster. In October 2017, Humble Bundle announced that it was being acquired by IGN. IGN Entertainment acquired Gamer Network and its properties in May 2024 for an undisclosed sum. These included Eurogamer, Rock Paper Shotgun, VG247 and others. As a result, some layoffs were made due to redundancies. A member of the IGN staff writes a review for a game and gives it a score between 0.1 and 10.0, which is assigned by increments of 0.1 and determines how much the game is recommended. The score is given according to the "individual aspects of a game, like presentation, graphics, sound, gameplay and lasting appeal". Each game is given a score in each of these categories, but the overall score for the game is an independent evaluation, not an average of the scores in each category. On August 3, 2010, IGN announced that the site would be changing to a new scoring scale. Instead of a 100-point scale, where games are scored in increments of 0.1, all future reviews would use a 20-point scale where games are scored in increments of 0.5. Under both systems, the maximum possible score a game can receive is 10.0. The scoring change was not retroactive: all scores on reviews written before the change would remain the same. This change also did not affect the scoring system for reader reviews. On September 13, 2012, IGN revealed that as part of its new review format all future reviews would follow a 100-point scale again, but without using decimals, meaning a score of 8.5 would become an 85. Unlike the previous conversion to the 20-point scale, this latest scoring system change was retroactive and all previous IGN review scores were to be updated to follow the new system. However, despite the announcement, the article included a short addition, post-release; it stated that after much discussion, they had decided to retain the decimal point in all upcoming scores. In early 2014, IGN introduced a new policy, in which a game's review score can be re-reviewed and improved, provided that continuous updates form a significant change compared to the game at launch. Examples of games that have been re-reviewed were League of Legends, Heroes of the Storm, Warframe, and the pocket edition of Minecraft. In January 2020, IGN revealed that reviews would be reverted to a 10-point scale, from 1 to 10, finding that the finer distinction of the 100-point scale was difficult to maintain, whereas a 10-point scale would still be true to its reviews and would be easier to promote. IGN 'Best of' awards IGN's 'Best of' is an end-of-year event to annually honor the year's best games, films, television shows and comics. Winners of each award category are selected by IGN staff from a list of nominees, while readers are able to cast their own votes online to determine the 'People's Choice' award for each category. Other sections In 2000, Snowball.com purchased an E-federation called the Internet Wrestling Organization (IWO). Since Snowball owned both IWO and IGN, IWO would go on to become IGN's first official E-Fed, even doing a column on the website. The IGN For Men section officially closed down on October 2, 2001, and is no longer updated. IGN has sites such as IGN Stars and AskMen.com that fulfil much of the function of the old IGN For Men site. IGN Wrestling met its end in early 2002 when many of the staff departed. Interviews with professional wrestling personalities and coverage of wrestling games have been folded into IGN Sports, headed by Jon Robinson. IGN Sci-Fi: Largely dead since 2002, this section of the site included movie news, comic book reviews, anime coverage and other associated items. It has since been discontinued. The site, SciFI.ign.com redirects to the recently created SciFiBrain.ign.com, which covers some of the content of the old Sci-Fi site.[citation needed] In 2002, IGN launched a dedicated video game FAQs site specifically designed to host user-submitted guides. This was launched following the cancellation of affiliation with GameFAQs.[citation needed] In 2004, IGN launched GameStats, which was intended to be a more unbiased rating network, as it takes in scores from every corporate-owned game rating site and averages them all into one score to give a general idea of the quality of a game. IGN also launched Direct2Drive.com in 2004. Its primary focus is selling digital downloads of full PC and Mac video games, as well as anime, comics and game guides. In 2005, IGN launched its comics site, which is devoted to not just the staple Marvel and DC titles, but also manga, graphic novels, statues and toys.[citation needed] In 2006, IGN launched its television site. It provides interviews with various television celebrities, in addition to a TV schedule, TV trivia and TV news. Like the film section, IGN's TV section has a variety of exclusive clips from upcoming television shows.[citation needed] On May 30, 2006, IGN Dreamcast was restarted; however, none of the Dreamcast updates were posted on the main IGN webpage.[citation needed] In 2007, IGN launched its anime site. It provided features on anime and manga, including trailers and free episodes. It also included reviews of manga and anime from other sections of IGN, such as IGN Comics and IGN DVD. The anime channel was dropped after IGN redesigned the site. In 2008, the IGN Retro channel was launched to mark IGN's 10th anniversary. To coincide with the release of Super Smash Bros. Brawl, IGN created the Super Smash Bros. World site. On the site, people can submit their user-created stages from the game and download ones made by other people. IGN subsequently launched a similar website called GTA 'Hood on April 29, 2008, for Grand Theft Auto IV.[citation needed] Along with its popular website content, IGN also publishes many different podcasts on both its website and on iTunes. Some of its podcasts include console-oriented shows like the PlayStation-focused "Podcast Beyond" and the Xbox-oriented "Podcast Unlocked", the Nintendo-oriented "Nintendo Voice Chat", and Game Scoop!, a podcast where a variety of editors discuss news and topics surrounding the video game industry. Regional websites IGN has 28 editions in 25 languages, as of 2021. The US & Canada, UK & Ireland, and Australia & New Zealand editions are operated by Ziff Davis subsidiaries, with all others being franchised publishers. Since 2006, IGN Entertainment began launching regional versions of the website for various countries and pan-regions. Initially, IGN began opening new offices outside the United States in order to support those regional websites, but later IGN began franchising its brand as a more cost-effective means of globalization, wherein it licensed various media publishers in many countries to use the IGN brand and manage regional websites on their own. Licensed regional publishers work on their own servers, albeit can link to IGN's HQ database, where they can import or translate articles, and use videos uploaded on IGN's servers that use IGN's own hosted video player.[citation needed] When visiting www.ign.com from an IGN-supported region, the site automatically redirects visitors to their localized version using geolocation software, based on their countries' IP addresses. Each version of the site has a modified logo with their country's/region's respective flags near the IGN logo. However, it is still possible to access the original American website using a navigation bar above or below (depending on the regional website) the page's master template.[citation needed] IGN Con IGN Convention (IGN Con) is a video games, movies, comics and pop culture convention held in various cities in the Middle East. The event generally includes celebrities, video game tournaments, table top games, card games, movie previews, comic book stalls and a cosplay competition. A number of Middle Eastern artists and game developers also showcase their work at IGN Convention. This convention is owned and operated by IGN Middle East, the Middle Eastern edition of popular video games website IGN. IGN Convention is the spiritual successor to GameFest, a biannual, smaller scale gaming gallery which was originally hosted by IGN Middle East's parent company T-break Media between 2010 and 2012, before the hosting duties were subsequently taken over by AMD EMEA. The IGN Convention logo was designed by prominent Gulf based artist Ashraf Ghori. Conferences have included: IGN Pro League In 2011, IGN launched IGN Pro League, a professional esports circuit that ran tournaments for StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty, ShootMania Storm and League of Legends. On March 6, 2013, only weeks prior to the event, IGN abruptly canceled the finals of IPL 6—which were to be held in Las Vegas from March 28 through 31, and discontinued the league. IGN indicated that it was no longer in a position to commit to compete with the increasing number of esports events that were being held. On April 8, 2013, Blizzard Entertainment announced that it had acquired the staff and assets of the IPL from IGN; its former staff were reassigned to work on in-house esports productions. Controversies In 2007, Video Game Media Watch accused former IGN editor Doug Perry of "journalistic misconduct" for an exclusive review of Prey. In November 2017, some IGN employees refused to work to show solidarity with Kallie Plagge, a former editor who alleged that in 2016, another editor, Vince Ingenito, sexually harassed her and another female employee and made inappropriate comments. Human resources allegedly told her that she "needed to have better judgment about who [she] was 'friends' with" and that she was an "equal participant" in "inappropriate flirtation". This incident was widely circulated across social media. In August 2018, the owner of YouTube channel Boomstick Gaming accused the IGN reviewer Filip Miucin of plagiarizing his video review of the game Dead Cells. On August 7, IGN stated that it had found "substantial similarities" between the reviews, apologized, and announced that it had dismissed Miucin. On August 10, IGN published a new review by Brandin Tyrrel, which included an editor's note apologizing again and stating that "this review (and its score) represents solely the opinion of the new reviewer". In a subsequently unlisted video, Miucin responded that while he took "complete ownership over what happened", the similarity was not intentional. Kotaku found similarities between Miucin's other reviews, reviews on Nintendo Life and Engadget and material posted on the games discussion forum NeoGAF. On August 14, IGN announced that it would remove all of Miucin's work pending further review. On April 19, 2019, Miucin admitted plagiarism and issued an apology on his YouTube channel. During the 2021 Israel–Palestine crisis, the main IGN site posted an article on May 14 urging readers to donate to charities helping Palestinian civilians such as the Palestine Children's Relief Fund and linked to relevant news reporting. A Palestinian flag was also added besides the IGN logo. Shortly after the article went up IGN Israel made statements on social media condemning the article. The Palestinian flag was soon replaced with a Red Cross. On May 16, the article was deleted and a statement was made on the IGN Twitter account saying that it was wrong to only highlight one side of the conflict. A reposted version on South Africa-based IGN Africa was also removed. On May 17, over 60 members of IGN's staff signed an open letter condemning the article's removal for going against the site's editorial freedom and policies for retracting or correcting articles, as well as the lack of communication with IGN staff. IGN reinstated the article on August 24 under a new headline alongside a statement of newly formalized editorial policies. Television and films Notes References External links |
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[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Protection_policy#cite_note-18] | [TOKENS: 5211] |
Contents Wikipedia:Protection policy In some circumstances, pages may need to be protected from modification by certain groups of editors. Pages are protected when there is disruption that cannot be prevented through other means, such as blocks. Wikipedia is built on the principle that anyone can edit, and therefore aims to have as many pages open for public editing as possible so that anyone can add material and correct issues. This policy states in detail the protection types and procedures for page protection and unprotection, and when each protection should and should not be applied. Protection is a technical restriction applied only by administrators, although any user may request protection. Protection can be indefinite or expire after a specified time. The various levels of protection can be applied to the page edit, page move, page create, and file upload actions. Even when a page is protected from editing, the source wikitext of the page can still be viewed and copied by anyone. A protected page is marked at its top right by a padlock icon, usually added by the {{pp-protected}} template. The {{pp-protected}} template is automatically added by the {{documentation}} template used in template space. Overview of page protection Any protection applied to a page involves setting a type, level, and duration as follows: Preemptive protection Applying page protection solely as a preemptive measure is contrary to the open nature of Wikipedia and is generally not allowed. Instead, protection is used when vandalism, disruption, or abuse by multiple users is occurring at a frequency that warrants protection. The duration of protection should be as short as possible and at the lowest protection level sufficient to stop the disruption, allowing edits from as many productive users as possible. Exceptions include the Main Page, along with its templates and images, which are indefinitely fully protected. Additionally, Today's Featured Article is typically semi-protected from the day before its scheduled appearance on the Main Page until the day after it leaves. Finally, pages subject to Arbitration Committee remedies that permit or require preemptive protection may be protected accordingly. Requesting protection Page protection can be requested at Wikipedia:Requests for page protection. Changes to a protected page should be proposed on the corresponding talk page, and then (if necessary) requested by adding an edit request. From there, if the requested changes are uncontroversial or if there is consensus for them, the changes can be carried out by a user who can edit the page. Except in the case of office actions (see below), Arbitration Committee remedies, or pages in the MediaWiki namespace (see below), administrators may unprotect a page if the reason for its protection no longer applies, a reasonable period has elapsed, and there is no consensus that continued protection is necessary. Users can request unprotection or a reduction in protection level by asking the administrator who applied the protection on the administrator's user talk page. If the administrator is inactive, no longer an administrator, or does not respond, then a request for reduction in protection level may be filed. Note that such requests will normally be declined if the protecting administrator is active and was not consulted first. A log of protections and unprotections is available at Special:Log/protect. Summary table Protection types Edit protection restricts editing of a page, often due to vandalism or disputes, ensuring only experienced users can make changes (see above for more information). Administrators can prevent the creation of pages. This type of protection is useful for pages that have been deleted but repeatedly recreated. Such protection is case-sensitive. There are several levels of creation protection that can be applied to pages, identical to the levels for edit protection. A list of protected titles can be found at Special:ProtectedTitles (see also historical lists). Preemptive restrictions on new article titles are instituted through the title blacklist system, which allows for more flexible protection with support for substrings and regular expressions. Pages that have been creation-protected are sometimes referred to as "salted". Editors wishing to re-create a salted title with appropriate content should either contact an administrator (preferably the protecting administrator), file a request for reduction in protection level, or use the deletion review process. To make a convincing case for re-creation, it is helpful to show a draft version of the intended article when filing a request. Create protection of any duration may be applied to pages being repeatedly recreated in violation of policy using the lowest protection level sufficient to stop the disruption (autoconfirmed, extended-confirmed, or full). Due to the implementation of ACPERM, non-confirmed editors cannot create pages in mainspace; thus, semi-creation protection should be used only for protection of pages outside of mainspace. While creation-protection is usually permanent, temporary creation protection can be applied if a page is repeatedly recreated by a single user (or sockpuppets of that user, if applicable). Move-protected pages, or more technically, fully move-protected pages, cannot be moved to a new title except by an administrator. Move protection is commonly applied to: Move protection of any duration may be applied to pages being repeatedly moved in violation of policy using the lowest protection level sufficient to stop the disruption (extended-confirmed or full). Non-confirmed editors cannot move pages so semi-move protection has no effect. Fully edit-protected pages are also implicitly move-protected. As with full edit protection, protection because of edit warring should not be considered an endorsement of the current name. When move protection is applied during a requested move discussion, the page should be protected at the location it was at when the move request was started. All files and categories are implicitly move-protected, requiring file movers or administrators to rename files, and page movers or administrators to rename categories. Upload-protected files, or more technically, fully upload-protected files, cannot be replaced with new versions except by an administrator. Upload protection does not protect file pages from editing. It can be applied by an administrator to: Protection levels Pending changes protection allows unregistered and new users to edit pages, while keeping their edits hidden from unregistered users (who make up the vast majority of visitors to Wikipedia articles) until those changes are accepted by a pending changes reviewer or an administrator. An alternative to semi-protection, it is used to suppress vandalism and certain other persistent problems, while allowing all users to continue to submit edits. Pending changes is technically implemented as a separate option, with its own duration, and it yields to other edit protection levels in cases of overlap. When a page under pending changes protection is edited by an unregistered editor or a new user, the edit is not directly visible to the majority of Wikipedia readers, until it is reviewed and accepted by an editor with the pending changes reviewer right. When a page under pending changes protection is edited by an autoconfirmed user, the edit will be immediately visible to Wikipedia readers, unless there are pending edits waiting to be reviewed. Pending changes are visible in the page history, where they are marked as "pending review". Readers who are not logged in (the vast majority of readers) are shown the latest accepted version of the page; logged-in users see the latest version of the page, with all changes (reviewed or not) applied. When editors who are not reviewers make changes to an article with unreviewed pending changes, their edits are also marked as pending and are not visible to most readers. A user who clicks "edit this page" is always, at that point, shown the latest version of the page for editing regardless of whether the user is logged in or not. Pending changes are typically reviewed within several hours. Pending changes can be used to protect articles against: Pending changes protection should not be used as a preemptive measure against violations that have not yet occurred. Like semi-protection, pending changes protection should never be used in genuine content disputes, where there is a risk of placing a particular group of editors (unregistered users) at a disadvantage. Semi-protection is generally a better option for articles with a high edit rate as well as articles affected by issues difficult for pending changes reviewers to detect, such as non-obvious vandalism, plausible-sounding misinformation, and hard-to-detect copyright violations. In addition, administrators may apply temporary pending changes protection on pages that are subject to significant but temporary vandalism or disruption (for example, due to media attention) when blocking individual users is not a feasible option. As with other forms of protection, the time frame of the protection should be proportional to the problem. Indefinite PC protection should be used only in cases of severe long-term disruption. Removal of pending changes protection can be requested to any administrator, or at requests for unprotection. The reviewing process is described in detail at Wikipedia:Reviewing pending changes. Semi-protected pages may be edited only by registered users who are confirmed or autoconfirmed (accounts that are at least 4 days old and with at least 10 edits on English Wikipedia). Semi-protection is useful when there is a significant amount of disruption or vandalism from new or unregistered users, or to prevent sockpuppets of blocked or banned users from editing, especially when it occurs on biographies of living persons who have had a recent high level of media interest. An alternative to semi-protection is pending changes, which is sometimes favored when an article is being vandalized regularly, but otherwise receives a low amount of editing. Such users can request edits to a semi-protected page by proposing them on its talk page, using the {{Edit semi-protected}} template if necessary to gain attention. If the page in question and its talk page are both protected, the edit request should be made at Wikipedia:Requests for page protection instead. New users may also request the confirmed user right at Wikipedia:Requests for permissions/Confirmed. Semi-protection should not be used as a preemptive measure against vandalism that has not yet occurred or to privilege registered users over unregistered users in (valid) content disputes. Administrators may apply temporary semi-protection on pages that are: In addition, administrators may apply indefinite semi-protection to pages that are subject to heavy and persistent vandalism or violations of content policy (such as Wikipedia's biographies of living persons or neutral point of view policies). A page and its talk page should not normally be protected at the same time. In exceptional cases, if a page and its talk page are both protected, the talk page should direct affected editors to Wikipedia:Request for edit through the use of a non-iconified page protection template, to ensure that no editor is entirely prevented from contributing. Today's featured article is, since 2023, always semi-protected. However, this was historically not the case. Extended confirmed protection, previously known as 30/500 protection, restricts editing to users with the extended confirmed user access level, administrators, and bots. Extended confirmed is automatically granted to users one edit after their account has existed for at least 30 days and has made at least 500 edits. Where semi-protection has proven to be ineffective, administrators may use extended confirmed protection to combat disruption (vandalism, abusive sockpuppetry, edit wars, etc.) on any topic. Extended confirmed protection should not be used as a preemptive measure against disruption that has not yet occurred, nor should it be used to privilege extended confirmed users over unregistered/new users in valid content disputes (except as general sanction enforcement; see below). When necessary to prevent disruption in designated contentious topic areas, administrators are authorized to make protections at any level. (This is distinct from the extended confirmed restriction below.) Community-designated contentious topics grant similar authorizations. Some topic areas are under Arbitration Committee extended confirmed restriction as a general sanction. When such a restriction is in effect in a topic area, only extended-confirmed users may make edits related to the topic area. Enforcement of the restriction on articles primarily in the topic area is preferably done with extended confirmed protection, but it is not required (other enforcement methods are outlined in the policy). As always, review the policy before enforcing it. Community general sanctions, applying a similar extended confirmed restriction, have also been authorized by the community. General sanctions has a list of the active general sanctions that incorporate the extended confirmed restriction. High-risk templates can be extended confirmed–protected at administrator discretion when template protection would be too restrictive and semi-protection would be ineffective to stop widespread disruption. Extended confirmed protection can be applied at the discretion of an administrator when creation-protecting a page. A bot maintains a report of pages recently put under extended confirmed protection. Any protection made as arbitration enforcement will be automatically logged at Wikipedia:Arbitration enforcement log/Protections. Community-authorized discretionary sanctions must be logged on a page specific to the topic area. A full list of the 14975 pages under extended confirmed protection can be found here. Users can request edits to an extended confirmed–protected page by proposing them on its talk page, using the {{Edit extended-protected}} template if necessary to gain attention. A template-protected page can be edited only by administrators or users in the Template editors group. This protection level should be used almost exclusively on high-risk templates and modules. In cases where pages in other namespaces become transcluded to a very high degree, this protection level is also valid. This is a protection level that replaces full protection on pages that are merely protected due to high transclusion rates, rather than content disputes. It should be used on templates whose risk factor would have otherwise warranted full protection. It should not be used on less risky templates on the grounds that the template editor user right exists—the existence of the right should not result in more templates becoming uneditable for the general editing community. In borderline cases, extended confirmed protection or lower can be applied to high risk templates that the general editing community still needs to edit regularly. A full list of the pages under template protection can be found here. Editors may request edits to a template-protected page by proposing them on its talk page, using the {{Edit template-protected}} template if necessary to gain attention. A fully protected page cannot be edited or moved by anyone except administrators. Modifications to a fully protected page can be proposed on its talk page (or at another appropriate forum) for discussion. Administrators can make changes to the protected article reflecting consensus. Placing the {{Edit fully-protected}} template on the talk page will draw the attention of administrators for implementing uncontroversial changes. While content disputes and edit warring can be addressed with user blocks issued by uninvolved administrators, allowing normal page editing by other editors at the same time, the protection policy provides an alternative approach as administrators have the discretion to temporarily fully protect an article to end an ongoing edit war. This approach may better suit multi-party disputes and contentious content, as it makes talk page consensus a requirement for implementation of requested edits. When protecting a page because of a content dispute, administrators have a duty to avoid protecting a version that contains policy-violating content, such as vandalism, copyright violations, defamation, or poor-quality coverage of living people. Administrators are deemed to remain uninvolved when exercising discretion on whether to apply protection to the current version of an article, or to an older, stable, or pre-edit-war version. Fully protected pages may not be edited except to make changes that are uncontroversial or for which there is clear consensus. Editors convinced that the protected version of an article contains policy-violating content, or that protection has rewarded edit warring or disruption by establishing a contentious revision, may identify a stable version prior to the edit war and request reversion to that version. Before making such a request, editors should consider how independent editors might view the suggestion and recognize that continuing an edit war is grounds for being blocked. Administrators who have made substantive content changes to an article are considered involved and must not use their advanced permissions to further their own positions. When involved in a dispute, it is almost always wisest to respect the editing policies that bind all editors and call for input from an uninvolved administrator, rather than to invite controversy by acting unilaterally. If a deleted page is going through deletion review, only administrators are normally capable of viewing the former content of the page. If they feel it would benefit the discussion to allow other users to view the page content, administrators may restore the page, replace the contents with the {{Temporarily undeleted}} template or a similar notice, and fully protect the page to prevent further editing. The previous contents of the page are then accessible to everyone via the page history. Generic file names such as File:Photo.jpg, File:Example.jpg, File:Map.jpg, and File:Sound.wav are fully protected to prevent new versions from being uploaded. Furthermore, File:Map.jpg and File:Sound.wav are salted. The following pages and templates are usually fully protected for an indefinite period of time: As with full edit protection, administrators should avoid favoring one version over another, and protection should not be considered an endorsement of the current version. An exception to this rule is when they are protected due to upload vandalism. Pages can be protected by Wikimedia Foundation staff in response to issues such as copyright infringement or libel as outlined in Foundation:Policy:Office actions § Use of advanced rights by Foundation staff. Such actions override community consensus. Administrators should not edit or unprotect such pages without permission from Wikimedia Foundation staff. Cascading protection fully protects a page, and extends that full protection automatically to any page that is transcluded onto the protected page, whether directly or indirectly. This includes templates, images and other media that are hosted on the English Wikipedia. Files stored on Commons are not protected by any other wiki's cascading protection and, if they are to be protected, must be either temporarily uploaded to the English Wikipedia or explicitly protected at Commons (whether manually or through cascading protection there). When operational, KrinkleBot cascade-protects Commons files transcluded at Wikipedia:Main Page/Tomorrow, Wikipedia:Main Page/Commons media protection and Main Page. As the bot's response time varies, media should not be transcluded on the main page (or its constituent templates) until after it has been protected. (This is particularly relevant to Template:In the news, for which upcoming images are not queued at Wikipedia:Main Page/Tomorrow.) Cascading protection: The list of cascading-protected pages can be found at Wikipedia:Cascade-protected items. Requests to add or remove cascading protection on a page should be made at Wikipedia talk:Cascade-protected items as an edit request. Operational pages principally used by software, including bots and user scripts, may be protected based on the type of use, content, and other considerations. This includes configuration pages, data pages, log pages, status pages, and other pages specific to the operation of software. However, personal CSS, personal JavaScript, and personal JSON are automatically protected and should not be protected for this reason. Some pages on Wikipedia are subject to software-enforced protection that administrators cannot change or remove. This is called permanent or indefinite protection, and interface protection in the case of CSS and JavaScript pages. Specifically, this applies to: Protection by namespace Modifications to a protected page can be proposed on its talk page (or at another appropriate forum) for discussion. Administrators can make changes to the protected article reflecting consensus. Placing the {{Edit protected}} template on the talk page will draw the attention of administrators for implementing uncontroversial changes. Talk pages are not usually protected, and are semi-protected only for a limited duration in the most severe cases of disruption. User talk pages are rarely protected. However, protection can be applied if there is severe vandalism or abuse. Users whose talk pages are protected may wish to have an unprotected user talk subpage linked conspicuously from their main talk page to allow good-faith comments from users that the protection restricts editing from. A user's request to have their own talk page protected is not a sufficient rationale by itself to protect the page, although requests can be considered if a reason is provided. Blocked users' user talk pages should not ordinarily be protected, as this interferes with the user's ability to contest their block through the normal process. It also prevents others from being able to use the talk page to communicate with the blocked editor. In extreme cases of abuse by the blocked user, such as abuse of the {{unblock}} template, re-blocking the user with talk page access removed should be preferred over applying protection to the page. If the user has been blocked and with the ability to edit their user talk page disabled, they should be informed of this in a block notice, subsequent notice, or message, and it should include information and instructions for appealing their block off-wiki, such as through the UTRS tool interface or, as a last recourse, the Arbitration Committee. When required, protection should be implemented for only a brief period, not exceeding the duration of the block. Confirmed socks of registered users should be dealt with in accordance with Wikipedia:Sockpuppetry; their pages are not normally protected. Base user pages (for example, the page User:Example, and not User:Example/Lipsum or User talk:Example) are automatically protected from creation or editing by unconfirmed accounts and anonymous temporary account users. An exception is that unconfirmed registered users are allowed to create or edit their own user page. Temporary account editors and unconfirmed accounts are also unable to create or edit user pages that do not belong to a currently registered account. This protection is enforced by an edit filter. Users may opt-out of this protection by placing {{unlocked userpage}} anywhere on their own user page. User pages and subpages within their own user space can be protected upon a request from the user, as long as a need exists. Pages within the user space should not be automatically or preemptively protected without good reason or cause. Requests for protection specifically at uncommon levels (such as template protection) can be granted if the user has expressed a genuine and realistic need. When a filter is insufficient to stop user page vandalism, a user may choose to create a ".css" subpage (e.g., User:Example/monobook.css), copy all the contents of their user page onto the subpage, transclude the subpage by putting {{User:Example/monobook.css}} on their user page, and then ask an administrator to fully protect their user page. Because user space pages that end in ".css" and ".js" are editable only by the user to which that user space belongs and interface administrators, this will protect one's user page from further vandalism. In the event of the confirmed death of an editor, their user page (but not the user talk page) should be fully protected. Highly visible templates – those used on a large number of pages or frequently substituted – are often protected based on the degree of visibility, type of use, content, and other considerations. Protected templates should normally have the {{documentation}} template. It loads the unprotected /doc page, so that non-admins and IP-users can edit the documentation, categories and interwiki links. It also automatically adds {{pp-template}} to protected templates, which displays a small padlock in the top right corner and categorizes the template as protected. Only manually add {{pp-template}} to protected templates that do not use {{documentation}} (mostly the flag templates). Cascading protection should generally not be applied directly to templates, as it will not protect transclusions inside <includeonly> tags or transclusions that depend on template parameters, but will protect the template's documentation subpage. Instead, consider either of the following: Note: All editnotice templates (except those in userspace) are already protected via MediaWiki:Titleblacklist. They can be edited by admins, template editors and page movers only. Sandboxes should not ordinarily be protected since their purpose is to let new users test and experiment with wiki syntax. Most sandboxes are automatically cleaned every 12 hours, although they are frequently overwritten by other testing users. The Wikipedia:Sandbox is cleaned every hour. Those who use sandboxes for malicious purposes, or to violate policies such as no personal attacks, civility, or copyrights, should instead be warned and/or blocked. Available templates The following templates can be added at the very top of a page to indicate that it is protected: On redirect pages, use the {{Redirect category shell}} template, which automatically categorizes by protection level, below the redirect line. A protection template may also be added below the redirect line, but it will serve only to categorize the page, as it will not be visible on the page, and it will have to be manually removed when protection is removed. Retired protections Superprotect was a level of protection, allowing editing only by Wikimedia Foundation employees who were in the Staff global group. It was implemented on August 10, 2014 and removed on November 5, 2015. It was never used on the English Wikipedia. For several years, the Gadget namespace (which no longer exists) could only be edited by WMF staff, which has sometimes been referred to as superprotection even though it is unrelated to the above use. Cascading semi-protection was formerly possible, but it was disabled in 2007 after users noticed that non-administrators could fully protect any page by transcluding it onto the page to which cascading semi-protection had been applied by an administrator. Originally, two levels of pending changes protection existed, where level 2 required edits by all users who were not pending changes reviewers to be reviewed. Following a community discussion, level 2 was retired from the English Wikipedia in January 2017. Since that change, "pending changes level 1" is generally referred to as just "pending changes". See also Notes |
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[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IGN#cite_note-59] | [TOKENS: 3612] |
Contents IGN IGN[b] is a compromised American video gaming and entertainment media website operated by IGN Entertainment Inc., a subsidiary of Ziff Davis, Inc. The company's headquarters is located in San Francisco's SoMa district and is headed by its former editor-in-chief, Peer Schneider. The IGN website was the brainchild of media entrepreneur Chris Anderson and launched on September 29, 1996. IGN features articles on games, films, anime, television, comics, technology, and other media. Originally a network of desktop websites, IGN is also distributed on mobile platforms, console programs available on the Xbox and PlayStation, Nintendo Switch, PC, Mobile, FireTV, Roku, and via YouTube, Twitch, Hulu, and Snapchat. Originally, IGN was the flagship website of IGN Entertainment, a website which owned and operated several other websites oriented towards players' interests, games, and entertainment, such as Rotten Tomatoes, GameSpy, GameStats, VE3D, TeamXbox, Vault Network, FilePlanet, and AskMen. IGN was sold to publishing company Ziff Davis in February 2013. History IGN was created in September 1996 as the Imagine Games Network, the IGN content network was founded by publishing executive Jonathan Simpson-Bint and began as five individual websites within Imagine Media: N64.com (later renamed ign64.com), PSXPower, Saturnworld, Next-Generation.com and Ultra Game Players Online. Imagine expanded on its owned-and-operated websites by creating an affiliate network that included a number of independent fansites such as PSX Nation.com, Sega-Saturn.com, Game Sages, and GameFAQs. In 1998, the network launched a new homepage that consolidated the individual sites as system channels under the IGN brand. The homepage exposed content from more than 30 different channels. Websites Next-Generation and Ultra Game Players Online were not part of this consolidation; U.G.P.O. dissolved with the cancellation of the magazine, and Next-Generation was put "on hold" when Imagine decided to concentrate on launching the short-lived Daily Radar brand. In February 1999, PC Magazine named IGN one of the hundred-best websites, alongside competitors GameSpot and CNET Gamecenter. That same month, Imagine Media incorporated a spin-off that included IGN and its affiliate channels as Affiliation Networks, while Simpson-Bint remained at the former company. In September, the newly spun-out standalone internet media company, changed its name to Snowball.com. At the same time, small entertainment website The Den merged into IGN and added non-gaming content to the growing network. Snowball held an IPO in 2000, but shed most of its other properties during the dot-com bubble. IGN prevailed with growing audience numbers and a newly established subscription service called IGN Insider (later IGN Prime), which led to the shedding of the name "Snowball" and adoption of IGN Entertainment on May 10, 2002. In June 2005, IGN reported having 24,000,000 unique visitors per month, with 4.8 million registered users through all departments of the site. IGN has been ranked among the top 500 most-visited websites according to Alexa. In September 2005, IGN was acquired by Rupert Murdoch's multimedia business empire, News Corporation, for $650 million. IGN celebrated its 10th anniversary on January 12, 2008. IGN was headquartered in the Marina Point Parkway office park in Brisbane, California, until it relocated to a smaller office building near AT&T Park in San Francisco on March 29, 2010. On May 25, 2011, IGN sold its Direct2Drive division to Gamefly for an undisclosed amount. In 2011, IGN Entertainment acquired its rival UGO Entertainment (owners of 1Up.com) from Hearst Corporation. Ultimately, News Corp. planned to spin off IGN Entertainment as a publicly traded company, continuing a string of divestitures for digital properties it had previously acquired (including MySpace and Photobucket). On February 4, 2013, after a failed attempt to spin off IGN as a separate company, News Corp. announced that it had sold IGN Entertainment to the publishing company Ziff Davis, which was recently acquired by J2 Global. Financial details regarding the purchase were not revealed. Prior to its acquisition by UGO, 1UP.com had previously been owned by Ziff Davis. Soon after the acquisition, IGN announced that it would be laying off staff and closing GameSpy, 1UP.com, and UGO in order to focus on its flagship brands, IGN and AskMen. The role-playing video game interest website Vault Network was acquired by IGN in 1999. GameStats, a review aggregation website, was founded by IGN in 2004. GameStats includes a "GPM" (Game Popularity Metric) rating system which incorporates an average press score and average gamer score, as well as the number of page hits for the game. However, the site is no longer being updated. The Xbox interest site, TeamXbox, and the PC game website VE3D (Voodoo Extreme 3D) were acquired in 2003. IGN Entertainment merged with GameSpy Industries in 2005. The merger also brought the game download site FilePlanet into the IGN group; as of 2011 both FilePlanet and the GameSpy website still operate as video game-related web sites. IGN Entertainment acquired the online male lifestyle magazine AskMen in 2005. In 2004, IGN acquired film review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes and in 2010, sold the website to Flixster. In October 2017, Humble Bundle announced that it was being acquired by IGN. IGN Entertainment acquired Gamer Network and its properties in May 2024 for an undisclosed sum. These included Eurogamer, Rock Paper Shotgun, VG247 and others. As a result, some layoffs were made due to redundancies. A member of the IGN staff writes a review for a game and gives it a score between 0.1 and 10.0, which is assigned by increments of 0.1 and determines how much the game is recommended. The score is given according to the "individual aspects of a game, like presentation, graphics, sound, gameplay and lasting appeal". Each game is given a score in each of these categories, but the overall score for the game is an independent evaluation, not an average of the scores in each category. On August 3, 2010, IGN announced that the site would be changing to a new scoring scale. Instead of a 100-point scale, where games are scored in increments of 0.1, all future reviews would use a 20-point scale where games are scored in increments of 0.5. Under both systems, the maximum possible score a game can receive is 10.0. The scoring change was not retroactive: all scores on reviews written before the change would remain the same. This change also did not affect the scoring system for reader reviews. On September 13, 2012, IGN revealed that as part of its new review format all future reviews would follow a 100-point scale again, but without using decimals, meaning a score of 8.5 would become an 85. Unlike the previous conversion to the 20-point scale, this latest scoring system change was retroactive and all previous IGN review scores were to be updated to follow the new system. However, despite the announcement, the article included a short addition, post-release; it stated that after much discussion, they had decided to retain the decimal point in all upcoming scores. In early 2014, IGN introduced a new policy, in which a game's review score can be re-reviewed and improved, provided that continuous updates form a significant change compared to the game at launch. Examples of games that have been re-reviewed were League of Legends, Heroes of the Storm, Warframe, and the pocket edition of Minecraft. In January 2020, IGN revealed that reviews would be reverted to a 10-point scale, from 1 to 10, finding that the finer distinction of the 100-point scale was difficult to maintain, whereas a 10-point scale would still be true to its reviews and would be easier to promote. IGN 'Best of' awards IGN's 'Best of' is an end-of-year event to annually honor the year's best games, films, television shows and comics. Winners of each award category are selected by IGN staff from a list of nominees, while readers are able to cast their own votes online to determine the 'People's Choice' award for each category. Other sections In 2000, Snowball.com purchased an E-federation called the Internet Wrestling Organization (IWO). Since Snowball owned both IWO and IGN, IWO would go on to become IGN's first official E-Fed, even doing a column on the website. The IGN For Men section officially closed down on October 2, 2001, and is no longer updated. IGN has sites such as IGN Stars and AskMen.com that fulfil much of the function of the old IGN For Men site. IGN Wrestling met its end in early 2002 when many of the staff departed. Interviews with professional wrestling personalities and coverage of wrestling games have been folded into IGN Sports, headed by Jon Robinson. IGN Sci-Fi: Largely dead since 2002, this section of the site included movie news, comic book reviews, anime coverage and other associated items. It has since been discontinued. The site, SciFI.ign.com redirects to the recently created SciFiBrain.ign.com, which covers some of the content of the old Sci-Fi site.[citation needed] In 2002, IGN launched a dedicated video game FAQs site specifically designed to host user-submitted guides. This was launched following the cancellation of affiliation with GameFAQs.[citation needed] In 2004, IGN launched GameStats, which was intended to be a more unbiased rating network, as it takes in scores from every corporate-owned game rating site and averages them all into one score to give a general idea of the quality of a game. IGN also launched Direct2Drive.com in 2004. Its primary focus is selling digital downloads of full PC and Mac video games, as well as anime, comics and game guides. In 2005, IGN launched its comics site, which is devoted to not just the staple Marvel and DC titles, but also manga, graphic novels, statues and toys.[citation needed] In 2006, IGN launched its television site. It provides interviews with various television celebrities, in addition to a TV schedule, TV trivia and TV news. Like the film section, IGN's TV section has a variety of exclusive clips from upcoming television shows.[citation needed] On May 30, 2006, IGN Dreamcast was restarted; however, none of the Dreamcast updates were posted on the main IGN webpage.[citation needed] In 2007, IGN launched its anime site. It provided features on anime and manga, including trailers and free episodes. It also included reviews of manga and anime from other sections of IGN, such as IGN Comics and IGN DVD. The anime channel was dropped after IGN redesigned the site. In 2008, the IGN Retro channel was launched to mark IGN's 10th anniversary. To coincide with the release of Super Smash Bros. Brawl, IGN created the Super Smash Bros. World site. On the site, people can submit their user-created stages from the game and download ones made by other people. IGN subsequently launched a similar website called GTA 'Hood on April 29, 2008, for Grand Theft Auto IV.[citation needed] Along with its popular website content, IGN also publishes many different podcasts on both its website and on iTunes. Some of its podcasts include console-oriented shows like the PlayStation-focused "Podcast Beyond" and the Xbox-oriented "Podcast Unlocked", the Nintendo-oriented "Nintendo Voice Chat", and Game Scoop!, a podcast where a variety of editors discuss news and topics surrounding the video game industry. Regional websites IGN has 28 editions in 25 languages, as of 2021. The US & Canada, UK & Ireland, and Australia & New Zealand editions are operated by Ziff Davis subsidiaries, with all others being franchised publishers. Since 2006, IGN Entertainment began launching regional versions of the website for various countries and pan-regions. Initially, IGN began opening new offices outside the United States in order to support those regional websites, but later IGN began franchising its brand as a more cost-effective means of globalization, wherein it licensed various media publishers in many countries to use the IGN brand and manage regional websites on their own. Licensed regional publishers work on their own servers, albeit can link to IGN's HQ database, where they can import or translate articles, and use videos uploaded on IGN's servers that use IGN's own hosted video player.[citation needed] When visiting www.ign.com from an IGN-supported region, the site automatically redirects visitors to their localized version using geolocation software, based on their countries' IP addresses. Each version of the site has a modified logo with their country's/region's respective flags near the IGN logo. However, it is still possible to access the original American website using a navigation bar above or below (depending on the regional website) the page's master template.[citation needed] IGN Con IGN Convention (IGN Con) is a video games, movies, comics and pop culture convention held in various cities in the Middle East. The event generally includes celebrities, video game tournaments, table top games, card games, movie previews, comic book stalls and a cosplay competition. A number of Middle Eastern artists and game developers also showcase their work at IGN Convention. This convention is owned and operated by IGN Middle East, the Middle Eastern edition of popular video games website IGN. IGN Convention is the spiritual successor to GameFest, a biannual, smaller scale gaming gallery which was originally hosted by IGN Middle East's parent company T-break Media between 2010 and 2012, before the hosting duties were subsequently taken over by AMD EMEA. The IGN Convention logo was designed by prominent Gulf based artist Ashraf Ghori. Conferences have included: IGN Pro League In 2011, IGN launched IGN Pro League, a professional esports circuit that ran tournaments for StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty, ShootMania Storm and League of Legends. On March 6, 2013, only weeks prior to the event, IGN abruptly canceled the finals of IPL 6—which were to be held in Las Vegas from March 28 through 31, and discontinued the league. IGN indicated that it was no longer in a position to commit to compete with the increasing number of esports events that were being held. On April 8, 2013, Blizzard Entertainment announced that it had acquired the staff and assets of the IPL from IGN; its former staff were reassigned to work on in-house esports productions. Controversies In 2007, Video Game Media Watch accused former IGN editor Doug Perry of "journalistic misconduct" for an exclusive review of Prey. In November 2017, some IGN employees refused to work to show solidarity with Kallie Plagge, a former editor who alleged that in 2016, another editor, Vince Ingenito, sexually harassed her and another female employee and made inappropriate comments. Human resources allegedly told her that she "needed to have better judgment about who [she] was 'friends' with" and that she was an "equal participant" in "inappropriate flirtation". This incident was widely circulated across social media. In August 2018, the owner of YouTube channel Boomstick Gaming accused the IGN reviewer Filip Miucin of plagiarizing his video review of the game Dead Cells. On August 7, IGN stated that it had found "substantial similarities" between the reviews, apologized, and announced that it had dismissed Miucin. On August 10, IGN published a new review by Brandin Tyrrel, which included an editor's note apologizing again and stating that "this review (and its score) represents solely the opinion of the new reviewer". In a subsequently unlisted video, Miucin responded that while he took "complete ownership over what happened", the similarity was not intentional. Kotaku found similarities between Miucin's other reviews, reviews on Nintendo Life and Engadget and material posted on the games discussion forum NeoGAF. On August 14, IGN announced that it would remove all of Miucin's work pending further review. On April 19, 2019, Miucin admitted plagiarism and issued an apology on his YouTube channel. During the 2021 Israel–Palestine crisis, the main IGN site posted an article on May 14 urging readers to donate to charities helping Palestinian civilians such as the Palestine Children's Relief Fund and linked to relevant news reporting. A Palestinian flag was also added besides the IGN logo. Shortly after the article went up IGN Israel made statements on social media condemning the article. The Palestinian flag was soon replaced with a Red Cross. On May 16, the article was deleted and a statement was made on the IGN Twitter account saying that it was wrong to only highlight one side of the conflict. A reposted version on South Africa-based IGN Africa was also removed. On May 17, over 60 members of IGN's staff signed an open letter condemning the article's removal for going against the site's editorial freedom and policies for retracting or correcting articles, as well as the lack of communication with IGN staff. IGN reinstated the article on August 24 under a new headline alongside a statement of newly formalized editorial policies. Television and films Notes References External links |
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[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=IGN&action=edit§ion=15] | [TOKENS: 1429] |
Editing IGN (section) Copy and paste: – — ° ′ ″ ≈ ≠ ≤ ≥ ± − × ÷ ← → · § Cite your sources: <ref></ref> {{}} {{{}}} | [] [[]] [[Category:]] #REDIRECT [[]] <s></s> <sup></sup> <sub></sub> <code></code> <pre></pre> <blockquote></blockquote> <ref></ref> <ref name="" /> {{Reflist}} <references /> <includeonly></includeonly> <noinclude></noinclude> {{DEFAULTSORT:}} <nowiki></nowiki> <!-- --> <span class="plainlinks"></span> Symbols: ~ | ¡ ¿ † ‡ ↔ ↑ ↓ • ¶ # ∞ ‹› «» ¤ ₳ ฿ ₵ ¢ ₡ ₢ $ ₫ ₯ € ₠ ₣ ƒ ₴ ₭ ₤ ℳ ₥ ₦ ₧ ₰ £ ៛ ₨ ₪ ৳ ₮ ₩ ¥ ♠ ♣ ♥ ♦ 𝄫 ♭ ♮ ♯ 𝄪 © ¼ ½ ¾ Latin: A a Á á À à  â Ä ä Ǎ ǎ Ă ă Ā ā à ã Å å Ą ą Æ æ Ǣ ǣ B b C c Ć ć Ċ ċ Ĉ ĉ Č č Ç ç D d Ď ď Đ đ Ḍ ḍ Ð ð E e É é È è Ė ė Ê ê Ë ë Ě ě Ĕ ĕ Ē ē Ẽ ẽ Ę ę Ẹ ẹ Ɛ ɛ Ǝ ǝ Ə ə F f G g Ġ ġ Ĝ ĝ Ğ ğ Ģ ģ H h Ĥ ĥ Ħ ħ Ḥ ḥ I i İ ı Í í Ì ì Î î Ï ï Ǐ ǐ Ĭ ĭ Ī ī Ĩ ĩ Į į Ị ị J j Ĵ ĵ K k Ķ ķ L l Ĺ ĺ Ŀ ŀ Ľ ľ Ļ ļ Ł ł Ḷ ḷ Ḹ ḹ M m Ṃ ṃ N n Ń ń Ň ň Ñ ñ Ņ ņ Ṇ ṇ Ŋ ŋ O o Ó ó Ò ò Ô ô Ö ö Ǒ ǒ Ŏ ŏ Ō ō Õ õ Ǫ ǫ Ọ ọ Ő ő Ø ø Œ œ Ɔ ɔ P p Q q R r Ŕ ŕ Ř ř Ŗ ŗ Ṛ ṛ Ṝ ṝ S s Ś ś Ŝ ŝ Š š Ş ş Ș ș Ṣ ṣ ß T t Ť ť Ţ ţ Ț ț Ṭ ṭ Þ þ U u Ú ú Ù ù Û û Ü ü Ǔ ǔ Ŭ ŭ Ū ū Ũ ũ Ů ů Ų ų Ụ ụ Ű ű Ǘ ǘ Ǜ ǜ Ǚ ǚ Ǖ ǖ V v W w Ŵ ŵ X x Y y Ý ý Ŷ ŷ Ÿ ÿ Ỹ ỹ Ȳ ȳ Z z Ź ź Ż ż Ž ž ß Ð ð Þ þ Ŋ ŋ Ə ə Greek: Ά ά Έ έ Ή ή Ί ί Ό ό Ύ ύ Ώ ώ Α α Β β Γ γ Δ δ Ε ε Ζ ζ Η η Θ θ Ι ι Κ κ Λ λ Μ μ Ν ν Ξ ξ Ο ο Π π Ρ ρ Σ σ ς Τ τ Υ υ Φ φ Χ χ Ψ ψ Ω ω {{Polytonic|}} Cyrillic: А а Б б В в Г г Ґ ґ Ѓ ѓ Д д Ђ ђ Е е Ё ё Є є Ж ж З з Ѕ ѕ И и І і Ї ї Й й Ј ј К к Ќ ќ Л л Љ љ М м Н н Њ њ О о П п Р р С с Т т Ћ ћ У у Ў ў Ф ф Х х Ц ц Ч ч Џ џ Ш ш Щ щ Ъ ъ Ы ы Ь ь Э э Ю ю Я я ́ IPA: t̪ d̪ ʈ ɖ ɟ ɡ ɢ ʡ ʔ ɸ β θ ð ʃ ʒ ɕ ʑ ʂ ʐ ç ʝ ɣ χ ʁ ħ ʕ ʜ ʢ ɦ ɱ ɳ ɲ ŋ ɴ ʋ ɹ ɻ ɰ ʙ ⱱ ʀ ɾ ɽ ɫ ɬ ɮ ɺ ɭ ʎ ʟ ɥ ʍ ɧ ʼ ɓ ɗ ʄ ɠ ʛ ʘ ǀ ǃ ǂ ǁ ɨ ʉ ɯ ɪ ʏ ʊ ø ɘ ɵ ɤ ə ɚ ɛ œ ɜ ɝ ɞ ʌ ɔ æ ɐ ɶ ɑ ɒ ʰ ʱ ʷ ʲ ˠ ˤ ⁿ ˡ ˈ ˌ ː ˑ ̪ {{IPA|}} This page is a member of 18 hidden categories (help): |
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[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:HRT] | [TOKENS: 936] |
Contents Wikipedia:High-risk templates Following the protection policy, page protection may be indefinitely applied to all templates, template redirects, and Lua modules that have been identified by the community as being of high risk to Wikipedia. If fully protected so that they can only be edited by administrators, or template-protected so that they can only be edited by administrators and template editors, these pages should be edited cautiously, and consensus should be established for any changes that might be controversial. If semi-protected or extended-confirmed protected, templates and modules may be edited by any established user, but users should ensure there is consensus for their edits and avoid edit wars. Common reasons The most common reasons a template or module is considered high-risk are: Criteria There are generally no fixed criteria, and no fixed transclusion count that is used to decide whether a template or module is high-risk; each page is considered separately. If a template or module relates to a biography of a living person, that would strengthen any arguments in favor of its preemptive protection. Note that a bot automatically: A 2018 RfC identified rough consensus to permanently semiprotect templates with at least around 200–250 transclusions, and a 2021 RfC identified a rough consensus to permanently extended-confirmed protect templates with roughly 2500–5000 transclusions. Rationale The main reasons for restricting access to high-risk templates are: For templates and modules that are widely used, the damage caused by bad faith or incorrect edits is uniquely high. The fact that numerous readers would see an edit to these pages provides an incentive to vandalize them and also magnifies the damage done by such an act. There have also been cases where well-meaning editors introduced an error to a template that broke millions of pages. Although template vandalism is usually reverted quickly (often within one minute), the technical aspects of templates create a greater potential for damage than other kinds of vandalism. For templates that are used across hundreds or thousands of articles, any vandalism, no matter how short, could be seen by many readers across the entire encyclopedia. To prevent denial of service attacks, pages are cached and template changes are slowly rolled out across the entire encyclopedia. In some cases, pages may have their caches updated before the vandalism is reverted, and these may stick around for a long time even after the vandalism is fixed. This problem scales with the number of transclusions as the time for changes to roll out increases as the number of pages needing updates increases. Some templates like user warnings are substituted instead of transcluded, and when used the source code of the template is inserted directly onto the page. Because these uses do not update when template vandalism is reverted, disruption on substituted templates will stick around until someone finds the use and fixes it manually—making this kind of vandalism harder to clean up. In all cases, page protection minimizes the risk posed by bad faith or technically deficient edits to templates (see principle of least privilege). In contrast to our usual policy prohibiting preemptive protection, administrators are given wide latitude to use page protection in order to minimize the unique risks posed by the technical aspects of templates. The technical knowledge required to carry out these attacks is non-trivial, and experience has shown that vandalism to templates is often performed by long-term abusive editors and sleeper accounts. For templates which carry high risk but require frequent maintenance from the general editorial community, lower protection levels such as semi-protection or extended-confirmed protection may be used. For templates that are stable, part of our critical technical infrastructure, or used across thousands of pages, administrators should consider full protection or template protection to enforce code review through edit requests which helps prevent accidental bugs and deliberate attacks. The correct way to edit high-risk templates Minimizing edits to highly transcluded templates For templates with a very high number of transclusions, minimizing the number of edits to the template is important: Please do the majority of your edits in the /sandbox instead. Documentation and padlock Semi- and fully-protected templates should normally have the {{Documentation}} template. It loads the usually unprotected /doc page, so that non-admins and IP-users can edit the documentation and categories. It also automatically adds {{pp-template}} to protected templates, which displays a small padlock in the top right corner and categorizes the template as a protected template. Only manually add {{pp-template}} to protected templates that don't use {{Documentation}} (mostly the stub templates). The bottom of protected templates should usually look like this: This process is not necessary for Lua modules, as the documentation from the module's /doc subpage is automatically shown on the main module page. Relevant discussions See also |
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[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_motion] | [TOKENS: 1059] |
Contents Reverse motion Reverse motion (also known as reverse motion photography or reverse action) is a visual effect in cinematography whereby the action that is filmed is shown backwards (i.e. time-reversed) on screen. It can either be an in-camera effect or an effect produced with the use of an optical printer. There are various reasons why this technique may be adopted, such as for comedic effect (destruction reversal) or for safety reasons (a car stopping just in time may be filmed starting at the stop point). Uses There are several uses for reverse action. Some are artistic in nature. For example, reverse action can be used for comedic effect (for example, in the music video for Weird Al Yankovic's "Amish Paradise", visually implying that the Amish live in a "backward" way). Or it can be used to bring things "back to life" on screen, by filming a process of destruction or decay in reverse. When creating the illusion of one individual moving against the reversal of time, a performer may need to perform all actions (such as singing) backwards during filming. This also enhances the visual impact of the effect. Perhaps the most famous example of an actor having to memorize their dialogue backwards is Chris Martin in the music video for the Coldplay song "The Scientist", where Martin trained for an entire month to memorize the song's lyrics in reverse. Indeed, music videos have proven to be a ripe medium for reverse-motion video, with the first example almost certainly being The Beatles' 1967 single "Strawberry Fields Forever". There are a plethora of examples, but some other notable examples of reverse-motion music videos include "Typical" by Mutemath, "Breezeblocks" by Alt-J, and "Drop" by The Pharcyde. The artistic use of reverse action is pervasive in the films of Jean Cocteau. In his Beauty and the Beast (1946), an actor placing a piece of paper in a fire and then walking backwards away was filmed in reverse motion, causing it to appear as though the character walked up to a fire and pulled the paper out of it. Similar instances are where the petals are peeled off a flower. Cocteau filmed this in reverse motion, making it appear on screen as if the flower comes back to life, with petals rejoining the stem. Other examples include Cocteau sketching drawings with a rag and rejoining fragmented pieces of pottery, with fragments flying up into his hand and joining together. By the release of Le Testament d'Orphée, the use of reverse action was endemic in Cocteau's work, with more than one critic declaring it so overused as to be an embarrassing personal tic. The Christopher Nolan film Tenet (2020) heavily utilizes dramatic action sequences involving characters and objects that are time-reversed compared to the rest of the world. Other uses of reverse-motion photography are technical in nature. For example, it is difficult to target helicopter shots precisely. Having the point of view swoop down from the sky into a close-up on a particular object or scene is almost impossible to achieve with a helicopter, since it is almost impossible to end up with a perfectly framed and focused final image. Therefore, such shots are filmed in reverse motion, starting with the helicopter close to the target, and then drawing back and up into the sky. A similar approach may be also taken as a safety precaution, such as when a vehicle is required to stop from speed immediately in front of an object, as it can instead be started at the finish position and reversed; for example, this trick can be seen in the Tomorrow Never Dies scene where James Bond pilots a life-sized remote-controlled car, stopping it mere centimeters in front of himself and Q. Techniques There are two techniques for achieving reverse motion. The first is achieved by printing the film backwards in an optical printer, starting from the final frame and working to the initial one. (This requires a true optical effect, since simply playing the film in reverse when exposing it onto a new negative causes it to come out upside down.) The second is an in-camera effect, achieved either by running the camera itself backwards or by turning the camera upside down. Most cameras are directly capable of running the film backwards (spooling from bottom to top rather than from top to bottom) and those that cannot can mostly be adapted into doing so by the simple expedient of rewiring the electric motor, switching its polarity (for DC motors) or changing over any two of its phases (for synchronous three-phase motors). Considerations Turning the camera upside down and running it forwards as normal, so that the film spools from bottom to top has several disadvantages. First, it places the soundtrack on the wrong side. Second, the film is required to be perforated on both sides, otherwise the negative cannot be cut into the rest of the film. Third, it requires that the camera be lined up for shooting in the opposite way, with the guidelines in the viewfinder that indicate the Academy area needing to be reversed. Fourth, it can cause subsequent processing difficulties for the negative, because the registration pins will be engaging the film perforations on their opposite sides to normal. References Citations Sources |
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[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prey_(2006_video_game)] | [TOKENS: 4332] |
Contents Prey (2006 video game) Prey is a 2006 first-person shooter game developed by Human Head Studios, under contract for 3D Realms, and published by 2K Games, while the Xbox 360 version was ported by Venom Games. The game was initially released in North America and Europe on July 11, 2006. Prey uses a heavily modified version of id Tech 4 to use portals and variable gravity to create the environments the player explores. The game's story is focused on Cherokee Domasi "Tommy" Tawodi as he, his girlfriend, and grandfather are abducted aboard an alien spaceship known as The Sphere as it consumes material, both inanimate and living, from Earth in order to sustain itself. Tommy's Cherokee heritage allows him to let his spirit roam freely at times and come back to life after dying, which gives Tommy an edge in his battle against the Sphere. Prey had been in development in one form or another since 1995, and has had several major revisions. While the general approach to gameplay, including the use of portals, remained in the game, the story and setting changed several times. The game received generally positive reviews, with critics praising its graphics and gameplay but criticizing its multiplayer component for a lack of content. Prey was a commercial success, selling more than one million copies in the first two months of its release and leading to the abortive development of its sequel Prey 2. The rights to Prey passed on to Bethesda Softworks, who released a game of the same name, developed by Arkane Studios, in 2017. Gameplay Prey is a first-person shooter with the player in control of the protagonist Tommy as he explores the gigantic extraterrestrial craft Sphere and fights its inhabitants aboard. During the game, the player will collect a number of alien weapons, some comparable to typical first-person shooter archetypes, others more alien in behavior. The game's engine introduces two unique aspects to exploration. Portals in the game can transport the player from one area to another instantly; portals can be looked and shot through and can also be traveled in reverse. Unlike the later game Portal, the player cannot create portals directly without the use of mods, and portals remain fixed in space. The game also features variable gravity. Special paths allow the player to walk along them, remaining upright regardless of orientation, though should the player fall or voluntarily jump off the path, gravity will reassert itself. Small planetoids inside The Sphere can also exhibit their own gravity fields, allowing the player to walk completely around the outside of it. The player can detach Tommy's spirit from his body, allowing the spirit to roam freely for a short time. The spirit has limited interaction with the environment, though it is able to activate control panels and can use a spirit bow to strike at foes. The spirit force is often used to solve environmental puzzles within the game as well as to locate paths that are not visible to mortal eyes. Although Tommy dies when his health is depleted, he is resurrected after a brief period during which his spirit can increase the health the revived body will have. Two vehicles make an appearance; one is a flying vehicle used frequently for travel and attacking (as well as puzzle solving), and one is only used for a short period near the end of the game. The bar that the game begins in is interactive, with usable restroom facilities, a TV with various channels (including a clip from Duck and Cover), a fully playable Pac-Man-style game called Rune Man (referring to a previous game by Human Head entitled Rune), several video casino machines (including blackjack, draw poker, and a slot machine), and a jukebox that plays a small selection of licensed songs. Plot Domasi "Tommy" Tawodi (voiced by Michael Greyeyes) is a Cherokee mechanic and former United States Army soldier living on a Native American reservation in Oklahoma. The game begins with Tommy in a bar owned by his girlfriend, Jen. Tired of life on the reservation, Tommy tries to convince Jen to leave it with him, but she refuses. After a fight between the two, a fight erupts when two men at the bar will not leave. The building is lifted up by some kind of force into a green light above. Tommy, Jen, Tommy's grandfather Enisi, and other captives are transported to a massive alien starship called the Sphere. Tommy is freed in an explosion set off by a mysterious stranger, who, despite being a cybernetic being like most of the Sphere's inhabitants, appears to be working against the Sphere. Tommy witnesses Enisi's brutal death in an alien device. While attempting to find Jen, he has a near-death experience and travels to an afterlife known as the Land of The Ancients, where his grandfather bestows spiritual powers upon him. Tommy gains the ability to separate from his body to pass through obstacles, come back to life after being killed, and aid from his spirit guide, the ghost of his childhood pet hawk, Talon. Despite being entrusted by his ancestors with the mission to protect Earth from the Sphere, Tommy is only interested in rescuing Jen. Tommy finds Jen, whose torso has been surgically attached to a reptile-like creature that attempts to kill Tommy. Because Jen cannot control the beast she is attached to, Tommy is reluctantly forced to kill it, in the process also mercy-killing Jen. Tommy learns that the Sphere is an organic alien ship with the main goal of maintaining itself by preying on various alien races. The Sphere houses many of these alien races, which have become mindless drones in servitude of the Sphere. The Keepers of the Sphere, who appear to be responsible for its creation, plant life on other planets, and periodically return to harvest it. A small band of human rebels on the Sphere named the Hidden have not lost control of themselves. Led by Elhuit, the Hidden hope to destroy the Sphere and return to Earth. Tommy finds that the Keepers and their drones are controlled by the Mother (voiced by Tyne Turner), who communicates telepathically with him throughout the game. She reveals to Tommy that she was once human, too, and fought the previous Mother of the Sphere, who persuaded her to take its place as the new Mother. After Tommy defeats her, the Mother begs Tommy to take her place, acquiring god-like powers in the process, or else the Sphere will perish. While tempted, Enisi's spirit contacts Tommy, reminding him of his humanity and duty. Tommy heeds his grandfather's advice and drives the Sphere into the Sun, and ends up in the Land of the Ancients once more to see Enisi and Jen. Tommy returns to Earth, knowing that he will see them both again when it is his time to live in the Land of the Ancients. Six months later, Tommy has rebuilt the bar. The official story of the bar's disappearance is that the original building and the people within it at the time of its disappearance vanished due to an unknown natural phenomenon. Elhuit arrives in the bar and explains to Tommy that she and other Hidden escaped through a portal just before Tommy destroyed the Sphere, and tells Tommy that powerful beings elsewhere wish to meet him. Tommy steps through a portal made by Elhuit as the words "Prey will continue ..." appear on-screen. Development Prey has a long and storied development history that spans over a decade, starting in 1995. It went through several iterations of the game design and software technology before its eventual release in 2006. In 1995, the first incarnation of the game was announced. Prey was envisioned by 3D Realms as the first of a number of games to be running on unique, cutting edge game engine technology, developed in house. In this sense the project played the same role as Unreal did for Epic Games, and it would retain this role in the company's strategy throughout its development time in the 3D Realms studios. Prey as a game was to go through many different forms during this first development period. A rapid succession of different designs was outlined by Tom Hall (previously of id Software and later of Ion Storm), who was at that time fresh off the Rise of the Triad team at Apogee Software. After about a year's worth of work, however, Tom Hall abandoned the project and left the company to form Ion Storm with ex-id compatriot John Romero. At this point, 3D Realms brought on Paul Schuytema to begin the next phase in the game's development. The new team would go on to create a new game design. The alien abduction theme from Hall's work was retained, but now the game was to be set on a massive, ring-shaped artificial world called "Trocara", inhabited by four different alien races, one of them called "the Keepers". The player would take the role of a Native American hero, called Talon Brave. The game was the first in the genre to make use of moveable portal technology, a feature that allowed rips in space to be created, moved and reshaped in real time. This was to be a core feature of the gameplay, along with heavily destructible environments. It was also thought at the time this engine would be used for Duke Nukem 5 (the game after Duke Nukem Forever), but Duke Nukem 5 was never released. Demonstrations of these features drew widespread acclaim at the 1997 and 1998 E3 exhibitions – the television program Infinite MHz was able to capture exclusive footage of the game's private behind-closed-doors demo at both of the game's E3 showings. The public perception was very positive, the game looked impressive, and 3D Realms' name, fresh from the success of Duke Nukem 3D, was a mark of quality. German industrial band KMFDM was to create the game's soundtrack. 3D Realms posted on their website in 1997 that they received a sample of the soundtrack from KMFDM and highly praised the music, described as "ambient industrial". On December 19, 1997, 3D Realms also released two KMFDM songs in MP3 format (that are not on the Prey soundtrack), "Inane" and "Megalomaniac". Seemingly insurmountable technical problems ground development to a near-halt, and this version of Prey too fell apart. Later, on an Internet discussion board head engineer William Scarboro would comment that "in hindsight, portal tricks such as these should be used as tricks, not as an engine paradigm." Shortly after the Schuytema variant of Prey disbanded, 3D Realms attempted again to revive the project by bringing on tech programmer Corrinne Yu in November 1998. Development of the game itself was not part of this effort, Yu was working by herself on the game engine exclusively. The title was put on indefinite hold (although never formally canceled, contrary to popular opinion). On March 8, 2000, Prey.net (an early Prey site with a section about KMFDM) released a RealAudio file of a third KMFDM song: "Missing Time", which was going to be part of the Prey soundtrack but was featured in the film Heavy Metal 2000 instead (under the name MDFMK which is a side project of KMFDM members during their temporary break-up). The game was developed with a 30 person team. In 2001, 3D Realms began development on a new version of the title. This time, with the advantage of the necessary portal technology already being a stable and functional component of all modern game engines, 3D Realms was able to license the necessary technology instead of having to develop it. 3D Realms chose the id Tech 4 game engine from id Software, and Rune developer Human Head Studios was commissioned to develop the game using the previous designs as a base. Rumors of this new project leaked out to the public in 2002, through the website Evil Avatar, but were at that time denied in the 3D Realms forums by Joe Siegler. It was not until 2005, when the cryptic clue "Keep your eyes open for the unveiling of our next game very soon." appeared on the 3D Realms website that the previous rumors were confirmed in any way. This was followed by a CNN article by Chris Morris, claiming that Prey was not only in development, but that it would be shown at E3. Soon afterwards, the official Prey teaser site was launched, confirming the game's existence, and hinting that more would be revealed in the June issue of PC Gamer, which indeed featured a seven-page article on Prey. Prey was officially announced in a press release by 2K Games on April 26, 2005. On April 28, 2006, a July 10 release date was announced (although 3D Realms claims that is not the formal release date since it did not come from them or Human Head). On May 19, 2006, 3D Realms announced that a demo of Prey would be released on June 22, 2006—the PC demo was released on this date, but the Xbox 360 demo was delayed until June 30. On June 28, it was announced that Prey had officially gone gold. A playable single and multiplayer demo of the game was released on June 22, 2006, for Microsoft Windows, and a downloadable Xbox 360 demo was released on the Xbox Live Marketplace on June 30, 2006. The June 2005 issue of PC Gamer revealed that the game uses a heavily modified version of id Tech 4 capable of rendering "huge cavernous spaces as well as more traditional passages". The game also supports the dynamic portals that were seen in the 1997/1998 video clips, which are used by friends and foes alike. It also has the ability to change gravity in many parts of the game, via small items that need to be shot to become active, which is used to solve many puzzles throughout the game. Various landscapes in the game (large rocks, for example) have their own gravity that overrides the normal gravity in the game. Domasi (Tommy) Tawodi's background was chosen due to the amount of mythology in Cherokee oral tradition, which 3D Realms had planned to use for a number of games. When it was first revealed that the game's protagonist would be a Native American, the response was mixed due to concerns that he would be a stereotyped caricature, and that players would have difficulty identifying with a Native American character. Tommy is voiced by Michael Greyeyes, and Jen is voiced by Crystle Lightning, who are both Plains Cree. Greyeyes approved of the way that Tommy was depicted in the game, contrasting Prey to a film production: I was impressed with the way [3D Realms] conceived of and wrote Tommy ... Hollywood typically relegates our different indigenous cultures either into a single pan-Indian construct of some type — radical AIM protester type; slick, corporate, anglicized casino businessman type; etcetera — or, most commonly, as a historical figure, typically from a Plains culture. In fact, the overwhelming majority of roles written for native actors are in the Western genre. There are few opportunities for us to appear outside that paradigm, and when we do it is often equally narrow in focus ... The writers [at 3D Realms] were always open to my comments — which I freely offered — and took my notes seriously, in nearly all instances changing dialogue or thematic content. Release The game went gold on June 28, 2006, and was released in North America on July 11, 2006, and on July 14, 2006, in Europe and Australia. Prey was the only major title to utilize the new Triton distribution system, which went out of business months after the game's launch. Following the demise of Triton, Prey moved to distribution via Steam. Prey shipped in a Limited Collector's Edition for both PC and Xbox 360. It came with an embossed collector's tin, an upgrade to one DVD-ROM (as opposed to three CD-ROMs), two pewter figurines (Hunter and Tommy), "The Art of Prey" booklet, and a free soundtrack download from DirectSong. A third (Mutate) pewter figurine was available separately for purchase to complete the collection of three pewter figurines. On November 29, 2006, Aspyr Media announced a Mac port, which was shipped on January 15, 2007. On October 24, 2008, a Linux client for the Prey demo was released by Ryan C. Gordon, who had been working on porting the game for several months. Later that year, on December 7, 2008, the Linux client for the full retail version was made available. The soundtrack was composed by award-winning composer Jeremy Soule and his brother, Julian Soule. The Prey soundtrack was released in two volumes (nearly two hours of the game's three-hour score). The end credits feature the song "Take Me Home" by After Midnight Project. There are several jukeboxes in the game which allow the player to choose from a small selection of licensed songs. In addition, radio host Art Bell lends his voice to several fictional segments of his paranormal-themed radio show, Coast to Coast AM, that play from radios throughout the game. In the segments, he talks with many callers about the various alien phenomena that occur in the game. Reception Prey has a Metacritic average of 83 and 79 out of 100 on the PC and Xbox 360, respectively. The game was highly praised for its graphics and gameplay. GameZone called the graphics "top notch", while Play magazine[which?] called them "incredible". GamerFeed lauded the gameplay system, calling it "nothing short of amazing", and concluding that "Prey has got everything anyone could want from a sci-fi shooter and more." However, there was criticism directed at the multiplayer component, especially the fact that it only had two game modes. GamesRadar opined that the multiplayer "could have been much better if only there were more than two modes [and] a couple of maps small enough to play with less than five players." In October 2006, 3D Realms CEO Scott Miller announced that the game was a commercial success on both PC and Xbox 360 with combined 1 million copies sold worldwide to date. Prey is ranked third on Game Informer's list of The Top 10 Video Game Openings. The editors of PC Gamer US awarded Prey their 2006 "Best Action Game" and "Best Multiplayer Game" awards. During the 10th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards, the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences nominated Prey for "Computer Game of the Year" and "First-Person Action Game of the Year". Legacy Shortly after the game's release, 3D Realms' Scott Miller confirmed that a sequel named Prey 2 was in development. On March 17, 2008, Miller's brand-management group Radar Group was launched, along with the announcement that it was managing Prey 2, slated for release for PC and Xbox 360. The game was being developed in cooperation with Human Head Studios. Prey Invasion is a first-person shooter video game developed by MachineWorks, and published by Hands-On Mobile in cooperation with 3D Realms for iOS. In 2009, the rights to the franchise were acquired by Bethesda Softworks and id Software parent company ZeniMax Media. On October 30, 2014, during PAX Australia, Bethesda Softworks vice-president Pete Hines confirmed that Prey 2 has subsequently been canceled. Pete Hines stated as follows, "it was a game we believed in, but we never felt that it got to where it needed to be – we never saw a path to success if we finished it. It wasn't up to our quality standard, and we decided to cancel it. It's no longer in development. That wasn't an easy decision, but it's one that won't surprise many folks given that we hadn't been talking about it. Human Head Studios is no longer working on it. It's a franchise we still believe we can do something with — we just need to see what that something is." During its 2016 E3 press conference, Bethesda announced Prey developed by Arkane Studios, for release in 2017 on Windows, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One. The new game is not connected to the previous game. Eventually, the team would come full circle after the 2019 closure of Human Head Studios shortly after the release of Rune II with most of the staff moving on to Bethesda-managed Roundhouse Studios. On December 24, 2022, an early, playable 1995 prototype of Prey was leaked to the Internet. Notes References External links |
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[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embodied_cognition] | [TOKENS: 15840] |
Contents Embodied cognition Embodied cognition represents a diverse group of theories which investigate how cognition is shaped by the bodily state and capacities of the organism. These embodied factors include the motor system, the perceptual system, bodily interactions with the environment (situatedness), and the assumptions about the world that shape the functional structure of the brain and body of the organism. Embodied cognition suggests that these elements are essential to a wide spectrum of cognitive functions, such as perception biases, memory recall, comprehension and high-level mental constructs (such as meaning attribution and categories) and performance on various cognitive tasks (reasoning or judgment). The embodied mind thesis challenges other theories, such as cognitivism, computationalism, and Cartesian dualism. It is closely related to the extended mind thesis, situated cognition, and enactivism. The modern version depends on understandings drawn from up-to-date research in psychology, linguistics, cognitive science, dynamical systems, artificial intelligence, robotics, animal cognition, plant cognition, and neurobiology. Theory Proponents of the embodied cognition thesis emphasize the active and significant role the body plays in the shaping of cognition and in the understanding of an agent's mind and cognitive capacities. In philosophy, embodied cognition holds that an agent's cognition, rather than being the product of mere (innate) abstract representations of the world, is strongly influenced by aspects of an agent's body beyond the brain itself. An embodied model of cognition opposes the disembodied Cartesian model, according to which all mental phenomena are non-physical and, therefore, not influenced by the body. With this opposition the embodiment thesis intends to reintroduce an agent's bodily experiences into any account of cognition. It is a rather broad thesis and encompasses both weak and strong variants of embodiment. In an attempt to reconcile cognitive science with human experience, the enactive approach to cognition defines "embodiment" as follows: By using the term embodied we mean to highlight two points: first that cognition depends upon the kinds of experience that come from having a body with various sensorimotor capacities, and second, that these individual sensorimotor capacities are themselves embedded in a more encompassing biological, psychological and cultural context. — The Embodied Mind: Cognitive Science and Human Experience by Francisco J. Varela, Evan Thompson, and Eleanor Rosch, pages 172–173. This double sense attributed to the embodiment thesis emphasizes the many aspects of cognition that researchers in different fields—such as philosophy, cognitive science, artificial intelligence, psychology, and neuroscience—are involved with. This general characterization of embodiment faces some difficulties: a consequence of this emphasis on the body, experience, culture, context, and the cognitive mechanisms of an agent in the world is that often distinct views and approaches to embodied cognition overlap. The theses of extended cognition and situated cognition, for example, are usually intertwined and not always carefully separated. And since each of the aspects of the embodiment thesis is endorsed to different degrees, embodied cognition should be better seen "as a research program rather than a well-defined unified theory". Some authors explain the embodiment thesis by arguing that cognition depends on an agent's body and its interactions with a determined environment. From this perspective, cognition in real biological systems is not an end in itself; it is constrained by the system's goals and capacities. Such constraints do not mean cognition is set by adaptive behavior (or autopoiesis) alone, but instead that cognition requires "some kind of information processing... the transformation or communication of incoming information". The acquiring of such information involves the agent's "exploration and modification of the environment". It would be a mistake, however, to suppose that cognition consists simply of building maximally accurate representations of input information...the gaining of knowledge is a stepping stone to achieving the more immediate goal of guiding behavior in response to the system's changing surroundings. — Marcin Miłkowski, Explaining the Computational Mind, p. 4. Another approach to understanding embodied cognition comes from a narrower characterization of the embodiment thesis. The following narrower view of embodiment avoids any compromises to external sources other than the body and allows differentiating between embodied cognition, extended cognition, and situated cognition. Thus, the embodiment thesis can be specified as follows: Many features of cognition are embodied in that they are deeply dependent upon characteristics of the physical body of an agent, such that the agent's beyond-the-brain body plays a significant causal role, or a physically constitutive role, in that agent's cognitive processing. — RA Wilson and L Foglia, Embodied Cognition in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. This thesis points out the core idea that an agent's body plays a significant role in shaping different features of cognition, such as perception, attention, memory, reasoning—among others. Likewise, these features of cognition depend on the kind of body an agent has. The thesis omits direct mention of some aspects of the "more encompassing biological, psychological and cultural context" included in the enactive definition, making it possible to separate embodied cognition, extended cognition, and situated cognition. In contrast to the embodiment thesis, the extended mind thesis limits cognitive processing neither to the brain nor even to the body, it extends it outward into the agent's world. Situated cognition emphasizes that this extension is not just a matter of including resources outside the head but stressing the role of probing and changing interactions with the agent's world. Cognition is situated in that it is inherently dependent upon the cultural and social contexts within which it takes place. This conceptual reframing of cognition as an activity influenced by the body has had significant implications. For instance, the view of cognition inherited by most contemporary cognitive neuroscience is internalist in nature. An agent's behavior along with its capacity to maintain (accurate) representations of the surrounding environment were considered as the product of "powerful brains that can maintain the world models and devise plans". From this perspective, cognizing was conceived as something that an isolated brain did. In contrast, accepting the role the body plays during cognitive processes allows us to account for a more encompassing view of cognition. This shift in perspective within neuroscience suggests that successful behavior in real-world scenarios demands the integration of several sensorimotor and cognitive (as well as affective) capacities of an agent. Thus, cognition emerges in the relationship between an agent and the affordances provided by the environment rather than in the brain alone. In 2002, a collection of positive characterizations summarizing what the embodiment thesis entails for cognition were offered. Professor of Cognitive Psychology Margaret Wilson argues that the general outlook of embodied cognition "displays an interesting co-variation of multiple observations and houses a number of different claims: (1) cognition is situated; (2) cognition is time-pressured; (3) we off-load cognitive work onto the environment; (4) the environment is part of the cognitive system; (5) cognition is for action; (6) offline cognition is bodily-based". According to Wilson, the first three and the fifth claim appear to be at least partially true, while the fourth claim is deeply problematic in that all things that have an impact on the elements of a system are not necessarily considered part of the system. The sixth claim has received the least attention in the literature on embodied cognition, yet it might be the most significant of the six claims as it shows how certain human cognitive capabilities, that previously were thought to be highly abstract, now appear to be leaning towards an embodied approach for their explanation. Wilson also describes at least five main (abstract) categories that combine both sensory and motor skills (or sensorimotor functions). The first three are working memory, episodic memory, and implicit memory; the fourth is mental imagery, and finally, the fifth concerns reasoning and problem solving. History The theory of embodied cognition, along with the multiple aspects it comprises, can be regarded as the imminent result of an intellectual skepticism towards the flourishment of the disembodied theory of mind put forth by René Descartes in the 17th century. According to Cartesian dualism, the mind is entirely distinct from the body and can be successfully explained and understood without reference to the body or to its processes. Research has been done to identify the set of ideas that would establish what could be considered as the early stages of embodied cognition around inquiries regarding the mind-body-soul relation and vitalism in the German tradition from 1740 to 1920. The modern approach and definition of embodied cognition has a relatively short history. Intellectual underpinnings of embodied cognition can be traced back to the influence of philosophy and, more specifically, the phenomenological tradition, psychology, and connectionism in the 20th century. Phenomenologists such as Edmund Husserl, Martin Heidegger and Maurice Merleau-Ponty served as a source of inspiration for what would later be known as the embodiment thesis. They stood up against the mechanistic and disembodied approach to the explanation of the mind by emphasizing the fact that there are aspects of human experiences (consciousness, cognition) that cannot simply be explained by a model of the mind as computation of inner symbols. From a phenomenological standpoint, such aspects remain unaccountable if, as in Cartesian dualism, they are not "deeply rooted in the physical nuts-and-bolts of the interacting agent". Maurice Merleau-Ponty in his Phenomenology of Perception[transl. 1], for example, rejects the Cartesian idea that people's primary mode of being in the world is thinking[transl. 2][transl. 3] and proposes corporeity[transl. 4], that is, the body itself as the primary site for knowing the world, and perception as the medium and the pre-reflective foundation of experience. The body is the vehicle of being in the world, and having a body is, for a living creature, to be intervolved in a definite environment, to identify oneself with certain projects and be continually committed to them. So stated, the body is the primary condition for experience since it comprises a collection of active meanings about the world and its objects. The body also provides the first-person perspective (a point of view) with which one experiences the world and opens up multiple possibilities for being. Evidence from experiments and observations in research of how behaviour is constructed conducted in the 1920-30s by Nikolai Bernstein also brought his attention to the role of the body in cognition. Bernstein gave extensive example of how people change their own posture during perception of someone doing intense physical tasks. The appreciation of the phenomenological mindset allows us to not overlook the influence that phenomenology's speculative but systematic reflection on the mind-body-world relation had in the growth and development of the core ideas which embodied cognition comprises. From a phenomenological perspective "all cognition is embodied, interactive, and embedded in dynamically changing environments". These constitute the set of beliefs which proponents of embodied cognition such as cognitive scientists Francisco Varela, Eleonor Rosch, and Evan Thompson will revise later on and seek to reintroduce in the scientific study of cognition under the name of enaction. Enactivism reclaims the importance of considering the biodynamics of the living organism to understand cognition by gathering ideas from fields such as biology, psychoanalysis, Buddhism, and phenomenology. According to this enactive approach, organisms obtain knowledge or develop their cognitive capacities through a perception–action relationship with a mutually determining environment. This basic idea of (qualitative) experience as the product of an individual's active perception–action interactions with its surrounding is also traceable to the American contextualist or pragmatist tradition in works such as Art As Experience by American psychologist John Dewey. For Dewey, experiences affect people's personal lives as they are the by-product of continuous and commutative interactions of a biological and organic self (an incarnated body) with the world. These lived (corporeal) experiences should serve as the foundation to build upon. On the bases of empirical grounds, and in opposition to those philosophical traditions that belittled the importance of the body to understand cognition, research on embodiment have demonstrated the relationship between cognition and bodily process. Thus, understanding cognition requires one to consider and investigate the sensory and motor mechanism that enables it. Cognitive scientist George Lakoff, for example, holds that reasoning and language arise from the nature of bodily experiences and, thus, even people's own metaphors have bodily references. Peter Putnam and Robert W. Fuller advanced a version of the computational theory of mind, perceptual control theory and neuroplasticity wherein rules become fixed in the brain's structure based on trial and error and motor neuron feedback loops. Since the 1950s, encouraged by progress in informatics, researchers began to create digital models of the processes by which sensory input is selected by the brain, stored in the memory, connected to existing knowledge and used for elaboration. These traditional computationalists views of cognition that were typical in the 1950s–1980s are now considered implausible because there is no continuity with the cognitive skills that would have been demanded and developed by the ancestors of the human species. The earlier version of the concept of embodiment in cognition was offered in 1997-1999 by Irina Trofimova who called the experimentally proven effects of embodiment in meaning attribution as "projection through capacities". Some researchers indeed argue that this algorithmic focus on mental activities ignores the fact that human beings engage with evolutionary pressures using their entire bodies. Margaret Wilson considers the embodied cognition perspective as fundamentally an evolutionary one, viewing cognition as a set of abilities that built upon, and still reflects, the structure of physical bodies and how human brains evolved to manage those bodies. The theory of evolution emphasises that thanks to their bipedal gait, early humans did not need their 'forepaws' for locomotion, facilitating them to manipulate the environment with the aid of tools. One researcher goes even further, positing that the multiple opportunities provided by human hands shape people's concepts of the mind. One example is that people often conceive cognitive processes in manual terms, such as 'grasping an idea'. J.J. Gibson (1904–1979) developed his theory on ecological psychology that entirely contradicted the computationalist idea of understanding the mind as information processing which by that time had permeated psychology—both in theory and practice. Gibson particularly disagreed with the way his contemporaries understood the nature of perception. Computationalist perspectives, for example, consider perceptual objects as an unreliable source of information upon which the mind must do some sort of inference. Gibson view perceptual processes as the product of the relation between a moving agent and its relationship with a specific environment. Similarly, Varela and colleague's argue that both cognition and the environment are not pre-given; instead, they are enacted or brought forth by the agent's history of sensorimotor and structurally coupled activities. Connectionism also put forth a critique to the computationalist commitments yet granting the possibility of some sort of non-symbolic computational processes to take place. According to the connectionist thesis, cognition as a biological phenomenon can be explained and understood through the interaction and dynamics of artificial neural networks (ANNs). Given the traces of abstraction that remain in the inputs and outputs through which connectionist neural networks carry its computations, connectionism is said to be not so far from computationalism and unable to cope with both the challenge of dealing with the details involved during perceiving and acting and explaining higher level cognition. Likewise, connectionism's take on cognition is biologically inspired by the behavior and interaction of single neurons, yet its connections to the embodiment thesis in general, and to perception–action interactions in particular, are not clearly outlined or straightforward. By early 2000, O'Regan, J. K. and Noë, A. provided empirical evidence against the computationalist mindset arguing that although cortical maps exist in the brain and their patterns of activation give rise to perceptual experiences, they alone are unable to fully explain the subjective character of experience. Namely, it is unclear how internal representations generate conscious perception. Given this ambiguity, O'Regan, J. K. and Nöe, A. put forth what would later be known as "sensorimotor contingencies" (SMCs) in an attempt to understand the changing character of sensations as actors act in the world. According to the SMC theory, The experience of seeing occurs when the organism masters what we call the governing laws of sensorimotor contingency. Ever since the late 20th century and recognizing the significant role the body plays for cognition, the embodied cognition theory has gained (an ever increasing) popularity, it has been the subject of multiple articles in different research areas, and the mainstream approach to what Shapiro and Spaulding call the "embodied make-over". A consequence of this widespread acceptance of the embodiment thesis is the emergence of 4E features of cognition (embodied, embedded, enacted, and extended cognition). Under 4E cognition it is no longer thought of as being instantiated in or by a single organism, rather: It assumes that cognition is shaped and structured by dynamic interactions between the brain, body, and both the physical and social environments. Scope Embodied cognition argues that several factors both internal and external (such as the body and the environment) play a role in the development of an agent's cognitive capacities, just as mental constructs (such as thoughts and desires) are said to influence an agent's bodily actions. For this reason, embodied cognition is considered as a wide-ranging research program, rather than a well-defined and unified theory. A scientific approach to embodied cognition reaches, inspires, and brings together ideas from several research areas, each with its own take on embodiment yet in a joint effort to (methodically) investigate embodied cognition. Research on embodied cognition comprises a variety of fields within the sciences such as linguistics, neuroscience, (cognitive) psychology, philosophy, artificial intelligence, robotics, etc. For this reason, contemporary developments on embodied cognition can be regarded as the embodied make-over of cognitive science offering new ways to look at the nature, structure, and mechanisms of cognition. Embodying cognition requires the different features of cognition such as perception, language, memory, learning, reasoning, emotion, self-regulation, and its social aspects to be revisited and investigated through the lens of embodiment in order to ground its theoretical and methodological underpinnings. Embodied cognition has gained the attention and interest of classical cognitive science (along with all sciences it comprises) to incorporate embodiment ideas into its research. In linguistics, George Lakoff (a cognitive scientist and linguist) and his collaborators Mark Johnson, Mark Turner, and Rafael E. Núñez have promoted and expanded the embodiment thesis based on developments within the field of cognitive science. Their research has provided evidence suggesting that people use their understanding of familiar physical objects, actions, and situations to understand other domains. All cognition is based on the knowledge that comes from the body and other disciplines are mapped onto humans' embodied knowledge using a combination of conceptual metaphor, image schema and prototypes. The conceptual metaphors research have argued that people use metaphors all over to be in charge of the conceptual level; in other words, they map one conceptual state into another one. Therefore, research has stated that there is a single metaphor behind various definitions. Several examples of conceptual metaphors from different fields were collected to explain how metaphors relate to other metaphors and often refer to body aspects. The most common example given to this explanation is when people describe the concept of love, associating this love metaphor with physically embodied journey experiences. Another example of the language and embodiment of Lakoff and Mark Turner is visual metaphors. Accordingly, they argue that the positioning of these visual metaphors for upright and forward-moving creatures depends on body type and the characteristics of the body's interaction with the environment. Another study from 2000 focused on the "image schema" to investigate how people understand abstract concepts. Accordingly, abstract concepts are understood by considering basic physical situations. Abstract concepts, whose basic physical states are considered, are then interpreted by using sensory-motor and perceptual skills. Thus, it is shown that there is a spatial reasoning process that requires using the body even in reasoning over abstract concepts. In this context, the image schema is seen as a conceptual metaphor form. For example, spatial reasoning skills and the visual cortex tend to be used to understand a mathematical concept consisting of imaginary numbers that are purely abstract. Thus, it has been shown how important the body plays in the image schema as in the conceptual metaphor in the interpretation of concepts. Another important factor in understanding linguistic categories is prototypes. Eleanor Rosch argued that prototypes play an important role in people's cognition. According to her research, prototypes are the most typical members of a category, and she explains this with an example from birds. The robin, for example, is a prototypical bird while the penguin is not a prototypical bird which shows that objects that are prototypical are more easily categorized, and therefore, people can find answers by reasoning about the categories they encounter through these prototypes. Another study identified basic level categories that exemplify this situation in a more structured way. Accordingly, basic level categories are categories that can be associated with basic physical motions; they are made up of prototypes that can be easily visualized. These prototypes are used for reasoning about general categories. On the other hand, Lakoff emphasizes that what is important in prototype theory, rather than class or type characteristics, is that the feature of the categories people use is a bodily experience. Thus, as seen in the general of these approaches, it can be said that the most basic feature in understanding and interpreting linguistic concepts and categories is whether the concept or category has been experienced bodily. Neuroscientists Gerald Edelman, António Damásio and others have outlined the connection between the body, individual structures in the brain and aspects of the mind such as consciousness, emotion, self-awareness and will. Biology has also inspired Gregory Bateson, Humberto Maturana, Francisco Varela, Eleanor Rosch and Evan Thompson to develop a closely related version of the idea, which they call enactivism. The motor theory of speech perception proposed by Alvin Liberman and colleagues at the Haskins Laboratories argues that the identification of words is embodied in perception of the bodily movements by which spoken words are made. In related work at Haskins, Paul Mermelstein, Philip Rubin, Louis Goldstein, and colleagues developed articulatory synthesis tools for computationally modeling the physiology and aeroacoustics of the vocal tract, demonstrating how cognition and perception of speech can be shaped by biological constraints. This was extended into the audio-visual domain by the "talking heads" approach of Eric Vatikiotis-Bateson, Rubin, and other colleagues. The concept of embodiment has been inspired by research in cognitive neuroscience, such as the proposals of Gerald Edelman concerning how mathematical and computational models such as neuronal group selection and neural degeneracy result in emergent categorization. From a neuroscientific perspective, the embodied cognition theory examines the interaction of sensorimotor, cognitive, and affective neurological systems. The embodied mind thesis is compatible with some views of cognition promoted in neuropsychology, such as the theories of consciousness of Vilayanur S. Ramachandran, Gerald Edelman, and Antonio Damasio. It is also supported by a broad and ever-increasing collection of empirical studies within neuroscience. By examining brain activity with neuroimaging techniques, researchers have found indications of embodiment. In an Electroencephalography (EEG) study researchers showed that in line with the embodied cognition, sensorimotor contingency and common coding theses, sensory and motor processes in the brain are not sequentially separated, they are strongly coupled. Considering the interaction of the sensorimotor and cognitive system, a study from 2005 stresses how crucial sensorimotor cortices are for semantic comprehension of body–action terms and sentences. A functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study from 2004 showed that passively read action words, such as lick, pick or kick, led to a somatotopic neuronal activity in or adjacent to brain regions associated with actual movement of the respective body parts. Using transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), a study in 2005 stated that the activity of the motor system is coupled to auditory action-related sentences. When the participants listened to hand–or foot-related sentences, the motor evoked potentials (MEPs) recorded from the hand and foot muscles were reduced. These two exemplary studies indicate a relationship between cognitively understanding words referring to sensorimotor concepts and activation of sensorimotor cortices. Along the lines of embodiment, neuroimaging techniques serve to show interactions of the sensory and motor system. Next to neuroimaging studies, behavioral studies also provides evidence supporting the embodied cognition theory. Abstract higher cognitive concepts such as the "importance" of an object or an issue also seem to stand in relation to the sensorimotor system. People estimate objects to be heavier when they are told that they are important or hold important information in contrast to unimportant information. Similarly, weight affects the way people invest physical and cognitive effort when dealing with concrete or abstract issues. For example, more importance is assigned to decision–making procedures when holding heavier clipboards. What this suggest is that the physical effort invested in concrete objects leads to more cognitive effort when dealing with abstract concepts. The work of cognitive neuroscientists such as Francisco Varela and Walter Freeman seeks to explain embodied and situated cognition in terms of dynamical systems theory and neurophenomenology, rejecting the idea that the brain merely uses representations to cognise (a position also espoused by Gerhard Werner). There are several neuroscientific approaches to explain cognition from an embodied perspective as well as multiple methods such as neuroimaging techniques, behavioral experiments, and dynamical models that can be employed to support and further investigate embodied cognition. In the field of Robotics researchers such as Rodney Brooks, Hans Moravec and Rolf Pfeifer have argued that true artificial intelligence can only be achieved by machines that have sensory and motor skills and are connected to the world through a body. The insights of these robotics researchers have in turn inspired philosophers like Andy Clark and Hendriks-Jansen. In the light of these, a body is essential for cognition and, therefore, for intelligent behavior since the interaction between the body and the environment is fundamental for developing cognitive abilities. This type of knowledge is grounded in physical embodiment–the relationship humans have with their bodies. It is the concept of "the idea that the mind is not only connected to the body but that the body influences the mind". Embodied artificial intelligence and robotics is a method of applying this principle to artificial systems. Traditional artificial intelligence involves a computational approach. This primary computational paradigm evolved to the embodied perspective with embodied cognition studies and brought more interdisciplinary research topics to artificial intelligence. Embodied perspective brings a necessity of working with the physical world and systems which came alongside robotics. Robotics are essential for the embodied artificial perspective due to their differing capabilities from computers; computers define the inputs; robots can interact with the physical world via their own body. Researchers working on embodied AI are moving away from an algorithm-driven approach to robots interacting with the physical world. Embodied Artificial intelligence tries to figure out how biological systems work first, then construct basic rules of intelligent behavior, and finally apply that knowledge to create artificial systems, robots, or intelligent devices. Embodied artificial intelligence has a large scale of applications and research. For instance, the embodied artificial approach can be seen in micro- and nano-mechatronic systems and evolvable hardware, top-down bio-synthetic systems research, bottom-up chemo-synthetic systems, and biochemical systems. The majority of embodied artificial intelligence focuses on robot training and autonomous vehicle technologies. Autonomous vehicles have a significant interest in embodied artificial intelligence applications because this technology allows driving and making possible judgments based on what they see as humans do. Traditional neuropsychological research widely acknowledged that when an internal representation of the outside world is activated somewhere in the brain, it leads to a perceptual experience. Embodied cognition challenges this claim by stating that the existence of cortical maps in the brain fails to explain and account for the subjective character of people's perceptual experiences. For example, they cannot sufficiently explain the apparent stability of the visual world despite eye movements, the filling-in of the blind spot, or visual illusions such as "change blindness" which reveal apparent imperfections in the visual system. From an embodied cognition perspective, perception is not a passive reception of (incomplete) sensory inputs for which the brain must compensate to provide us with a coherent picture. The brain interprets the outside world based on an individual's intentions, memories, and emotions, as well as the environment and the specific situation the individual is in. Perception involves more complex processes than simply receiving inputs (or visual stimuli) from the external world to output actions in response to them. Perception is an active process conducted by a perceiving agent (a perceiver); it entails an engaged perceiver and is influenced by the agent's experiences and intentions, its bodily states, and the interaction between the agent's body and the environment around it. One example of such active interaction between perception and the body is the case that distance perception can be influenced by bodily states. The way people view the outside world can differ depending on the physical resources that individuals have such as fitness, age, or glucose levels. For instance, in one study, people with chronic pain who are less capable of moving around perceived given distances as further than healthy people did. Another study shows that intended actions can affect processing in visual search, with more orientation errors for pointing than for grasping. Because orientation is important when grasping an object, the plan to grasp an object is thought to improve orientation accuracy. This shows how actions, the body's interaction with the environment, can contribute to the visual processing of task-relevant information. Perception also influences the perspective individuals to take on a particular situation and the type of judgments they make. For instance, researchers have shown that people will significantly more likely take the perspective of another person (e.g., a person in a picture) instead of their own when making judgements about objects in a photograph. This means that the presence of people (as compared to only objects) in a visual scene affects the perspective a viewer takes when making judgements on, for example, relations between objects in the scene. Some researchers state that these results suggest a "disembodied" cognition given the fact that people take the perspective of others instead of their own and make judgments accordingly. Embodied cognition views on language describes how when humans comprehend words, sensorimotor areas are involved in interacting with the objects and entities the words refer to. First experimental studies of the impact of body's sex, age and constitution (temperament) on language perception and use emerged in 1995-99 and expanded from 2010s The embodiment effect initially was called "projection through capacities" and emerged as a tendency of people attribute meaning to common adjectives and abstract and neutral nouns depending on their endurance, tempo, plasticity, emotionality, sex or age. For example, in these studies males with stronger motor-physical endurance estimated abstractions describing people-, work/reality- and time-related concepts in more positive terms than males with a weaker endurance. Females with stronger social or physical endurance estimated social attractors in more positive terms than weaker females. Both male and female temperament groups with higher sociability showed a universal positive bias in their estimations of social concepts, in comparison to participants with lower sociability. Over the last years, behavioral and neural evidence has shown that the process of language comprehension activates motor simulations and involves motor systems. Some researchers have investigated mirror neurons to illustrate the link between the mirror neuron systems and language suggesting that some aspects of language (such as part of semantics and phonology) can be embodied in the sensorimotor system represented by mirror neurons. It is well known that language has a multi-component structure, one of which is language comprehension. Research on embodied cognition shows that language comprehension involves the motor system. In addition, various studies explain that understanding linguistic explanations of actions is based on a simulation of the action described. These action simulations also include evaluation of the motor system. A study in which university students evaluated language comprehension and motor system with a pendulum swinging task while performing a "sentence judgment task" found significant changes in functions containing performable sentences. Another study used the mirror neurons perspective to illustrate the relationship between the motor system and several language components. Because mirror neurons are one of the essential parts of the motor system, researchers compared monkeys and humans in an anatomical framework; specifically, they made the comparison with respect to Broca's area. Another study concerning the role of mirror neurons during learning via language usage stated that activations occurred in Broca's area even when participants watched other people's conversations without hearing the sounds. An fMRI study examining the relationship of mirror neurons in humans with linguistic materials has shown that there are activations in the premotor cortex and Broca's area when reading or listening to sentences associated with actions. According to these findings, researchers state that there is a connection between the motor system and language. They also argue that the motor system together with mirror neurons mechanisms can process certain aspects of language. As of 2014[update], literature mainly focuses on the relation between language and embodied cognition on a motor system, more precisely by mirror neuron explanations. This relationship also extends to cognitive capabilities which involve a variety of language components. Studies have examined how embodied and extended cognition can help to reconceptualize and ground second language acquisition. The nature of language acquisition extends cognitive capability itself due to the fact that it has multiple components which have embodied representations associated with language processing and provide a ground concept for language. The body has an essential role in shaping the mind. So, the mind must be understood in the context of its relationship with a physical body that interacts in the world. These interactions can also be cognitive activities in everyday life, such as driving, chatting, and imagining the placement of items in a room. These cognitive activities are limited by memory capacity. The relationships between memory and embodied cognition have been demonstrated in studies in different fields and through various tasks. In general, studies on embodied cognition and memory investigate how manipulations on the body cause changes in memory performance, or vice versa, manipulations through memory tasks subsequently lead to bodily changes. Researchers have drawn attention to the relationship between memory and action from an embodied cognition approach where memory is defined as integrated patterns of actions limited by the body. On the one hand, embodied cognition sees action preparation as a fundamental function of cognition. On the other hand, memory plays a role in tasks that do not occur in the present but involve remembering actions and information from the past and imagining events that may or may not happen in the future. Glenberg blurs this apparent dichotomy by arguing that there is a reciprocal relationship between memory, action, and perception. Accordingly, manipulations that can take place in the body or movement can lead to changes in memory. Researchers have also investigated the influence of body position on ease of recall in an autobiographical memory study to examine the effect of embodied cognition on memory performance. Participants were asked to take positions compatible or incompatible with their original body position of the remembered event during a recall event. Researchers found out that participants given compatible body positions compared to incompatible body positions showed faster responses in recalling memories during the experiment. Thus, they concluded that body position facilitates access to autobiographical memories. The relationship between memory and body has also emphasised that memory systems depend on the body's experiences with the world. This is particularly evident in episodic memory because this type of memories in the episodic memory system are defined by their content and are remembered as experienced by the person who is remembering. Research has also investigated the relationship between embodiment and memory by recalling collective and personal memories indicating how embodiment enriches the understanding of memory. Embodied memory research through the recalling of personal traumas and violent memories has reported that people who have experienced trauma or violence re-feel their experiences in their narratives throughout their lives. In addition, memories that threaten a person's life by directly affecting the body, such as injury and physical violence, recreate similar reactions again in the body while remembering the event. For example, people can report feeling smells, sounds, and movements when remembering childhood trauma memories. A proper evaluation of those memories and the corresponding physical and physiological phenomena associated with them could describe how those set of recalled memories are embodied. New perspectives on the neural structure and memory processes underlying embodied cognition, episodic memory, recall, and recognition have also been explored. As experiences are received, neural states are reenacted in action, perception, and introspection systems. Perception includes sensory modalities; motor modalities include movement; and introspection includes emotional, mental, and motivational states. All of these modalities altogether constitute different aspects that shape experiences. Therefore, cognitive processes applied to memory support the action that is appropriate for a particular situation, not by remembering what the situation is, but by remembering the relationship of the action to that situation. For example, remembering and identifying the party one attended the previous day is said to be related to the body because the sensory-motor aspects of the event that is being recalled (i.e., the party), along with the details of what happened, are being reconstructed. Research on embodied cognition and learning suggests that learning could occur and be triggered by perception-action interactions of the body with the surrounding environment. An embodied cognitive approach to child development provides insights into how infants attain spatial knowledge and develop spatial skills that allow them to (successfully) interact with the world around them. Most infants learn to walk in the first 18 months of life, which draws on ample new opportunities for exploring things around them. In this exploration, infants learn spatial relations, and by carrying objects from one place to another, they may also learn affordances such as "transportability". Thereafter, new phases in exploration may occur through which infants can discover other even more elaborate affordances. According to Eleanor Gibson, exploration takes an essential place in cognitive development. For example, infants explore whatever is in their vicinity by seeing, mouthing, or touching it before learning to reach objects nearby. Then, infants learn to crawl, which enables them to seek out objects beyond reaching distance, learn basic spatial relations between themselves, objects, and others, and get an understanding of depth and distance. This development of motor skills through the exploration of the physical and social world seems to play a central role in visual-spatial cognition. Embodied perception-action experience may serve as a tool for learning that extends across the life span, from infancy to adulthood. Research on the role of action in early as well as educational learning contexts demonstrates the importance of embodiment for learning. In one experiment, three-month-old infants who were not skilled in reaching were trained to reach for objects with velcro-covered mittens instead. Afterward, the assessments and comparison with the control group showed that infants can rapidly form goal-based action representations and view others' actions as goal-directed. Further research indicates that mere observational experience by infants does not produce these results. Similarly, research has shown how action and bodily movements can be used as scaffolds for learning. A study investigating whether infants at high risk for developing autism spectrum disorders (ASD) could benefit from action scaffolded interventions (reaching experiences) during early development indicates an increase in grasping activity following training. And thus, it provides evidence about the possibility for high-risk of ASD infants to learn and respond to action-based treatment interventions. Another study investigates how teaching methods can benefit from embodiment and proposes that a professor's movements and gestures contribute to learning by growing students' embodied experiences in the classroom, leading to an increased capacity to recall. The action-based language theory (ABL) states that aspects of embodiment are also relevant for language learning and acquisition. ABL proposes that the brain exploits the same mechanisms used in motor control for language learning. When adults, for example, call attention to an object and an infant follows the lead and attends to said object, canonical neurons are activated and affordances of an object become available to the infant. Simultaneously, hearing the articulation of the object's name leads to the activation of speech mirror mechanisms in infants. This chain of events allows for Hebbian learning of the meaning of verbal labels by linking the speech and action controllers, which get activated in this scenario. The role of gestures in learning is another example of the importance of embodiment for cognition. Gestures can aid, facilitate and enhance learning performance, or compromise it when the gestures are restricted or meaningless to the content that is being transmitted. In a study using the Tower of Hanoi (TOH) puzzle, participants were divided into two groups. In the first part of the experiment, the smallest disks used in TOH were the lightest and could be moved using just one hand. For the second part, this was reversed for one group (switch group) so that the smallest disks were the heaviest, and participants needed both hands to move them. The disks remained the same for the other group (no-switch group). After the experiment ended, participants were asked to explain their solution while researchers monitored their gestures when describing their solution. The results showed that using gestures affected the performance of the switch group in the second part of the experiment. The more they used one-handed gestures to depict their solution in the first part of the experiment, the worse they performed in the second part. A study investigating the role of gestures in second language learning states that learning the vocabulary with self-performed gestures increases learning outcomes. The enduring benefits continued even after two and six months post-learning. In addition, the same study also investigated the neural correlates of learning a second language with gestures. The results indicate that left premotor areas and the superior temporal sulcus (a brain region responsible for visual processing of biological motion) were activated during learning with gestures. Similarly, an fMRI study showed that children who learned to solve mathematical problems using a speech and gesture strategy were more likely to have activation in motor regions of the brain. The activation of motor regions occurred during scans in which children were not using gestures to solve the problems. These findings indicate that learning with gestures creates a neural trace of the motor system that goes beyond the learning phase and activates when children engage with problems they learned to solve with gestures. Embodied cognition has also been linked to both reading and writing. Research shows that physical and perceptual engagements congruent with the content of the reading material can boost reading comprehension. Findings also suggest that the benefits accrued from handwriting as compared to typing in letter recognition and written communication result from the more embodied nature of handwriting. Experiments investigating the relation between motor processes and high-level reasoning have suggested that bodily action and sensorimotor experience are linked to various aspects of reasoning. A study indicated that even though most individuals recruit visual processes when presented with spatial problems such as mental rotation tasks, motor experts (such as wrestlers) favor motor processes over visual encoding to manipulate the objects mentally, showing higher overall performance. Results indicate that motor experts' performance drops once the (hand) movement is inhibited. A related study showed that motor experts use similar processes for the mental rotation of body parts and polygons, whereas non-experts treated these stimuli differently. These results were not due to underlying confounds, as demonstrated by a training study that showed mental rotation improvements after a one-year motor training compared with controls. Similar patterns were also found in working memory tasks, with the ability to remember movements being significantly disrupted by a secondary verbal task in controls and by a motor task in motor experts, suggesting the involvement of different mechanisms to encode movements based on either verbal or on motor processes. The role of motor experience in reasoning has also been investigated through gestures. The Gesture as Simulated Action theory (GSA) provides a framework for understanding how gestures manifest their connection. According to GSA, gestures result from the embodied simulation of actions and sensorimotor states. Consequently, gesturing while expressing or reasoning ideas shows that embodied processes are involved in producing them. More significantly, gesturing heightens focus and increases activation of motor and perceptual information. Gestures are said to have a casual role in reasoning as gesturing leads to increased motor and perceptual information flow during the reasoning process. This does not necessarily translate into more effective reasoning, as such information is sometimes irrelevant for a specific problem. The effects of gestures on reasoning are not limited only to speakers; they convey information that also affects listeners' reasoning. For example, listeners could produce similar simulations to those of the speaker by attending to the speaker's gestures. More evidence for the embodied role of gestures during reasoning comes from studies on mathematical and geometric reasoning. Studies indicate that gestures and, more particularly, dynamic depictive gestures (i.e., gestures used to represent and show the transformation of objects) are linked to better performance in snap judgment (intuition), insight, and mathematical reasoning for proof. Additionally, the use of dynamic depictive gestures are associated with better mathematical reasoning, and thus, directing learners to use such gestures facilitates justification and proof activities. Embodied cognition theory has been applied in behavioral law and economics theory to enlighten reasoning and decision-making processes involving risk and time, decisions, and judgment. Research has shown that the idea that mental processes are grounded in bodily states is not being captured in the standard view of human rationality and the link between them could be useful for understanding and predicting human actions that seem irrational. The concept of "embodied rationality" results from expanding such ideas into law and highlights how findings stemming from embodied cognition offer a more encompassing insight into human behavior and rationality. Embodied cognition theories have provided rigorous accounts of emotion and the processing of information about emotion. In this respect, experiencing and re-experiencing an emotion involve overlapping mental processes. Research has shown that one re-experiences emotion through the interconnections of the neurons that were active during the original experience. During the re-experience process, a partial multimodal reenactment of the experience is produced. One reason why only parts of the original neural populations are reactivated is that attention is selectively focused on certain aspects of the experience that are most salient and important for the individual. The first theory of embodiment effect on emotions is known as James–Lange theory, after 19th century scientists William James and Carl Lange. They pointed out that physiological arousal prior events generates a disposition to experience emotions, and so emotions are not just reactions to these events but are also reflections of dispositional body's states Re-experience of emotion is produced in the originally implicated sensory-motor systems as if the individual were there, in the very situation, the very emotional state, or with the very object of thought. For example, the embodiment of anger might involve muscle tension used to strike, the enervation of certain facial muscles to frown, etc. Such simulation is backed by a specialized mirror neuron or a "mirror neuron system", which maps the correspondences between the observed and performed actions. A remaining issue is the lack of consensus about the exact location of the mirror neurons, whether they constitute a system, and whether there actually are mirror neurons. Theories of embodiment propose that the processing of emotional states and the concepts used to refer to them are partly based on one's own perceptual, motor, and somatosensory systems. Research has shown, through manipulations of facial expressions and posture under controlled laboratory settings, how the embodiment of a person's emotion casually affects the way emotional information is processed. Similar studies have evidenced that nodding the head while listening to persuasive messages led to more positive attitudes toward the message than when shaking the head. When people are led to adopt certain bodily positions indirectly associated with different feelings such as fear, anger, and sadness, these corporeal postures are said to modulate the experienced affect. In a series of experiments on the neurobiological basis of language, researchers investigated the role of embodiment in emotional language through electromyographic (EMG) measurements of specific muscle regions. They found that action verbs that refer to positive emotional expressions (e.g., to smile) elicit smile muscle activation as compared to mere positive adjectives unrelated to actions (e.g., funny). Further research found that action verb stimuli also yield muscle activation and shape judgment only when muscle activation is not inhibited. Thus, these results suggest that language is embodied rather than symbolic. Given the significant role emotions (e.g., fear and hope) play in an individual's life, research has been done linking embodiment, motivation, and behavior to investigate the intrinsic tendencies to act towards or away from a given stimulus. The approach and avoidance conflict (AAC) or approach and avoidance task (AAT) describes a natural behavioral bias to approach pleasant stimuli and avoid unpleasant ones (congruent response) faster than approaching unpleasant stimuli and avoiding pleasant ones (incongruent responses). The approach-avoidance distinction is fundamental and basic to motivation, so much that it may be used as a conceptual lens through which to view the structure and function of self-regulation The AAT has been investigated in different scenarios and with different types of stimuli such as words and images. A study focusing on the AAT on embodied cognition, for example, examined people's response to positive and negative words presented on the center of a screen by moving them away or towards the center. The study concludes that participants moved the given positive words towards the center of the screen while moving the negative words away from the center of the screen. In conformity with the AAT, participants showed an approach effect for positive words and avoidance effects for negative words. In a 2021 study on emotional or affective priming, the AAT was used to demonstrate the interaction between emotions and visual exploration. Pictures of news pages were presented on the computer screen and eye movements were measured. Researchers found out that the participants' harmonious bodily interaction during the emotional preparation process shows that their interest in the image's content displayed on the computer screen increased. These findings demonstrate the effect of emotional priming in the approach and avoidance behavior. A study on the behavioral aspects of the AAT suggests that there is an embodied component that is crucial to it. To investigate the role of gestures in AAT, participants were asked to react to positive and negative stimuli by either pressing a (far or near) button on a response pad; or by pushing forward or pulling backward a joystick. Researchers reported a significant response time advantage for the congruent responses when performed with the joystick and none when performed with the response pad. The fact that participants are faster at responding to the stimuli with the joystick seems to suggest the role of a crucial embodied component. In contrast to the response pad, the joystick couples more naturally with the body (hand) for the performance of the action and facilitates the gesture of approaching or avoiding positive or negative stimuli. Evolutionary psychologists view emotion as an important self-regulatory aspect of embodied cognition, and emotion as a motivator towards goal-relevant action. Emotion helps drive adaptive behavior. The evolutionary perspective considers both spoken and written language as forms of embodied cognition. Pacing and non-verbal communication reflect embodied cognition in spoken language. Technical aspects of written language (such as italics, all caps, and emoticons) promote an inner voice and thereby a sense of feeling rather than thinking about a written message. At least some abstract words are said to be semantically grounded in emotional knowledge; they are "embodied". Whereas the meanings of the words "eye" and "grasp" can be explained to a degree, by pointing to objects and actions, those of "beauty" and "freedom" can not. Abstract terms show a strong tendency to be semantically linked to knowledge about emotions. In addition, abstract words strongly activate the anterior cingulate cortex, a site known to be relevant for emotion processing. Motor system activation for emotion-expressing body parts was found when adults processed abstract emotion words, indicating that, for one important class of abstract concepts, semantic grounding in emotion-expressing action can partly explain the meaning–symbol link. The basic idea underlying findings on embodied cognition is that cognition is composed of experiences that are multimodal and spread throughout the body, not in a way that amodal semantic nodes are stored purely in the mind. In line with this idea of embodied cognition, the body itself can also be involved in self-regulation. Self-regulation can be defined as the capacity of organisms to successfully implement goal-consistent responses despite distracting or countervailing influences. Most people undergo a dilemma when they encounter immediate pains to gain long-term benefits. When facing this dilemma, the body can help augment willpower by evoking nonconscious willpower-strengthening goals that boost people's ongoing conscious attempts to facilitate their pursuit of long-term goals. In a study, the effect of muscle-firming on donating money to Haiti was investigated. The participants either held the pen to fill out the donation sheet in their fingers ("control conditions") or in their hands ("muscle-firming" condition). Significantly, more participants of the "muscle-firming" group donated money than of the control group. One can therefore deduce that firming one's muscles can help to get over their physical aversion to viewing the devastation in Haiti and spending money. Similarly, physical or environmental cues signal the energetic costs of action and, subsequently, influence willingness to engage in additional volitional action. Studies have also shown that exposure to physical or conceptual thirst or dryness-related cues reduces perceived energy and, successively, decreases self-regulation. These studies suggest that embodied cognition can play a role in self-regulation. Some suggest that the embodied mind serves self-regulatory processes by combining movement and cognition to reach a goal. Thus, the embodied mind has a facilitative effect. To navigate the social world, one must approach helpful resources such as friends and avoid dangers like foes. Facial expression can be a signal for evaluation of whether a person is desirable or dangerous. Embodied cognition can aid in clarifying others' emotions when emotional signals may be ambiguous. In a study, participants were able to identify expression shifts faster when they mimicked them in contrast to participants holding a pen in their mouths that froze their facial muscles, therefore, unable to mimic facial expressions. Other goal-relevant actions may be encouraged by embodied cognition, as evidenced by the automated approach and avoidance of certain environmental cues. Embodied cognition is also influenced by the situation. If one moves in a way previously associated with danger, the body may require a higher level of information processing than if the body moves in a way associated with a benign situation. The studies above may suggest that embodied cognition could serve a functional purpose by assisting in self-regulatory processes. In social psychology, and more specifically in social cognition, research focuses on how people interact and influence one another. In the context of embodiment, research in social cognition investigates how the presence of people and interactions between them affects each other's thoughts, feelings, and behavior. More precisely, social cognition proposes that thoughts, feelings, and behavior are grounded in sensorimotor experiences and bodily states. In the field of phenomenology, Merleau-Ponty's intercorporeity[transl. 5] means that when meeting a person, one initially experiences the other person via their bodily expressions, which has an impact before cognitive reflections. This phenomenon is investigated in social psychology and is known as nonverbal synchrony. Synchrony during social interaction arises spontaneously and is often independent of conscious information processing. In a dyadic social interaction study from 2014, same-sex participants interacted verbally in "cooperative", "competitive", and "fun task" conditions. The focus of this study was to investigate the connection between the participants' affectivity and nonverbal synchrony. Results showed that positive emotions were associated with positive synchrony while negative emotions were associated negatively. Other findings describe a causal relation between synchrony and emotions with synchrony leading to affect rather than vice versa. In a similar study, same-sex participant pairs were instructed to alternate asking certain questions and to progressively self-disclose. Results show that people spontaneously move together in space and synchronize their movement, enhancing the quality of interaction (embodied rapport). Self-disclosure and behavioral synchrony correlate with positive emotions towards another person. These two exemplary studies describe how nonverbal, behavioral synchrony of bodily movements influences the psychological experience of the interaction between people. These findings support the embodiment thesis idea of bodily experiences affecting people's psychological and emotional states. One aspect of social cognition concerns perspective-taking, which consists in perceiving a situation from another person's point of view. Two categories of perspective-taking include visual and spatial perspective-taking. Visual perspective-taking (VPT) is defined as viewing a situation from another person's point of view and understanding how they see the world. Spatial perspective-taking (SPT) involves the ability to access what spatial information another viewer is perceiving, such as the orientation of objects in relation to each other. Accordingly, VPT has two different levels. VPT1 refers to understanding what is in someone else's point of view; VPT2 entails adopting this point of view and understanding how the world is represented from this point of view. Both levels are grounded and situated, yet it is only VPT2 that is embodied; it is only VPT2 that relies on deliberate movement simulation. In the case of SPT, research has shown that not only the presence of another person in the position of potential actions on objects leads to SPT in participants, but also phrasing the query in terms of actions increases the number of people who participate in SPT. The embodiment of SPT is also dependent on sex and social skills. Males and people with lower social skills are said to have lower levels of embodiment in SPT as compared to females and people with higher social skills. Research suggests that aging affects social cognition and perspective-taking. In one study, four experiments evaluated implicit and explicit VPT as well as executive and social cognition measures in healthy young and older adults. Congruency effect (the detrimental effect of congruency of the alternative perspective on response time and accuracy) was detected in both egocentric and allocentric conditions in explicit VPT1 and VPT2. Incongruencies in VPT1 less influenced older adults. In VPT2, older adults showed a more significant congruency effect and influence of allocentric perspective during egocentric judgment. These results could explain the impairment of older adults in social tasks that rely on perspective-taking. As a part of the embodied cognition theory, proponents suggest that an organism's sensory and the motor systems are dynamically integrated. This idea is known as sensorimotor coupling which allows sensory information to be efficiently used during action. Similarly, the concept of sensorimotor contingencies (SMCs) states that the quality of perception is determined by the knowledge of how sensory information changes when one acts in the world. As an example, to look underneath an object, one has to bend down, shift one's head, and change the gaze direction. Proponents of the SMCs theory argue that every stimulus modality / sensory modality such as light, sound pressure, etc. follow specific rules (i.e. sensorimotor contingencies) that govern those changes of sensory information. Consequentially, since those rules differ between modalities, also the qualitative experience of them differs. There are multiple examples that highlight the distinction between SMCs of different modalities. An instance of an SMC distinct for the visual percept is the expansion of the flow pattern on the retina when the body moves forward and the analogous contraction when the body moves backward. In contrast, auditory SMCs are affected by head rotations which change the temporal asynchrony of a received signal between the right and the left ear. This movement mainly affects the amplitude and not the frequency of the sensory input. Support for the SMCs theory is brought forward by studies on sensory substitution and research on the field of robotics. Research on sensory substitution and sensory substitution devices investigates the replacement of one modality by another (e.g. visual information replaced by tactile information). The core idea is that sensorimotor contingencies of one modality are transmitted via another modality. Sensory augmentation aims for the perception of a new sense via already existing perceptual channels. In this case, sensory augmentation allows for new sensorimotor contingencies to be formed. In the field of robotics, researchers investigate, for example, how visual SMCs are learned on a neural level with the help of a robotic arm and dynamic neural fields. Applications Over the past years, embodied cognition research has gradually redeemed the scientific study of bodily experiences and simultaneously laid a theoretical and empirical foundation across multiple disciplines. Principles and findings underlying embodied cognition have begun to be transferred and applied in several fields ranging from education, robotics, clinical settings, social psychology, sports, to music. Embodied cognition findings have been translated into an overhaul of educational and teaching practices in favor of embodied learning and teaching methods. In particular, such embodied practices feature prominently in science education. For example, Energy Theater is a method for teaching about energy dynamics based on the embodied interaction theory. In this method, participants each play the role of a unit of energy, and together, they enact the transformation and transfer of energy in specific scenarios. The Human Orrery is another embodied educational method in which students learn about the Solar System through enactment. In this method, the position of the planets is marked by disks, and the participants enact the role of the planets by moving on their orbits. In a survey from 2020, researchers analyzed several frameworks that bring embodied cognition theory into clever classroom practices for the teaching and learning of mathematics. The embodied design-based research program identifies and classifies at least two forms of embodied designs: perception and action-based designs. In perception-based designs, the target is a/b concepts such as likelihood, slope, and proportional equivalence in geometrical similitude. The first step in this design involves asking students to use their naïve worldview to judge a set of material presented to them by their teacher, which affirms their naïve worldview. Afterward, teachers provide students with appropriate media and attempt to guide them to build models by following the formal procedure. In action-based designs, learners are presented with sensorimotor problems. Abrahamson and colleagues developed the "Mathematical Imagery Trainer" platform to explore this design. In one particular version of this platform, designed to teach proportions to learners, they moved two cursors with both hands to turn a screen green. The screen would only turn green when the height of right and left hands from the base had a particular ratio. Once learners discovered the strategy to solve this problem, the grid and numerals are added to the screen to shift learners from a qualitative to a quantitative understanding of the concept at hand. Overall, embodied cognition has served as a new framework for exploring the learning process and developing new educational practices. The older educational methods are slowly being replaced or complemented by the new approaches inspired by embodied cognition theory. Embodied cognition has increasingly informed educational practice, particularly in school settings. A 2025 scoping review by Faella, Digennaro and Iannaccone identified a range of embodied learning strategies applied in classrooms, demonstrating positive effects on student engagement, conceptual understanding, and learning outcomes. Key approaches include: The review also noted the importance of teacher training in embodied learning methods and the design of flexible classroom spaces that facilitate movement and interaction. Overall, the integration of embodied cognition principles into school curricula has been linked to improved academic performance, motivation, and cognitive development. Embodied cognition has significantly impacted artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics; it has contributed to the drastic changes AI has been through over the last years. Insights from embodied cognition have allowed researchers to build more dynamic robots with more fluid and more expressive motions facilitating better performance in complex scenarios. Shakey the robot is a well-known milestone in AI; it was one of the first approaches to building mobile robots capable of reasoning about their own actions and performing specific tasks in a determined environment. Shakey had a relatively simple body and followed commands by itself, melding logical reasoning with physical action to navigate in a room. A limitation was that Shakey's architecture (Lisp) relied heavily on symbolic computational principles that, consequently, demanded that it iterate through long command sequences to perform a particular action. Thus, Shakey was slow and could take days to complete particular tasks. Besides, Shakey's performance was constrained by a highly controlled environment. Embodied AI tries not to overlook or underestimate the "body" when creating AI systems. It poses that future research should move towards systems that incorporate embodied perspectives. The body as a contributor to states of the mind is seen as more than a mere follower of (algorithmic) instructions. Embodiment is said to shape intelligent information processing because "intelligence is fundamentally a result of embodied interaction which exploits structure in the world". Embodied AI gave birth to situated robotic perspectives that included more versatile AI architectures. Situated robotics are based on an incremental approach to AI and reliance on parallel activity producers that interface effectively with action and perception. Unlike traditional robots, situated robots perform better in complex and dynamic environments that create unpredictable situations for robots most of the time. The behavior of these robots changes according to their environment so that they can deal with incredibility in various situations. For instance, social situations are rife with unpredictability, and social robots need to be able to predict all sorts of behaviors—human or otherwise. In this vein, Jun Tani's lab has introduced an abstract brain model called PV-RNN, based on the principle of free energy, and has incorporated a meta-prior in it. While a high meta-prior leads to a confident behavior generation in robots and ignores the behavior of other robots, robots with a low meta-prior adapt to the behaviour of other robots and avoid generating their own behavioral pattern. Instances of situated robots include aerial robots developed by companies such as senseFly, which produces fixed-wing autonomous drones for professional use, owned by Parrot SA, and Flyability, which builds drones for the inspection and exploration of indoor and confined spaces. They rely on the research of Dario Floreano's laboratory on mini-robots and evolutionary robotics. Another example of situated robots is Atlas. Built in 2013 by Boston Dynamics, Atlas is an anthropomorphic robot with a height of 1.5 m and a weight of 89 kg that can move with agility and diversity in various situations. The algorithms of Atlas allow for the complex and dynamic interaction between its body and the environment. The movement of Atlas is driven by perception and has evolved over time from on-fly adjustment to perceiving its environment. The procedures and methods of investigation in clinical neuropsychology have been directly influenced by localization and computational approaches to cognition. These techniques have made numerous contributions to the development of clinical practice. Embodied cognition broadens the scope of clinical practice by providing a more comprehensive view of cognitive processes under both normal and pathological conditions by highlighting the role of the body and sensory-motor experience in cognition. Thereby, challenging the integration of embodied cognitive practices in clinical assessment and diagnosis processes. For instance, there exist a number of interventions and therapies which are incorporating the ability of the body to influence cognitive states to aid individuals with psychological difficulties. An example is the already established use of behavioral treatments for children's disorders such as autism. Another example of embodied integrative therapies involves sensorimotor retraining as well as stimulation techniques to prevent, reduce, or release pain associated with phantom limbs. Also, fields of psychotherapy (body oriented psychotherapy and somatic psychology), which are prominent in Europe and encompasses embodied interventions such as dance and movement therapy, have begun to receive more empirical support. Vittorio Guidano's post-rationalist cognitive therapy builds on Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela's theory of autopoiesis and postulates that human knowledge is emotional and embodied. One of the most common integrative treatments of mental illness to the western psychosocial sphere is via mindfulness practices and exercise. Embodied cognitive perspectives can inform and impact motor skill research in the fields of sport and sport psychology. Studies have shown that the embodiment thesis comes into action through many ways in sport such as sport-related action-specific perception, understanding, prediction, judgement, training, and language comprehension. From an embodied cognition perspective, a study examined the relationship between previous motor and visual experience and the current officiating experience of expert judges and referees. It was reported that sports judges who had performed the judged tasks and/or had experience observing others perform the specific tasks would achieve better in judging a specific sport activity compared to someone without this motor and observational experience. In another study, reading comprehension and memory were shown to be improved if the subject would simultaneously read the description of certain physical activity (e.g. basketball actions) and perform physical manipulations that were consistent with them. The action-based theory of reading comprehension states that the sensory system and motor system are involved during the process of understanding, imagining, and remembering an action described in a story, as if the reader was actually perceiving or executing that action. These and similar studies show the influence of embodied cognition in sport and sport psychology. Embodied music cognition is a paradigm that puts forward the idea that bodily interactions with music significantly affect music cognition. Researchers proposed that musical emotions, meaning, and the feelings evoked by listening to music, are the vehicle for the embodiment of abstract thoughts. Thus music has a specific cognitive function that allows for this possibility. Researcher have suggested embodied music cognition occurs at two levels: the surface level and the primary level. The surface level includes psychomotor activities of a music performer, visible bodily reactions to music, and rhythmic entrainment. The primary level of embodied music cognition is the tonal/temporal encoding of it; it commands the surface level. The research on embodied music cognition focuses on two main trends: exploring embodiment and expanding the concept of embodiment in music. The first trend includes studies investigating bodily articulation and gesturing in relation to music. Embodied music cognition considers musical experiences from an action and perception viewpoint. One can observe that many people move when they listen to music; in many cultures there is no clear distinction between music and dance. Through the different movements of the body, it is assumed that people are able to give meaning to music. This perspective is different from the traditional approach to music cognition, which bases musical meaning on merely perception-based analysis of musical structure. Through the measurement of sounds, movement, human physiology, and computational modeling, embodied music cognition is constantly building up reliable knowledge about the role of the human body in musical meaning formation. Marina Korsakova-Kreyn (2018) proposes that musical cognition operates on two interrelated levels of embodiment. The surface level refers to observable bodily responses to music, including performers’ motor actions, visible gestures, and rhythmic entrainment in listeners. This level reflects the apparent physical articulation of musical experience. The deep level is less visible and concerns the internal physiological and perceptual responses to tonal and temporal structures. Korsakova-Kreyn argues that musical meaning originates in how the body reacts to tonal relationships arranged over time. These relationships are built from basic melodic intervals that vary in tonal stability, consonance, and dissonance, creating expectations that guide melodic intentionality and the perception of musical motion. Tonal–temporal structures are therefore understood as encoding musical content that shapes motor behavior and underlies emotional and cognitive responses to music. This model links traditional musicological concepts with findings from music perception, affective neuroscience, and brain plasticity in musicians. The theory focuses on tonal music of the European tradition and does not address aleatoric or non-Western musical systems. To make the model accessible to nonmusicians, the original paper includes explanations of basic music theory. Embodied music cognition is potentially applicable to better understand the role of music in social interactions. Multiple studies show that children move more synchronously with music when they dance as a group. The second trend includes studies that strive to connect embodied music cognition to other research fields such as neurology and psychology. For example, a study showed that people who have Parkinson's disease and are primed by music instead of metronomes beeps are capable of both entrainment and control. The study suggests that using the body to produce timed sequences of action, particularly when music is used as a pacing cue, allows people who have Parkinson's disease to achieve similar performance levels as healthy individuals. The embodiment has also important potential applications in social psychology, where researchers have studied how people's own bodily states influence their understanding and interaction with others. Researchers have provided evidence demonstrating the influence of bodily states on social judgments and social behavior. They described that people's experiences with physical temperature per se can influence their perceptions of and prosocial behavior toward other people, without their awareness. When people engage in motor movements that symbolized a particular social category, it primes the use of such category in social judgment. Activists have tried to combine social psychology research with principles of embodiment to further their goals. For instance, virtual reality (VR) has been used in what is called virtual reality therapy to invoke empathy in viewers. The New York Times created a VR project to display the experience of child refugees called "The Displaced". By grounding users in the experience of child refugees from different countries, this project triggered strong empathy in viewers. In the "6 x 9" project, Guardian has used VR to replicate the experience of solitary confinement in American prisons. "Notes on Blindness: Into Darkness" released in 2016, an exploration of the sensory, emotional, psychological experience of blindness using VR. Controversy Research on embodied cognition is extremely broad, covering a wide range of concepts. Methods to study how human cognition is embodied vary from experiment to experiment based on the operational definition used by researchers. The evidence supporting embodiment abounds within the different sciences, yet the interpretation of results and their significance are still disputed and researchers continue looking for appropriate ways to study and explain embodied cognition. Interbrain neuroscience research in adults and growing evidence of goal-directed behavior in fetuses raise doubts regarding independence and self-sufficiency of the embodied cognition position. Indeed, there are severe concerns about this viewpoint as the only possible way to explain cognitive development in organisms at an early stage; it seems that the complex process of emerging cognition requires complementary views. The binding problem is the viewpoint on how organisms at the simple reflexes stage of development overcome the threshold of the environmental chaos of sensory stimuli. Using mathematical tools of communication theory, it shows the insuperable high threshold of the cacophony of environmental stimuli (the stimuli noise) for young organisms at the onset of life. While young organisms need to combine objects, backgrounds, and abstract or emotional features into a single experience to build a surrounding reality, they cannot independently distinguish relevant sensory stimuli. Even the embodied dynamical system approach cannot get around the cue to noise problem. This ability requires categorizing the environment into objects that come into being through (and only after) perception and intentionality. Embodied cognition position does not solve this problem. Researchers have suggested that pre-verbal infants may be considered an ideal and naturalistic case for studying embodied cognition, especially embodied social cognition since they utilise symbols less than adults do. Some researchers have criticised this notion since it may be impossible to know which stage of a preverbal infant is supposed to be the "ideal model" for embodied social cognition, as infant cognition changes dramatically throughout the preverbal period. A 9-month-old has reached a different developmental stage than a 2-month-old. Another major issue is whether or not a particular ability reflects an embodied mode of processing. Looking-time, for example, is said to likely be a better measure of embodied cognition than reaching because infants that age lack certain fine motor skills. Infants may first develop a passive mode of embodied cognition before they develop the active mode involving fine motor movements. Researchers have described how this is problematic in that there is no apparent reason to suppose that the abilities described through looking-time paradigm reflect embodied processing. For the distinction between embodied and symbolic modes of processing to be useful in generating testable experimental hypotheses, it must be clear what sort of evidence could, at least in principle, allow a researcher to determine whether or not any particular ability is embodied. A methodological phenomenon in the sciences is the replication crisis. Inside the field of embodied cognition, it indicates that certain findings have failed to be reproduced with the same results as the originals. Such studies have in common the embodiment idea that bodily experiences influence cognitive processes that are typically considered as mental. For example, power posing which is classified under embodied cognition because it states that having a person physically expand their body increases their confidence, failed to be replicated in several cases. Similarly, studies indicating that weight sensations activate concepts of importance, which in turn may affect morality-related variables, has also failed to be replicated. Researchers also could not replicate the previous findings claiming that holding a warm cup creates a sense of interpersonal warmth. Researchers failing to replicate the same results does not prove cognition is unaffected/uninfluenced by the body. There are still plenty of findings within the topic of embodied cognition that are scientifically sound. Some researchers state that many of the failed attempts to replicate embodiment findings are due to priming. And many cases of facilitative movements of the body due to priming may be incorrectly labeled as evidence of embodied cognition. The pencil-in-teeth study evidencing embodied cognition may be considered the result of priming. Researchers could have deduced that the quicker responses to positive sentences by participants engaging their smiling muscles indicated embodied cognition. Opponents argue that the effects obtained during this experiment were primed or facilitated by the engagement of certain facial muscles. Priming (pencil in teeth, lips) may causally induce certain perceptual-motor activity that, in turn, induces certain cognitive processes, without the perceptual-motor activity constituting cognitive processing. See also Notes References Further reading External links |
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Contents Cosplay Cosplay, a blend word of "costume play", is an activity and performance art in which participants called cosplayers wear costumes and fashion accessories to represent a specific character. Cosplayers often interact to create a subculture, and a broader use of the term "cosplay" applies to any costumed role-playing in venues apart from the stage. Any entity that lends itself to dramatic interpretation may be taken up as a subject. Favorite sources include anime, cartoons, manga, comic books, television series, musical artists, video games, memes, and in some cases, original characters. The term has been adopted as slang, often in politics, to mean someone pretending to play a role or take on a personality disingenuously. Cosplay grew out of the practice of fan costuming at science fiction conventions, beginning with Morojo's "futuristicostumes" created for the 1st World Science Fiction Convention held in New York City, United States, in 1939. The Japanese term "cosplay" (コスプレ, kosupure) was coined in 1983. A rapid growth in the number of people cosplaying as a hobby since the 1990s has made the phenomenon a significant aspect of popular culture in Japan, as well as in other parts of East Asia and in the Western world. Cosplay events are common features of fan conventions, and today there are many dedicated conventions and competitions, as well as social networks, websites, and other forms of media centered on cosplay activities. Cosplay is very popular among all genders, and it is not unusual to see crossplay, also referred to as gender-bending. Etymology The term "cosplay" is a Japanese blend word of the English terms costume and play. The term was coined by Nobuyuki Takahashi [ja] of Studio Hard in an article for the Japanese magazine My Anime [ja] in June 1983. Takahashi decided to coin a new word rather than use the existing translation of the English term "masquerade" because it implied nobility and was old-fashioned. The coinage reflects a common Japanese method of abbreviation in which the first two moras of a pair of words are used to form an independent compound: 'costume' becomes kosu (コス) and 'play' becomes pure (プレ). History Masquerade balls were a feature of the Carnival season in the 15th century, and involved increasingly elaborate allegorical Royal Entries, pageants, and triumphal processions celebrating marriages and other dynastic events of late medieval court life. They were extended into costumed public festivities in Italy during the 16th century Renaissance, generally elaborate dances held for members of the upper classes, which were particularly popular in Venice. In April 1877, French novelist Jules Verne sent out almost 700 invitations for an elaborate costume ball, where several of the guests showed up dressed as characters from Verne's novels. Costume parties (American English) or fancy dress parties (British English) were popular from the 19th century onwards. Costuming guides of the period, such as Samuel Miller's Male Character Costumes (1884) or Ardern Holt's Fancy Dresses Described (1887), feature mostly generic costumes, whether that be period costumes, national costumes, objects or abstract concepts such as "Autumn" or "Night". Most specific costumes described therein are for historical figures although some are sourced from fiction, like Alexandre Dumas' The Three Musketeers or William Shakespeare's characters. By March 1891, a literal call by one Herbert Tibbits for what would today be described as "cosplayers" was advertised for an event held from 5–10 March that year at the Royal Albert Hall in London, for the so-named Vril-Ya Bazaar and Fete based on a science fiction novel and its characters, published two decades earlier. A.D. Condo's science fiction comic strip character Mr. Skygack, from Mars (a Martian ethnographer who comically misunderstands many Earthly affairs) is arguably the first fictional character that people emulated by wearing costumes, as in 1908 Mr. and Mrs. William Fell of Cincinnati, Ohio, are reported to have attended a masquerade at a skating rink wearing Mr. Skygack and Miss Dillpickles costumes. Later, in 1910, an unnamed woman won first prize at masquerade ball in Tacoma, Washington, wearing another Skygack costume. The first people to wear costumes to attend a convention were science fiction fans Forrest J Ackerman and Myrtle R. Douglas, known in fandom as Morojo. They attended the 1939 1st World Science Fiction Convention (Nycon or 1st Worldcon) in the Caravan Hall, New York, US dressed in "futuristicostumes", including green cape and breeches, based on the pulp magazine artwork of Frank R. Paul and the 1936 film Things to Come, designed and created by Douglas. Ackerman later stated that he thought everyone was supposed to wear a costume at a science fiction convention, although only he and Douglas did. Fan costuming caught on, however, and the 2nd Worldcon (1940) had both an unofficial masquerade held in Douglas' room and an official masquerade as part of the programme. David Kyle won the masquerade wearing a Ming the Merciless costume created by Leslie Perri, while Robert A. W. Lowndes received second place with a Bar Senestro costume (from the novel The Blind Spot by Austin Hall and Homer Eon Flint). Other costumed attendees included guest of honor E. E. Smith as Northwest Smith (from C. L. Moore's series of short stories) and both Ackerman and Douglas wearing their futuristicostumes again. Masquerades and costume balls continued to be part of World Science Fiction Convention tradition thereafter. Early Worldcon masquerade balls featured a band, dancing, food and drinks. Contestants either walked across a stage or a cleared area of the dance floor. Ackerman wore a "Hunchbackerman of Notre Dame" costume to the 3rd Worldcon (1941), which included a mask designed and created by Ray Harryhausen, but soon stopped wearing costumes to conventions. Douglas wore an Akka costume (from A. Merritt's novel The Moon Pool), the mask again made by Harryhausen, to the 3rd Worldcon and a Snake Mother costume (another Merritt costume, from The Snake Mother) to the 4th Worldcon (1946). Terminology was yet unsettled; the 1944 edition of Jack Speer's Fancyclopedia used the term costume party. Rules governing costumes became established in response to specific costumes and costuming trends. The first nude contestant at a Worldcon masquerade was in 1952; but the height of this trend was in the 1970s and early 1980s, with a few every year. This eventually led to "No Costume is No Costume" rule, which banned full nudity, although partial nudity was still allowed as long as it was a legitimate representation of the character. Mike Resnick describes the best of the nude costumes as Kris Lundi wearing a harpy costume to the 32nd Worldcon (1974) (she received an honorable mention in the competition). Another costume that instigated a rule change was an attendee at the 20th Worldcon (1962) whose blaster prop fired a jet of real flame; which led to fire being banned. At the 30th WorldCon (1972), artist Scott Shaw wore a costume composed largely of peanut butter to represent his own underground comix character called "The Turd". The peanut butter rubbed off, doing damage to soft furnishings and other peoples' costumes, and then began to go rancid under the heat of the lighting. Food, odious, and messy substances were banned as costume elements after that event. Costuming spread with the science fiction conventions and the interaction of fandom. The earliest known instance of costuming at a convention in the United Kingdom was at the London Science Fiction Convention (1953) but this was only as part of a play. However, members of the Liverpool Science Fantasy Society attended the 1st Cytricon (1955), in Kettering, wearing costumes and continued to do so in subsequent years. The 15th Worldcon (1957) brought the first official convention masquerade to the UK. The 1960 Eastercon in London may have been the first British-based convention to hold an official fancy dress party as part of its programme. The joint winners were Ethel Lindsay and Ina Shorrock as two of the titular witches from the novel The Witches of Karres by James H. Schmitz. Star Trek conventions began in 1969 and major conventions began in 1972 and they have featured cosplay throughout. In Japan, costuming at conventions was a fan activity from at least the 1970s, especially after the launch of the Comiket convention in December 1975. Costuming at this time was known as kasō (仮装). The first documented case of costuming at a fan event in Japan was at Ashinocon (1978), in Hakone, at which future science fiction critic Mari Kotani wore a costume based on the cover art for Edgar Rice Burroughs' novel A Fighting Man of Mars.[Notes 1] In an interview Kotani states that there were about twenty costumed attendees at the convention's costume party—made up of members of her Triton of the Sea fan club and Kansai Entertainers (関西芸人, Kansai Geinin), antecedent of the Gainax anime studio—with most attendees in ordinary clothing. One of the Kansai group, an unnamed friend of Yasuhiro Takeda, wore an impromptu Tusken Raider costume (from the film Star Wars) made from one of the host-hotel's rolls of toilet paper. Costume contests became a permanent part of the Nihon SF Taikai conventions from Tokon VII in 1980. Possibly the first costume contest held at a comic book convention was at the 1st Academy Con held at Broadway Central Hotel in New York in August 1965. Roy Thomas, future editor-in-chief of Marvel Comics but then just transitioning from a fanzine editor to a professional comic book writer, attended in a Plastic Man costume. The first Masquerade Ball held at San Diego Comic-Con was in 1974 during the convention's 6th event. Voice actress June Foray was the master of ceremonies. Future scream queen Brinke Stevens won first place wearing a Vampirella costume. Ackerman (who was the creator of Vampirella) was in attendance and posed with Stevens for photographs. They became friends and, according to Stevens "Forry and his wife, Wendayne, soon became like my god parents." Photographer Dan Golden saw a photograph of Stevens in the Vampirella costume while visiting Ackerman's house, leading to him hiring her for a non-speaking role in her first student film, Zyzak is King (1980), and later photographing her for the cover of the first issue of Femme Fatales (1992). Stevens attributes these events to launching her acting career. As early as a year after the 1975 release of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, audience members began dressing as characters from the movie and role-playing (although the initial incentive for dressing-up was free admission) in often highly accurate costumes. Costume-Con, a conference dedicated to costuming, was first held in January 1983. The International Costumers Guild, Inc., originally known as the Greater Columbia Fantasy Costumer's Guild, was launched after the 3rd Costume-Con (1985) as a parent organization and to support costuming. Costuming had been a fan activity in Japan from the 1970s, and it became much more popular in the wake of Takahashi's report. The new term did not catch on immediately, however. It was a year or two after the article was published before it was in common use among fans at conventions. It was in the 1990s, after exposure on television and in magazines, that the term and practice of cosplaying became common knowledge in Japan. The first cosplay cafés appeared in the Akihabara area of Tokyo in the late 1990s. A temporary maid café was set up at the Tokyo Character Collection event in August 1998 to promote the video game Welcome to Pia Carrot 2 (1997). An occasional Pia Carrot Restaurant was held at the shop Gamers in Akihabara in the years up to 2000. Being linked to specific intellectual properties limited the lifespan of these cafés, which was solved by using generic maids, leading to the first permanent establishment, Cure Maid Café, which opened in March 2001. The first World Cosplay Summit was held on 12 October 2003 at the Rose Court Hotel in Nagoya, Japan, with five cosplayers invited from Germany, France and Italy. There was no contest until 2005, when the World Cosplay Championship began. The first winners were the Italian team of Giorgia Vecchini [it], Francesca Dani and Emilia Fata Livia. Worldcon masquerade attendance peaked in the 1980s and started to fall thereafter. This trend was reversed when the concept of cosplay was re-imported from Japan. Practice of cosplay Cosplay costumes vary greatly and can range from simple themed clothing to highly detailed costumes. It is generally considered different from Halloween and Mardi Gras costume wear, as the intention is to replicate a specific character, rather than to reflect the culture and symbolism of a holiday event. As such, when in costume, some cosplayers often seek to adopt the affect, mannerisms, and body language of the characters they portray (with "out of character" breaks). The characters chosen to be cosplayed may be sourced from any movie, TV series, book, comic book, video game, musical artist, anime, or manga. Some cosplayers even choose to cosplay an original character of their own design or a fusion of different genres (e.g., a steampunk version of a character), and it is a part of the ethos of cosplay that anybody can be anything, as with genderbending, crossplay, or drag, a cosplayer playing a character of another ethnicity, or a hijabi portraying Captain America. Cosplayers obtain their apparel through many different methods. Manufacturers produce and sell packaged outfits for use in cosplay, with varying levels of quality. These costumes are often sold online, but also can be purchased from dealers at conventions. Japanese manufacturers of cosplay costumes reported a profit of 35 billion yen in 2008. A number of individuals also work on commission, creating custom costumes, props, or wigs designed and fitted to the individual. Other cosplayers, who prefer to create their own costumes, still provide a market for individual elements, and various raw materials, such as unstyled wigs, hair dye, cloth and sewing notions, liquid latex, body paint, costume jewelry, and prop weapons. Cosplay represents an act of embodiment. Cosplay has been closely linked to the presentation of self, yet cosplayers' ability to perform is limited by their physical features. The accuracy of a cosplay is judged based on the ability to accurately represent a character through the body, and individual cosplayers frequently are faced by their own "bodily limits" such as level of attractiveness, body size, and disability that often restrict and confine how accurate the cosplay is perceived to be. Authenticity is measured by a cosplayer's individual ability to translate on-screen manifestation to the cosplay itself. Some have argued that cosplay can never be a true representation of the character; instead, it can only be read through the body, and that true embodiment of a character is judged based on nearness to the original character form. Cosplaying can also help some of those with self-esteem problems. Many cosplayers create their own outfits, referencing images of the characters in the process. In the creation of the outfits, much time is given to detail and qualities, thus the skill of a cosplayer may be measured by how difficult the details of the outfit are and how well they have been replicated. Because of the difficulty of replicating some details and materials, cosplayers often educate themselves in crafting specialties such as textiles, sculpture, face paint, fiberglass, fashion design, woodworking, and other uses of materials in the effort to render the look and texture of a costume accurately. Cosplayers often wear wigs in conjunction with their outfit to further improve the resemblance to the character. This is especially necessary for anime and manga or video-game characters who often have unnaturally colored and uniquely styled hair. Simpler outfits may be compensated for their lack of complexity by paying attention to material choice and overall high quality. To look more like the characters they are portraying, cosplayers might also engage in various forms of body modification. Cosplayers may opt to change their skin color utilizing make-up to more simulate the race of the character they are adopting. Contact lenses that match the color of their character's eyes are a common form of this, especially in the case of characters with particularly unique eyes as part of their trademark look. Contact lenses that make the pupil look enlarged to visually echo the large eyes of anime and manga characters are also used. Another form of body modification in which cosplayers engage is to copy any tattoos or special markings their character might have. Temporary tattoos, permanent marker, body paint, and in rare cases, permanent tattoos, are all methods used by cosplayers to achieve the desired look. Permanent and temporary hair dye, spray-in hair coloring, and specialized extreme styling products are all used by some cosplayers whose natural hair can achieve the desired hairstyle. It is also commonplace for them to shave off their eyebrows to gain a more accurate look. Some anime and video game characters have weapons or other accessories that are hard to replicate, and conventions have strict rules regarding those weapons, but most cosplayers engage in some combination of methods to obtain all the items necessary for their costumes; for example, they may commission a prop weapon, sew their own clothing, buy character jewelry from a cosplay accessory manufacturer, or buy a pair of off-the-rack shoes, and modify them to match the desired look. Cosplay may be presented in a number of ways and places. A subset of cosplay culture is centered on sex appeal, with cosplayers specifically choosing characters known for their attractiveness or revealing costumes. However, wearing a revealing costume can be a sensitive issue while appearing in public. People appearing naked at American science fiction fandom conventions during the 1970s were so common, a "no costume is no costume" rule was introduced. Some conventions throughout the United States, such as Phoenix Comicon (now known as Phoenix Fan Fusion) and Penny Arcade Expo, have also issued rules upon which they reserve the right to ask attendees to leave or change their costumes if deemed to be inappropriate to a family-friendly environment or something of a similar nature. The most popular form of presenting a cosplay publicly is by wearing it to a fan convention. Multiple conventions dedicated to anime and manga, comics, TV shows, video games, science fiction, and fantasy may be found all around the world. Cosplay-centered conventions include Cosplay Mania in the Philippines and EOY Cosplay Festival in Singapore. The single largest event featuring cosplay is the semiannual doujinshi market, Comic Market (Comiket), held in Japan during summer and winter. Comiket attracts hundreds of thousands of manga and anime fans, where thousands of cosplayers congregate on the roof of the exhibition center. In North America, the highest-attended fan conventions featuring cosplayers are San Diego Comic-Con and New York Comic Con held in the United States, and the anime-specific Anime North in Toronto, Otakon held in Washington, D.C. and Anime Expo held in Los Angeles. Europe's largest event is Japan Expo held in Paris, while the London MCM Expo and the London Super Comic Convention are the most notable in the UK. Supanova Pop Culture Expo is Australia's biggest event. Star Trek conventions have featured cosplay for many decades. These include Destination Star Trek, a UK convention, and Star Trek Las Vegas, a US convention. In different comic fairs, "Thematic Areas" are set up where cosplayers can take photos in an environment that follows that of the game or animation product from which they are taken. Sometimes the cosplayers are part of the area, playing the role of staff with the task of entertaining the other visitors. Some examples are the thematic areas dedicated to Star Wars or to Fallout. The areas are set up by not for profit associations of fans, but in some major fairs it is possible to visit areas set up directly by the developers of the video games or the producers of the anime. The appearance of cosplayers at public events makes them a popular draw for photographers. As this became apparent in the late 1980s, a new variant of cosplay developed in which cosplayers attended events mainly for the purpose of modeling their characters for still photography rather than engaging in continuous role play. Rules of etiquette were developed to minimize awkward situations involving boundaries. Cosplayers pose for photographers and photographers do not press them for personal contact information or private sessions, follow them out of the area, or take photos without permission. The rules allow the collaborative relationship between photographers and cosplayers to continue with the least inconvenience to each other. Some cosplayers choose to have a professional photographer take high quality images of them in their costumes posing as the character. Cosplayers and photographers frequently exhibit their work online and sometimes sell their images. As the popularity of cosplay has grown, many conventions have come to feature a contest surrounding cosplay that may be the main feature of the convention. Contestants present their cosplay, and often to be judged for an award, the cosplay must be self-made. The contestants may choose to perform a skit, which may consist of a short performed script or dance with optional accompanying audio, video, or images shown on a screen overhead. Other contestants may simply choose to pose as their characters. Often, contestants are briefly interviewed on stage by a master of ceremonies. The audience is given a chance to take photos of the cosplayers. Cosplayers may compete solo or in a group. Awards are presented, and these awards may vary greatly. Generally, a best cosplayer award, a best group award, and runner-up prizes are given. Awards may also go to the best skit and a number of cosplay skill subcategories, such as master tailor, master weapon-maker, master armorer, and so forth. The most well-known cosplay contest event is the World Cosplay Summit, selecting cosplayers from 40 countries to compete in the final round in Nagoya, Japan. Some other international events include European Cosplay Gathering (finals taking place at Japan Expo in Paris), EuroCosplay (finals taking place at London MCM Comic Con), and the Nordic Cosplay Championship (finals taking place at NärCon in Linköping, Sweden). This table contains a list of the most common cosplay competition judging criteria, as seen from World Cosplay Summit, Cyprus Comic Con, and ReplayFX. Portraying a character of the opposite sex is called crossplay. The practicality of crossplay and cross-dress stems in part from the abundance in manga of male characters with delicate and somewhat androgynous features. Such characters, known as bishōnen (lit. 'pretty boy'), are Asian equivalent of the elfin boy archetype represented in Western tradition by figures such as Peter Pan and Ariel. Male to female cosplayers may experience issues when trying to portray a female character because it is hard to maintain the sexualized femininity of a character. Male cosplayers may also be subjected to discrimination, including homophobic comments and being touched without permission. This affects men possibly even more often than it affects women, despite inappropriate contact already being a problem for women who cosplay, as is "slut-shaming". Animegao kigurumi players, a niche group in the realm of cosplay, are often male cosplayers who use zentai and stylized masks to represent female anime characters. These cosplayers completely hide their real features so the original appearance of their characters may be reproduced as literally as possible, and to display all the abstractions and stylizations such as oversized eyes and tiny mouths often seen in Japanese cartoon art. This does not mean that only males perform animegao or that masks are only female. "Cosplay Is Not Consent", a movement started in 2013 by Rochelle Keyhan, Erin Filson, and Anna Kegler, brought attention to the issue of sexual harassment in the convention attending cosplay community. Harassment of cosplayers include photography without permission, verbal abuse, touching, and groping. Harassment is not limited to women in provocative outfits as male cosplayers talked about being bullied for not fitting certain costume and characters. Starting in 2014, New York Comic Con placed large signs at the entrance stating that "Cosplay is Not Consent". Attendees were reminded to ask permission for photos and respect the person's right to say no. The movement against sexual harassment against cosplayers has continued to gain momentum and awareness since being publicized. Traditional mainstream news media like The Mercury News and Los Angeles Times have reported on the topic, bringing awareness of sexual harassment to those outside of the cosplay community. As cosplay has entered more mainstream media, ethnicity becomes a controversial point. Cosplayers of different skin color than the character are often ridiculed for not being 'accurate' or 'faithful'. Many cosplayers feel as if anyone can cosplay any character, but it becomes complicated when cosplayers are not respectful of the character's ethnicity. These views against non-white cosplayers within the community have been attributed to the lack of representation in the industry and in media. Issues such as blackface, brownface, and yellowface are still controversial since a large part of the cosplay community see these as separate problems, or simply an acceptable part of cosplay.[citation needed] Cosplay has influenced the advertising industry, in which cosplayers are often used for event work previously assigned to agency models. Some cosplayers have thus transformed their hobby into profitable, professional careers. Japan's entertainment industry has been home to the professional cosplayers since the rise of Comiket and Tokyo Game Show. The phenomenon is most apparent in Japan but exists to some degree in other countries as well. Professional cosplayers who profit from their art may experience problems related to copyright infringement. A cosplay model, also known as a cosplay idol, cosplays costumes for anime and manga or video game companies. Good cosplayers are viewed as fictional characters in the flesh, in much the same way that film actors come to be identified in the public mind with specific roles. Cosplayers have modeled for print magazines like Cosmode and a successful cosplay model can become the brand ambassador for companies like Cospa. Some cosplay models can achieve significant recognition. While there are many significant cosplay models, Yaya Han was described as having emerged "as a well-recognized figure both within and outside cosplay circuits". Jessica Nigri, used her recognition in cosplay to gain other opportunities such as voice acting and her own documentary on Rooster Teeth. Liz Katz used her fanbase to take her cosplay from a hobby to a successful business venture, sparking debate through the cosplay community whether cosplayers should be allowed to fund and profit from their work. In the 2000s, cosplayers started to push the boundaries of cosplay into eroticism paving the way to "erocosplay". The advent of social media coupled with crowdfunding platforms like Patreon and OnlyFans have allowed cosplay models to turn cosplay into profitable full-time careers. During protests During various protests, cosplaying as a satirization of important people and political events. In Myanmar various protests after the 2021 coup d'état various protests occurred with cosplayers. Youth groups protested on the roads by wearing cosplay costumes, skirts, wedding dresses, and other unusual clothing for daily life while holding signboards and vinyl banners that break with the country's more traditional protest messages for the purpose of grabbing attention from both domestic and international press media. Other times fictional characters are used to convey a message such as women dressing like characters from The Handmaid's Tale to protest bodily restrictions in the United States. Cosplay by country or region Cosplayers in Japan formerly referred to themselves as reiyā (レイヤー), pronounced "layer". In contemporary Japan, however, cosplayers are more commonly referred to as kosupure (コスプレ), pronounced "ko-su-pray", as the term reiyā is now more frequently used to describe literal layers (for example, hair or clothing). Words such as kawaii (可愛い) (lit. 'cute') and kakko ī (かっこいい) (lit. 'cool') were often used to describe these changes, expressions that were closely tied to notions of femininity and masculinity. Those who photograph players are known as cameko (カメコ), a shortened form of camera kozō (カメラ小僧) (lit. 'camera boy'). Originally, cameko would give printed photographs to players as gifts. Growing interest in cosplay events—both among photographers and cosplayers willing to model—has led to the formalization of procedures at events such as Comiket. Photography is conducted in designated areas separate from the exhibit halls. In Japan, wearing costumes outside of conventions or other designated areas is generally discouraged. Since 1998, Tokyo's Akihabara district has contained a number of cosplay restaurants catering to devoted anime and manga fans, in which waitresses dress as characters from video games, anime, or manga; maid cafés are particularly popular. In Japan, Tokyo's Harajuku district serves as a favored informal gathering place for engaging in cosplay in public. Events held in Akihabara also attract large numbers of cosplayers. Ishoku-hada (異色肌) is a form of Japanese cosplay in which players use body paint to alter their skin color to match that of the character they portray. This practice allows for the representation of anime or manga characters, as well as video game characters, with non-human skin tones. A 2014 survey conducted for the Comiket convention in Japan reported that approximately 75% of cosplayers attending the event were female. Cosplay is common in many East Asian countries. For example, it is a major part of the Comic World conventions taking place regularly in South Korea, Hong Kong and Taiwan. Historically, the practice of dressing up as characters from works of fiction can be traced as far as the 17th century late Ming dynasty China. Western cosplay developed primarily from science fiction and fantasy fandoms. Compared with Japan, Western cosplayers are more likely to portray characters originating from live-action television series and films. Western costuming traditions also encompass a variety of related hobbyist subcultures, including participants in Renaissance faires, live action role-playing games, and historical reenactments. Costume competitions at science fiction conventions commonly feature masquerades, in which costumes are formally judged during stage presentations, as well as hall costumes that are evaluated informally throughout the event. The growing international popularity of Japanese cartoon during the late 2000s contributed to a rise in American and other Western cosplayers portraying characters from manga and anime. Over the following decade, anime conventions became increasingly common across Western countries, often rivaling long-established science fiction, comic book, and historical conventions in terms of attendance. At these events, cosplayers—much like their Japanese counterparts—gather to display their costumes, be photographed, and participate in competitive costume events. Convention attendees also frequently choose to dress as characters from Western comic books, animated works, films, and video games. Despite increasing global exchange, cultural differences in taste remain evident. Certain costume styles that may be worn without hesitation by Japanese cosplayers are often avoided in Western contexts, particularly those that resemble Nazi uniforms. Western cosplayers may also encounter debates regarding legitimacy when portraying characters whose canonical racial backgrounds differ from their own, and instances of insensitivity toward cosplayers depicting characters of different skin tones have been documented. Western cosplayers who portray anime characters may likewise experience targeted ridicule or misunderstanding. In comparison with Japan, wearing costumes in public spaces is generally more socially accepted in countries such as the United Kingdom, Ireland, the United States, and Canada. These regions possess longer-standing traditions of Halloween costuming, fan dress, and related practices. Consequently, it is not uncommon for convention attendees in costume to be seen in nearby restaurants and public venues outside the immediate boundaries of the event itself. Media Japan is home to two especially popular cosplay magazines, Cosmode (コスモード) and ASCII Media Works' Dengeki Layers (電撃Layers). Cosmode has the largest share in the market and an English-language digital edition. Another magazine, aimed at a broader, worldwide audience is CosplayGen. In the United States, Cosplay Culture began publication in February 2015. Other magazines include CosplayZine featuring cosplayers from all over the world since October 2015, and Cosplay Realm Magazine which was started in April 2017. There are many books on the subject of cosplay as well. Cosplay groups and organizations See also Notes References Bibliography External links |
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Contents Wikipedia:Protection policy In some circumstances, pages may need to be protected from modification by certain groups of editors. Pages are protected when there is disruption that cannot be prevented through other means, such as blocks. Wikipedia is built on the principle that anyone can edit, and therefore aims to have as many pages open for public editing as possible so that anyone can add material and correct issues. This policy states in detail the protection types and procedures for page protection and unprotection, and when each protection should and should not be applied. Protection is a technical restriction applied only by administrators, although any user may request protection. Protection can be indefinite or expire after a specified time. The various levels of protection can be applied to the page edit, page move, page create, and file upload actions. Even when a page is protected from editing, the source wikitext of the page can still be viewed and copied by anyone. A protected page is marked at its top right by a padlock icon, usually added by the {{pp-protected}} template. The {{pp-protected}} template is automatically added by the {{documentation}} template used in template space. Overview of page protection Any protection applied to a page involves setting a type, level, and duration as follows: Preemptive protection Applying page protection solely as a preemptive measure is contrary to the open nature of Wikipedia and is generally not allowed. Instead, protection is used when vandalism, disruption, or abuse by multiple users is occurring at a frequency that warrants protection. The duration of protection should be as short as possible and at the lowest protection level sufficient to stop the disruption, allowing edits from as many productive users as possible. Exceptions include the Main Page, along with its templates and images, which are indefinitely fully protected. Additionally, Today's Featured Article is typically semi-protected from the day before its scheduled appearance on the Main Page until the day after it leaves. Finally, pages subject to Arbitration Committee remedies that permit or require preemptive protection may be protected accordingly. Requesting protection Page protection can be requested at Wikipedia:Requests for page protection. Changes to a protected page should be proposed on the corresponding talk page, and then (if necessary) requested by adding an edit request. From there, if the requested changes are uncontroversial or if there is consensus for them, the changes can be carried out by a user who can edit the page. Except in the case of office actions (see below), Arbitration Committee remedies, or pages in the MediaWiki namespace (see below), administrators may unprotect a page if the reason for its protection no longer applies, a reasonable period has elapsed, and there is no consensus that continued protection is necessary. Users can request unprotection or a reduction in protection level by asking the administrator who applied the protection on the administrator's user talk page. If the administrator is inactive, no longer an administrator, or does not respond, then a request for reduction in protection level may be filed. Note that such requests will normally be declined if the protecting administrator is active and was not consulted first. A log of protections and unprotections is available at Special:Log/protect. Summary table Protection types Edit protection restricts editing of a page, often due to vandalism or disputes, ensuring only experienced users can make changes (see above for more information). Administrators can prevent the creation of pages. This type of protection is useful for pages that have been deleted but repeatedly recreated. Such protection is case-sensitive. There are several levels of creation protection that can be applied to pages, identical to the levels for edit protection. A list of protected titles can be found at Special:ProtectedTitles (see also historical lists). Preemptive restrictions on new article titles are instituted through the title blacklist system, which allows for more flexible protection with support for substrings and regular expressions. Pages that have been creation-protected are sometimes referred to as "salted". Editors wishing to re-create a salted title with appropriate content should either contact an administrator (preferably the protecting administrator), file a request for reduction in protection level, or use the deletion review process. To make a convincing case for re-creation, it is helpful to show a draft version of the intended article when filing a request. Create protection of any duration may be applied to pages being repeatedly recreated in violation of policy using the lowest protection level sufficient to stop the disruption (autoconfirmed, extended-confirmed, or full). Due to the implementation of ACPERM, non-confirmed editors cannot create pages in mainspace; thus, semi-creation protection should be used only for protection of pages outside of mainspace. While creation-protection is usually permanent, temporary creation protection can be applied if a page is repeatedly recreated by a single user (or sockpuppets of that user, if applicable). Move-protected pages, or more technically, fully move-protected pages, cannot be moved to a new title except by an administrator. Move protection is commonly applied to: Move protection of any duration may be applied to pages being repeatedly moved in violation of policy using the lowest protection level sufficient to stop the disruption (extended-confirmed or full). Non-confirmed editors cannot move pages so semi-move protection has no effect. Fully edit-protected pages are also implicitly move-protected. As with full edit protection, protection because of edit warring should not be considered an endorsement of the current name. When move protection is applied during a requested move discussion, the page should be protected at the location it was at when the move request was started. All files and categories are implicitly move-protected, requiring file movers or administrators to rename files, and page movers or administrators to rename categories. Upload-protected files, or more technically, fully upload-protected files, cannot be replaced with new versions except by an administrator. Upload protection does not protect file pages from editing. It can be applied by an administrator to: Protection levels Pending changes protection allows unregistered and new users to edit pages, while keeping their edits hidden from unregistered users (who make up the vast majority of visitors to Wikipedia articles) until those changes are accepted by a pending changes reviewer or an administrator. An alternative to semi-protection, it is used to suppress vandalism and certain other persistent problems, while allowing all users to continue to submit edits. Pending changes is technically implemented as a separate option, with its own duration, and it yields to other edit protection levels in cases of overlap. When a page under pending changes protection is edited by an unregistered editor or a new user, the edit is not directly visible to the majority of Wikipedia readers, until it is reviewed and accepted by an editor with the pending changes reviewer right. When a page under pending changes protection is edited by an autoconfirmed user, the edit will be immediately visible to Wikipedia readers, unless there are pending edits waiting to be reviewed. Pending changes are visible in the page history, where they are marked as "pending review". Readers who are not logged in (the vast majority of readers) are shown the latest accepted version of the page; logged-in users see the latest version of the page, with all changes (reviewed or not) applied. When editors who are not reviewers make changes to an article with unreviewed pending changes, their edits are also marked as pending and are not visible to most readers. A user who clicks "edit this page" is always, at that point, shown the latest version of the page for editing regardless of whether the user is logged in or not. Pending changes are typically reviewed within several hours. Pending changes can be used to protect articles against: Pending changes protection should not be used as a preemptive measure against violations that have not yet occurred. Like semi-protection, pending changes protection should never be used in genuine content disputes, where there is a risk of placing a particular group of editors (unregistered users) at a disadvantage. Semi-protection is generally a better option for articles with a high edit rate as well as articles affected by issues difficult for pending changes reviewers to detect, such as non-obvious vandalism, plausible-sounding misinformation, and hard-to-detect copyright violations. In addition, administrators may apply temporary pending changes protection on pages that are subject to significant but temporary vandalism or disruption (for example, due to media attention) when blocking individual users is not a feasible option. As with other forms of protection, the time frame of the protection should be proportional to the problem. Indefinite PC protection should be used only in cases of severe long-term disruption. Removal of pending changes protection can be requested to any administrator, or at requests for unprotection. The reviewing process is described in detail at Wikipedia:Reviewing pending changes. Semi-protected pages may be edited only by registered users who are confirmed or autoconfirmed (accounts that are at least 4 days old and with at least 10 edits on English Wikipedia). Semi-protection is useful when there is a significant amount of disruption or vandalism from new or unregistered users, or to prevent sockpuppets of blocked or banned users from editing, especially when it occurs on biographies of living persons who have had a recent high level of media interest. An alternative to semi-protection is pending changes, which is sometimes favored when an article is being vandalized regularly, but otherwise receives a low amount of editing. Such users can request edits to a semi-protected page by proposing them on its talk page, using the {{Edit semi-protected}} template if necessary to gain attention. If the page in question and its talk page are both protected, the edit request should be made at Wikipedia:Requests for page protection instead. New users may also request the confirmed user right at Wikipedia:Requests for permissions/Confirmed. Semi-protection should not be used as a preemptive measure against vandalism that has not yet occurred or to privilege registered users over unregistered users in (valid) content disputes. Administrators may apply temporary semi-protection on pages that are: In addition, administrators may apply indefinite semi-protection to pages that are subject to heavy and persistent vandalism or violations of content policy (such as Wikipedia's biographies of living persons or neutral point of view policies). A page and its talk page should not normally be protected at the same time. In exceptional cases, if a page and its talk page are both protected, the talk page should direct affected editors to Wikipedia:Request for edit through the use of a non-iconified page protection template, to ensure that no editor is entirely prevented from contributing. Today's featured article is, since 2023, always semi-protected. However, this was historically not the case. Extended confirmed protection, previously known as 30/500 protection, restricts editing to users with the extended confirmed user access level, administrators, and bots. Extended confirmed is automatically granted to users one edit after their account has existed for at least 30 days and has made at least 500 edits. Where semi-protection has proven to be ineffective, administrators may use extended confirmed protection to combat disruption (vandalism, abusive sockpuppetry, edit wars, etc.) on any topic. Extended confirmed protection should not be used as a preemptive measure against disruption that has not yet occurred, nor should it be used to privilege extended confirmed users over unregistered/new users in valid content disputes (except as general sanction enforcement; see below). When necessary to prevent disruption in designated contentious topic areas, administrators are authorized to make protections at any level. (This is distinct from the extended confirmed restriction below.) Community-designated contentious topics grant similar authorizations. Some topic areas are under Arbitration Committee extended confirmed restriction as a general sanction. When such a restriction is in effect in a topic area, only extended-confirmed users may make edits related to the topic area. Enforcement of the restriction on articles primarily in the topic area is preferably done with extended confirmed protection, but it is not required (other enforcement methods are outlined in the policy). As always, review the policy before enforcing it. Community general sanctions, applying a similar extended confirmed restriction, have also been authorized by the community. General sanctions has a list of the active general sanctions that incorporate the extended confirmed restriction. High-risk templates can be extended confirmed–protected at administrator discretion when template protection would be too restrictive and semi-protection would be ineffective to stop widespread disruption. Extended confirmed protection can be applied at the discretion of an administrator when creation-protecting a page. A bot maintains a report of pages recently put under extended confirmed protection. Any protection made as arbitration enforcement will be automatically logged at Wikipedia:Arbitration enforcement log/Protections. Community-authorized discretionary sanctions must be logged on a page specific to the topic area. A full list of the 14975 pages under extended confirmed protection can be found here. Users can request edits to an extended confirmed–protected page by proposing them on its talk page, using the {{Edit extended-protected}} template if necessary to gain attention. A template-protected page can be edited only by administrators or users in the Template editors group. This protection level should be used almost exclusively on high-risk templates and modules. In cases where pages in other namespaces become transcluded to a very high degree, this protection level is also valid. This is a protection level that replaces full protection on pages that are merely protected due to high transclusion rates, rather than content disputes. It should be used on templates whose risk factor would have otherwise warranted full protection. It should not be used on less risky templates on the grounds that the template editor user right exists—the existence of the right should not result in more templates becoming uneditable for the general editing community. In borderline cases, extended confirmed protection or lower can be applied to high risk templates that the general editing community still needs to edit regularly. A full list of the pages under template protection can be found here. Editors may request edits to a template-protected page by proposing them on its talk page, using the {{Edit template-protected}} template if necessary to gain attention. A fully protected page cannot be edited or moved by anyone except administrators. Modifications to a fully protected page can be proposed on its talk page (or at another appropriate forum) for discussion. Administrators can make changes to the protected article reflecting consensus. Placing the {{Edit fully-protected}} template on the talk page will draw the attention of administrators for implementing uncontroversial changes. While content disputes and edit warring can be addressed with user blocks issued by uninvolved administrators, allowing normal page editing by other editors at the same time, the protection policy provides an alternative approach as administrators have the discretion to temporarily fully protect an article to end an ongoing edit war. This approach may better suit multi-party disputes and contentious content, as it makes talk page consensus a requirement for implementation of requested edits. When protecting a page because of a content dispute, administrators have a duty to avoid protecting a version that contains policy-violating content, such as vandalism, copyright violations, defamation, or poor-quality coverage of living people. Administrators are deemed to remain uninvolved when exercising discretion on whether to apply protection to the current version of an article, or to an older, stable, or pre-edit-war version. Fully protected pages may not be edited except to make changes that are uncontroversial or for which there is clear consensus. Editors convinced that the protected version of an article contains policy-violating content, or that protection has rewarded edit warring or disruption by establishing a contentious revision, may identify a stable version prior to the edit war and request reversion to that version. Before making such a request, editors should consider how independent editors might view the suggestion and recognize that continuing an edit war is grounds for being blocked. Administrators who have made substantive content changes to an article are considered involved and must not use their advanced permissions to further their own positions. When involved in a dispute, it is almost always wisest to respect the editing policies that bind all editors and call for input from an uninvolved administrator, rather than to invite controversy by acting unilaterally. If a deleted page is going through deletion review, only administrators are normally capable of viewing the former content of the page. If they feel it would benefit the discussion to allow other users to view the page content, administrators may restore the page, replace the contents with the {{Temporarily undeleted}} template or a similar notice, and fully protect the page to prevent further editing. The previous contents of the page are then accessible to everyone via the page history. Generic file names such as File:Photo.jpg, File:Example.jpg, File:Map.jpg, and File:Sound.wav are fully protected to prevent new versions from being uploaded. Furthermore, File:Map.jpg and File:Sound.wav are salted. The following pages and templates are usually fully protected for an indefinite period of time: As with full edit protection, administrators should avoid favoring one version over another, and protection should not be considered an endorsement of the current version. An exception to this rule is when they are protected due to upload vandalism. Pages can be protected by Wikimedia Foundation staff in response to issues such as copyright infringement or libel as outlined in Foundation:Policy:Office actions § Use of advanced rights by Foundation staff. Such actions override community consensus. Administrators should not edit or unprotect such pages without permission from Wikimedia Foundation staff. Cascading protection fully protects a page, and extends that full protection automatically to any page that is transcluded onto the protected page, whether directly or indirectly. This includes templates, images and other media that are hosted on the English Wikipedia. Files stored on Commons are not protected by any other wiki's cascading protection and, if they are to be protected, must be either temporarily uploaded to the English Wikipedia or explicitly protected at Commons (whether manually or through cascading protection there). When operational, KrinkleBot cascade-protects Commons files transcluded at Wikipedia:Main Page/Tomorrow, Wikipedia:Main Page/Commons media protection and Main Page. As the bot's response time varies, media should not be transcluded on the main page (or its constituent templates) until after it has been protected. (This is particularly relevant to Template:In the news, for which upcoming images are not queued at Wikipedia:Main Page/Tomorrow.) Cascading protection: The list of cascading-protected pages can be found at Wikipedia:Cascade-protected items. Requests to add or remove cascading protection on a page should be made at Wikipedia talk:Cascade-protected items as an edit request. Operational pages principally used by software, including bots and user scripts, may be protected based on the type of use, content, and other considerations. This includes configuration pages, data pages, log pages, status pages, and other pages specific to the operation of software. However, personal CSS, personal JavaScript, and personal JSON are automatically protected and should not be protected for this reason. Some pages on Wikipedia are subject to software-enforced protection that administrators cannot change or remove. This is called permanent or indefinite protection, and interface protection in the case of CSS and JavaScript pages. Specifically, this applies to: Protection by namespace Modifications to a protected page can be proposed on its talk page (or at another appropriate forum) for discussion. Administrators can make changes to the protected article reflecting consensus. Placing the {{Edit protected}} template on the talk page will draw the attention of administrators for implementing uncontroversial changes. Talk pages are not usually protected, and are semi-protected only for a limited duration in the most severe cases of disruption. User talk pages are rarely protected. However, protection can be applied if there is severe vandalism or abuse. 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Since that change, "pending changes level 1" is generally referred to as just "pending changes". See also Notes |
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[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shutter_(photography)] | [TOKENS: 2981] |
Contents Shutter (photography) In photography, a shutter is a device that allows light to pass for a determined period, exposing photographic film or a photosensitive digital sensor to light in order to capture a permanent image of a scene. A shutter can also be used to allow pulses of light to pass outwards, as seen in a movie projector or a signal lamp. A shutter of variable speed is used to control exposure time of the film. The shutter is constructed so that it automatically closes after a certain required time interval. The speed of the shutter is controlled either automatically by the camera based on the overall settings of the camera, manually through digital settings, or manually by a ring outside the camera on which various timings are marked. Camera shutter Camera shutters can be fitted in several positions: Behind-the-lens shutters were used in some cameras with limited lens interchangeability. Shutters in front of the lens, sometimes simply a lens cap that is removed and replaced for the long exposures required, were used in the early days of photography. Other mechanisms than the dilating aperture and the sliding curtains have been used; anything which exposes the film to light for a specified time will suffice. The time for which a shutter remains open (exposure time, often called "shutter speed") is determined by a timing mechanism. These were originally pneumatic (Compound shutter) or clockwork, but since the late twentieth century are mostly electronic. Mechanical shutters typically had a Time setting, where the shutter opened when the button was pressed and remained open until it was pressed again, Bulb where the shutter remained open as long as the button was pressed (originally actuated by squeezing an actual rubber bulb), and Instantaneous exposure, with settings ranging from 30" to 1/4000" for the best leaf shutters, faster for focal-plane shutters, and more restricted for basic types. The reciprocal of exposure time in seconds is often used for engraving shutter settings. For example, a marking of "250" denotes 1/250". This does not cause confusion in practice. The exposure time and the effective aperture of the lens must together be such as to allow the right amount of light to reach the film or sensor. Additionally, the exposure time must be suitable to handle any motion of the subject. Usually it must be fast enough to "freeze" rapid motion, unless a controlled degree of motion blur is desired, for example to give a sensation of movement. Most shutters have a flash synchronization switch to trigger a flash, if connected. This was quite a complicated matter with mechanical shutters and flashbulbs which took an appreciable time to reach full brightness, focal-plane shutters making this even more difficult. Special flashbulbs were designed which had a prolonged burn, illuminating the scene for the whole time taken by a focal plane shutter slit to move across the film. These problems were essentially solved for non-focal-plane shutters with the advent of electronic flash units which fire virtually instantaneously and emit a very short flash. When using a focal-plane shutter with a flash, if the shutter is set at its X-sync speed or slower the whole frame will be exposed when the flash fires (otherwise only a band of the film will be exposed). Some electronic flashes can produce a longer pulse compatible with a focal-plane shutter operated at much higher shutter speeds. The focal-plane shutter will still impart focal-plane shutter distortions to a rapidly moving subject. Cinematography uses a rotary disc shutter in movie cameras, a continuously spinning disc which conceals the image with a reflex mirror during the intermittent motion between frame exposure. The disc then spins to an open section that exposes the next frame of film while it is held by the registration pin. A focal-plane shutter is positioned just in front of the film, in the focal plane, and moves an aperture across the film until the full frame has been exposed. Focal-plane shutters are usually implemented as a pair of light-tight cloth, metal, or plastic curtains. For shutter speeds slower than a certain point (known as the X-sync speed of the shutter), which depends on the camera, one curtain of the shutter opens, and the other closes after the correct exposure time. At shutter speeds faster than the X-sync speed, the top curtain of the shutter travels across the focal plane, with the second curtain following behind, effectively moving a slit across the focal plane until each part of the film or sensor has been exposed for the correct time. The effective exposure time can be much shorter than for central shutters, at the cost of some distortion of fast-moving subjects. Focal plane shutters have the advantage over central leaf shutters of allowing the use of interchangeable lenses without requiring a separate shutter for each lens. (Leaf shutters behind the lens also allow interchanging the lens using a single shutter.) They have several disadvantages as well: A simple leaf shutter is a type of camera shutter consisting of a mechanism with one or more pivoting metal leaves which normally does not allow light through the lens onto the film, but which when triggered opens the shutter by moving the leaves to uncover the lens for the required time to make an exposure, then shuts. Simple leaf shutters have a single leaf, or two leaves, which pivot so as to allow light through to the lens when triggered. If two leaves are used they have curved edges to create a roughly circular aperture. They typically have only one shutter speed and are commonly found in basic cameras, including disposable cameras. Some have more than one speed. In the simplest version of Guillotine shutter a plate with an aperture slides across the lens opening. Simple versions from the 1880s and 1890s were often known as Drop shutters. They worked vertically and were usually powered by a rubber band, a spring or just gravity. Later they were fitted to run horizontally in hand cameras where they were spring powered with spring tension or pneumatic regulation. Many inexpensive box cameras had a shutter consisting of a round metal disk with a hole punched in it along with a spring-loaded release lever, with the solid disk blocking light from entering the camera. When the shutter release lever is actuated, the spring causes the disk to quickly rotate once so that the hole passes the camera aperture and allows light through for a brief moment. Rotary shutters typically only had one fixed, imprecise shutter speed, although most cameras had a Time setting that would lock the shutter open when the release is actuated, allowing for longer exposures. The shutter plate consisted of a part of a sphere integrated to rotate behind the lens. It was a type of shutter found on the Photosphere and other cameras. A diaphragm or leaf shutter (as distinct from the simple leaf shutter above) consists of a number of thin blades which briefly uncover the camera aperture to make the exposure. The blades slide over each other in a way which creates a circular aperture which enlarges as quickly as possible to uncover the whole lens, stays open for the required time, then closes in the same way. The larger the number of blades, the more accurately circular is the aperture. Flash synchronization is easily achieved with a pair of contacts that close when the shutter is fully open. Ideally the shutter opens instantaneously, remains open as long as required, and closes instantaneously. This is essentially the case at slower speeds, but as speeds approach their maximum the shutter is far from fully open for a significant part of the exposure time. Effectively the shutter acts as an additional aperture, and may cause an increased depth of field, undesirable if shallow focus is being used creatively. Or it may cause mechanical vignetting if the diaphragm is outside of the lens (like a focal plane shutter or apodization filter). The term diaphragm shutter has also been used to describe an optical stop with a slit, near the focal plane of a moving-film high-speed camera. A few types and makers of leaf shutters became very well known. The early Compound shutter had a pneumatic mechanism, with a piston sliding against air resistance in a cylinder. They were quieter at slow speeds than clockwork, but potentially very inaccurate. More accurate clockwork mechanisms then replaced the airbrake, and the German Compur, and the later Synchro-Compur, became virtually the standard quality shutter. Later the Japanese Copal shutter was widely adopted in quality equipment. The German Prontor and Japanese Seikosha shutters were also widely used. Up and Down with Compur: The development and photo-historical meaning of leaf shutters, by Klaus-Eckard Riess, translated by Robert "The Professor" Stoddard gives a detailed history and technical description of leaf shutters. The company Compur Monitor was still in business as of 2012[update], but made only gas detection systems. Leaf shutters under the Compur, Copal, and Seiko names are no longer manufactured. A central shutter is not a type of shutter as such, but describes the position of the shutter: it is typically a leaf shutter (or simple leaf shutter), and located within the lens assembly where a relatively small opening allows light to cover the entire image. Leaf shutters can also be located behind, but near, the lens, allowing lens interchangeability. The alternative to a central or behind-the-lens shutter is a focal-plane shutter. Interchangeable-lens cameras with a central shutter within the lens body require that each lens has a shutter built into it. In practice most cameras with interchangeable lenses use a single focal plane shutter in the camera body for all lenses, while cameras with a fixed lens use a central shutter. Many medium-format and most large-format cameras, however, have interchangeable lenses each fitted with a central shutter. A few interchangeable-lens cameras have a behind-the-lens leaf shutter. Large-format press cameras often had a focal-plane shutter. Some had both a focal-plane shutter (for lens interchangeability) and a lens with central shutter (for flash synchronisation); one shutter would be locked open. Film cameras, but not digital cameras, with a central shutter and interchangeable lenses often have a secondary shutter or darkslide to cover the film and allow changing lens in mid-roll without fogging the film. The main advantages of central and behind-the-lens leaf shutters compared to a focal-plane shutter are: Some disadvantages of the central shutter are: Digital image sensors (both CMOS and CCD image sensors) can be constructed to give a shutter equivalent function by transferring many pixel cell charges at one time to a paired shaded double called frame transfer shutter. If the full-frame is transferred at one time, it is a global shutter. Often the shaded cells can independently be read, while the others are again collecting light. Extremely fast shutter operation is possible as there are no moving parts or any serialized data transfers. Global shutter can also be used for videos as a replacement for rotary disc shutters. Image sensors without a shaded full-frame double must use serialized data transfer of illuminated pixels called rolling shutter. A rolling shutter scans the image in a line-by-line fashion, so that different lines are exposed at different instants, as in a mechanical focal-plane shutter, so that motion of either camera or subject will cause geometric distortions, such as skew or wobble. Today, most digital cameras use combination of mechanical shutter and electronic shutter or mechanical shutter solely. Mechanical shutter can accommodate up to 1/16000 seconds (for example the Minolta Dynax/Maxxum/α-9 film camera had a maximum of 1/12000, a record in its era, and the later digital Nikon D1 series were capable of 1/16000), while electronic shutter can accommodate at least 1/32000 seconds, used for many superzoom cameras and currently many Fujifilm APS-C cameras (X-Pro2, X-T1, X100T and others). Stacked CMOS sensors combine the image sensor itself with ADCs and digital memory in the same package. The readout of these sensors is faster than traditional sensors, because the digitized image is transferred into the digital memory in the sensor itself during readout and only afterwards transferred out of the sensor. This results in an electronic shutter which is as fast as a mechanical focal-plane shutter. Some cameras using stacked sensors, like the Nikon Z9, completely removed the mechanical shutter. Dynamic range and noise performance are not compromised, because these sensors do not utilize a global shutter. Shutter lag Shutter lag is the time between the shutter release being pressed and the exposure starting. While this delay was insignificant on most film and some digital cameras, many digital cameras have significant delay, which can be a problem with fast-moving subjects as in sports and other action photography. Release lag of a bridge camera such as the 2010 Pentax X90 is a relatively short 1/50 s, or 21 milliseconds (ms). The Canon EOS 50D DSLR is specified at 131 ms lag. In many cases, autofocus (AF) lag is the root cause of shutter lag. Lower-cost cameras and low-light or low-contrast situations will make the effect more pronounced and it is in these cases that AF lag is more noticed. Most AF systems use contrast to determine focus; in situations where contrast is low, the speed at which the camera can determine the best focus can be quite noticeable. Since most modern cameras will not activate the shutter until autofocus is complete, the result is shutter lag. In these cases, the photographer can switch to manual focus to avoid the delay that is attributable to the AF function. Shutter cycle A shutter cycle is the process of the shutter opening, closing, and resetting to where it is ready to open again. The life-expectancy of a mechanical shutter is often expressed as a number of shutter cycles. Most digital cameras save the shutter cycle information along with the photos, which contains valuable information such as shutter speed, aperture, and shutter count. There are multiple websites and applications to access the Exif data. Projector shutter In movie projection, the shutter admits light from the lamphouse to illuminate the film across to the projection screen. To avoid brightness flicker, a double-bladed rotary disc shutter admits light two times per frame of film in 24 fps projection, resulting in 24 * 2 = 48 Hz, which is the lower brightness flicker fusion threshold. For 16fps (most silent films and Regular 8mm) and 18fps (Super 8), a triple-bladed shutter is used instead, as 16 * 3 = 48 Hz and 18 * 3 = 54 Hz. Shutters are also used simply to regulate pulses of light, with no film being used, as in a signal lamp. See also References External links |
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[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosplayer#cite_note-54] | [TOKENS: 6859] |
Contents Cosplay Cosplay, a blend word of "costume play", is an activity and performance art in which participants called cosplayers wear costumes and fashion accessories to represent a specific character. Cosplayers often interact to create a subculture, and a broader use of the term "cosplay" applies to any costumed role-playing in venues apart from the stage. Any entity that lends itself to dramatic interpretation may be taken up as a subject. Favorite sources include anime, cartoons, manga, comic books, television series, musical artists, video games, memes, and in some cases, original characters. The term has been adopted as slang, often in politics, to mean someone pretending to play a role or take on a personality disingenuously. Cosplay grew out of the practice of fan costuming at science fiction conventions, beginning with Morojo's "futuristicostumes" created for the 1st World Science Fiction Convention held in New York City, United States, in 1939. The Japanese term "cosplay" (コスプレ, kosupure) was coined in 1983. A rapid growth in the number of people cosplaying as a hobby since the 1990s has made the phenomenon a significant aspect of popular culture in Japan, as well as in other parts of East Asia and in the Western world. Cosplay events are common features of fan conventions, and today there are many dedicated conventions and competitions, as well as social networks, websites, and other forms of media centered on cosplay activities. Cosplay is very popular among all genders, and it is not unusual to see crossplay, also referred to as gender-bending. Etymology The term "cosplay" is a Japanese blend word of the English terms costume and play. The term was coined by Nobuyuki Takahashi [ja] of Studio Hard in an article for the Japanese magazine My Anime [ja] in June 1983. Takahashi decided to coin a new word rather than use the existing translation of the English term "masquerade" because it implied nobility and was old-fashioned. The coinage reflects a common Japanese method of abbreviation in which the first two moras of a pair of words are used to form an independent compound: 'costume' becomes kosu (コス) and 'play' becomes pure (プレ). History Masquerade balls were a feature of the Carnival season in the 15th century, and involved increasingly elaborate allegorical Royal Entries, pageants, and triumphal processions celebrating marriages and other dynastic events of late medieval court life. They were extended into costumed public festivities in Italy during the 16th century Renaissance, generally elaborate dances held for members of the upper classes, which were particularly popular in Venice. In April 1877, French novelist Jules Verne sent out almost 700 invitations for an elaborate costume ball, where several of the guests showed up dressed as characters from Verne's novels. Costume parties (American English) or fancy dress parties (British English) were popular from the 19th century onwards. Costuming guides of the period, such as Samuel Miller's Male Character Costumes (1884) or Ardern Holt's Fancy Dresses Described (1887), feature mostly generic costumes, whether that be period costumes, national costumes, objects or abstract concepts such as "Autumn" or "Night". Most specific costumes described therein are for historical figures although some are sourced from fiction, like Alexandre Dumas' The Three Musketeers or William Shakespeare's characters. By March 1891, a literal call by one Herbert Tibbits for what would today be described as "cosplayers" was advertised for an event held from 5–10 March that year at the Royal Albert Hall in London, for the so-named Vril-Ya Bazaar and Fete based on a science fiction novel and its characters, published two decades earlier. A.D. Condo's science fiction comic strip character Mr. Skygack, from Mars (a Martian ethnographer who comically misunderstands many Earthly affairs) is arguably the first fictional character that people emulated by wearing costumes, as in 1908 Mr. and Mrs. William Fell of Cincinnati, Ohio, are reported to have attended a masquerade at a skating rink wearing Mr. Skygack and Miss Dillpickles costumes. Later, in 1910, an unnamed woman won first prize at masquerade ball in Tacoma, Washington, wearing another Skygack costume. The first people to wear costumes to attend a convention were science fiction fans Forrest J Ackerman and Myrtle R. Douglas, known in fandom as Morojo. They attended the 1939 1st World Science Fiction Convention (Nycon or 1st Worldcon) in the Caravan Hall, New York, US dressed in "futuristicostumes", including green cape and breeches, based on the pulp magazine artwork of Frank R. Paul and the 1936 film Things to Come, designed and created by Douglas. Ackerman later stated that he thought everyone was supposed to wear a costume at a science fiction convention, although only he and Douglas did. Fan costuming caught on, however, and the 2nd Worldcon (1940) had both an unofficial masquerade held in Douglas' room and an official masquerade as part of the programme. David Kyle won the masquerade wearing a Ming the Merciless costume created by Leslie Perri, while Robert A. W. Lowndes received second place with a Bar Senestro costume (from the novel The Blind Spot by Austin Hall and Homer Eon Flint). Other costumed attendees included guest of honor E. E. Smith as Northwest Smith (from C. L. Moore's series of short stories) and both Ackerman and Douglas wearing their futuristicostumes again. Masquerades and costume balls continued to be part of World Science Fiction Convention tradition thereafter. Early Worldcon masquerade balls featured a band, dancing, food and drinks. Contestants either walked across a stage or a cleared area of the dance floor. Ackerman wore a "Hunchbackerman of Notre Dame" costume to the 3rd Worldcon (1941), which included a mask designed and created by Ray Harryhausen, but soon stopped wearing costumes to conventions. Douglas wore an Akka costume (from A. Merritt's novel The Moon Pool), the mask again made by Harryhausen, to the 3rd Worldcon and a Snake Mother costume (another Merritt costume, from The Snake Mother) to the 4th Worldcon (1946). Terminology was yet unsettled; the 1944 edition of Jack Speer's Fancyclopedia used the term costume party. Rules governing costumes became established in response to specific costumes and costuming trends. The first nude contestant at a Worldcon masquerade was in 1952; but the height of this trend was in the 1970s and early 1980s, with a few every year. This eventually led to "No Costume is No Costume" rule, which banned full nudity, although partial nudity was still allowed as long as it was a legitimate representation of the character. Mike Resnick describes the best of the nude costumes as Kris Lundi wearing a harpy costume to the 32nd Worldcon (1974) (she received an honorable mention in the competition). Another costume that instigated a rule change was an attendee at the 20th Worldcon (1962) whose blaster prop fired a jet of real flame; which led to fire being banned. At the 30th WorldCon (1972), artist Scott Shaw wore a costume composed largely of peanut butter to represent his own underground comix character called "The Turd". The peanut butter rubbed off, doing damage to soft furnishings and other peoples' costumes, and then began to go rancid under the heat of the lighting. Food, odious, and messy substances were banned as costume elements after that event. Costuming spread with the science fiction conventions and the interaction of fandom. The earliest known instance of costuming at a convention in the United Kingdom was at the London Science Fiction Convention (1953) but this was only as part of a play. However, members of the Liverpool Science Fantasy Society attended the 1st Cytricon (1955), in Kettering, wearing costumes and continued to do so in subsequent years. The 15th Worldcon (1957) brought the first official convention masquerade to the UK. The 1960 Eastercon in London may have been the first British-based convention to hold an official fancy dress party as part of its programme. The joint winners were Ethel Lindsay and Ina Shorrock as two of the titular witches from the novel The Witches of Karres by James H. Schmitz. Star Trek conventions began in 1969 and major conventions began in 1972 and they have featured cosplay throughout. In Japan, costuming at conventions was a fan activity from at least the 1970s, especially after the launch of the Comiket convention in December 1975. Costuming at this time was known as kasō (仮装). The first documented case of costuming at a fan event in Japan was at Ashinocon (1978), in Hakone, at which future science fiction critic Mari Kotani wore a costume based on the cover art for Edgar Rice Burroughs' novel A Fighting Man of Mars.[Notes 1] In an interview Kotani states that there were about twenty costumed attendees at the convention's costume party—made up of members of her Triton of the Sea fan club and Kansai Entertainers (関西芸人, Kansai Geinin), antecedent of the Gainax anime studio—with most attendees in ordinary clothing. One of the Kansai group, an unnamed friend of Yasuhiro Takeda, wore an impromptu Tusken Raider costume (from the film Star Wars) made from one of the host-hotel's rolls of toilet paper. Costume contests became a permanent part of the Nihon SF Taikai conventions from Tokon VII in 1980. Possibly the first costume contest held at a comic book convention was at the 1st Academy Con held at Broadway Central Hotel in New York in August 1965. Roy Thomas, future editor-in-chief of Marvel Comics but then just transitioning from a fanzine editor to a professional comic book writer, attended in a Plastic Man costume. The first Masquerade Ball held at San Diego Comic-Con was in 1974 during the convention's 6th event. Voice actress June Foray was the master of ceremonies. Future scream queen Brinke Stevens won first place wearing a Vampirella costume. Ackerman (who was the creator of Vampirella) was in attendance and posed with Stevens for photographs. They became friends and, according to Stevens "Forry and his wife, Wendayne, soon became like my god parents." Photographer Dan Golden saw a photograph of Stevens in the Vampirella costume while visiting Ackerman's house, leading to him hiring her for a non-speaking role in her first student film, Zyzak is King (1980), and later photographing her for the cover of the first issue of Femme Fatales (1992). Stevens attributes these events to launching her acting career. As early as a year after the 1975 release of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, audience members began dressing as characters from the movie and role-playing (although the initial incentive for dressing-up was free admission) in often highly accurate costumes. Costume-Con, a conference dedicated to costuming, was first held in January 1983. The International Costumers Guild, Inc., originally known as the Greater Columbia Fantasy Costumer's Guild, was launched after the 3rd Costume-Con (1985) as a parent organization and to support costuming. Costuming had been a fan activity in Japan from the 1970s, and it became much more popular in the wake of Takahashi's report. The new term did not catch on immediately, however. It was a year or two after the article was published before it was in common use among fans at conventions. It was in the 1990s, after exposure on television and in magazines, that the term and practice of cosplaying became common knowledge in Japan. The first cosplay cafés appeared in the Akihabara area of Tokyo in the late 1990s. A temporary maid café was set up at the Tokyo Character Collection event in August 1998 to promote the video game Welcome to Pia Carrot 2 (1997). An occasional Pia Carrot Restaurant was held at the shop Gamers in Akihabara in the years up to 2000. Being linked to specific intellectual properties limited the lifespan of these cafés, which was solved by using generic maids, leading to the first permanent establishment, Cure Maid Café, which opened in March 2001. The first World Cosplay Summit was held on 12 October 2003 at the Rose Court Hotel in Nagoya, Japan, with five cosplayers invited from Germany, France and Italy. There was no contest until 2005, when the World Cosplay Championship began. The first winners were the Italian team of Giorgia Vecchini [it], Francesca Dani and Emilia Fata Livia. Worldcon masquerade attendance peaked in the 1980s and started to fall thereafter. This trend was reversed when the concept of cosplay was re-imported from Japan. Practice of cosplay Cosplay costumes vary greatly and can range from simple themed clothing to highly detailed costumes. It is generally considered different from Halloween and Mardi Gras costume wear, as the intention is to replicate a specific character, rather than to reflect the culture and symbolism of a holiday event. As such, when in costume, some cosplayers often seek to adopt the affect, mannerisms, and body language of the characters they portray (with "out of character" breaks). The characters chosen to be cosplayed may be sourced from any movie, TV series, book, comic book, video game, musical artist, anime, or manga. Some cosplayers even choose to cosplay an original character of their own design or a fusion of different genres (e.g., a steampunk version of a character), and it is a part of the ethos of cosplay that anybody can be anything, as with genderbending, crossplay, or drag, a cosplayer playing a character of another ethnicity, or a hijabi portraying Captain America. Cosplayers obtain their apparel through many different methods. Manufacturers produce and sell packaged outfits for use in cosplay, with varying levels of quality. These costumes are often sold online, but also can be purchased from dealers at conventions. Japanese manufacturers of cosplay costumes reported a profit of 35 billion yen in 2008. A number of individuals also work on commission, creating custom costumes, props, or wigs designed and fitted to the individual. Other cosplayers, who prefer to create their own costumes, still provide a market for individual elements, and various raw materials, such as unstyled wigs, hair dye, cloth and sewing notions, liquid latex, body paint, costume jewelry, and prop weapons. Cosplay represents an act of embodiment. Cosplay has been closely linked to the presentation of self, yet cosplayers' ability to perform is limited by their physical features. The accuracy of a cosplay is judged based on the ability to accurately represent a character through the body, and individual cosplayers frequently are faced by their own "bodily limits" such as level of attractiveness, body size, and disability that often restrict and confine how accurate the cosplay is perceived to be. Authenticity is measured by a cosplayer's individual ability to translate on-screen manifestation to the cosplay itself. Some have argued that cosplay can never be a true representation of the character; instead, it can only be read through the body, and that true embodiment of a character is judged based on nearness to the original character form. Cosplaying can also help some of those with self-esteem problems. Many cosplayers create their own outfits, referencing images of the characters in the process. In the creation of the outfits, much time is given to detail and qualities, thus the skill of a cosplayer may be measured by how difficult the details of the outfit are and how well they have been replicated. Because of the difficulty of replicating some details and materials, cosplayers often educate themselves in crafting specialties such as textiles, sculpture, face paint, fiberglass, fashion design, woodworking, and other uses of materials in the effort to render the look and texture of a costume accurately. Cosplayers often wear wigs in conjunction with their outfit to further improve the resemblance to the character. This is especially necessary for anime and manga or video-game characters who often have unnaturally colored and uniquely styled hair. Simpler outfits may be compensated for their lack of complexity by paying attention to material choice and overall high quality. To look more like the characters they are portraying, cosplayers might also engage in various forms of body modification. Cosplayers may opt to change their skin color utilizing make-up to more simulate the race of the character they are adopting. Contact lenses that match the color of their character's eyes are a common form of this, especially in the case of characters with particularly unique eyes as part of their trademark look. Contact lenses that make the pupil look enlarged to visually echo the large eyes of anime and manga characters are also used. Another form of body modification in which cosplayers engage is to copy any tattoos or special markings their character might have. Temporary tattoos, permanent marker, body paint, and in rare cases, permanent tattoos, are all methods used by cosplayers to achieve the desired look. Permanent and temporary hair dye, spray-in hair coloring, and specialized extreme styling products are all used by some cosplayers whose natural hair can achieve the desired hairstyle. It is also commonplace for them to shave off their eyebrows to gain a more accurate look. Some anime and video game characters have weapons or other accessories that are hard to replicate, and conventions have strict rules regarding those weapons, but most cosplayers engage in some combination of methods to obtain all the items necessary for their costumes; for example, they may commission a prop weapon, sew their own clothing, buy character jewelry from a cosplay accessory manufacturer, or buy a pair of off-the-rack shoes, and modify them to match the desired look. Cosplay may be presented in a number of ways and places. A subset of cosplay culture is centered on sex appeal, with cosplayers specifically choosing characters known for their attractiveness or revealing costumes. However, wearing a revealing costume can be a sensitive issue while appearing in public. People appearing naked at American science fiction fandom conventions during the 1970s were so common, a "no costume is no costume" rule was introduced. Some conventions throughout the United States, such as Phoenix Comicon (now known as Phoenix Fan Fusion) and Penny Arcade Expo, have also issued rules upon which they reserve the right to ask attendees to leave or change their costumes if deemed to be inappropriate to a family-friendly environment or something of a similar nature. The most popular form of presenting a cosplay publicly is by wearing it to a fan convention. Multiple conventions dedicated to anime and manga, comics, TV shows, video games, science fiction, and fantasy may be found all around the world. Cosplay-centered conventions include Cosplay Mania in the Philippines and EOY Cosplay Festival in Singapore. The single largest event featuring cosplay is the semiannual doujinshi market, Comic Market (Comiket), held in Japan during summer and winter. Comiket attracts hundreds of thousands of manga and anime fans, where thousands of cosplayers congregate on the roof of the exhibition center. In North America, the highest-attended fan conventions featuring cosplayers are San Diego Comic-Con and New York Comic Con held in the United States, and the anime-specific Anime North in Toronto, Otakon held in Washington, D.C. and Anime Expo held in Los Angeles. Europe's largest event is Japan Expo held in Paris, while the London MCM Expo and the London Super Comic Convention are the most notable in the UK. Supanova Pop Culture Expo is Australia's biggest event. Star Trek conventions have featured cosplay for many decades. These include Destination Star Trek, a UK convention, and Star Trek Las Vegas, a US convention. In different comic fairs, "Thematic Areas" are set up where cosplayers can take photos in an environment that follows that of the game or animation product from which they are taken. Sometimes the cosplayers are part of the area, playing the role of staff with the task of entertaining the other visitors. Some examples are the thematic areas dedicated to Star Wars or to Fallout. The areas are set up by not for profit associations of fans, but in some major fairs it is possible to visit areas set up directly by the developers of the video games or the producers of the anime. The appearance of cosplayers at public events makes them a popular draw for photographers. As this became apparent in the late 1980s, a new variant of cosplay developed in which cosplayers attended events mainly for the purpose of modeling their characters for still photography rather than engaging in continuous role play. Rules of etiquette were developed to minimize awkward situations involving boundaries. Cosplayers pose for photographers and photographers do not press them for personal contact information or private sessions, follow them out of the area, or take photos without permission. The rules allow the collaborative relationship between photographers and cosplayers to continue with the least inconvenience to each other. Some cosplayers choose to have a professional photographer take high quality images of them in their costumes posing as the character. Cosplayers and photographers frequently exhibit their work online and sometimes sell their images. As the popularity of cosplay has grown, many conventions have come to feature a contest surrounding cosplay that may be the main feature of the convention. Contestants present their cosplay, and often to be judged for an award, the cosplay must be self-made. The contestants may choose to perform a skit, which may consist of a short performed script or dance with optional accompanying audio, video, or images shown on a screen overhead. Other contestants may simply choose to pose as their characters. Often, contestants are briefly interviewed on stage by a master of ceremonies. The audience is given a chance to take photos of the cosplayers. Cosplayers may compete solo or in a group. Awards are presented, and these awards may vary greatly. Generally, a best cosplayer award, a best group award, and runner-up prizes are given. Awards may also go to the best skit and a number of cosplay skill subcategories, such as master tailor, master weapon-maker, master armorer, and so forth. The most well-known cosplay contest event is the World Cosplay Summit, selecting cosplayers from 40 countries to compete in the final round in Nagoya, Japan. Some other international events include European Cosplay Gathering (finals taking place at Japan Expo in Paris), EuroCosplay (finals taking place at London MCM Comic Con), and the Nordic Cosplay Championship (finals taking place at NärCon in Linköping, Sweden). This table contains a list of the most common cosplay competition judging criteria, as seen from World Cosplay Summit, Cyprus Comic Con, and ReplayFX. Portraying a character of the opposite sex is called crossplay. The practicality of crossplay and cross-dress stems in part from the abundance in manga of male characters with delicate and somewhat androgynous features. Such characters, known as bishōnen (lit. 'pretty boy'), are Asian equivalent of the elfin boy archetype represented in Western tradition by figures such as Peter Pan and Ariel. Male to female cosplayers may experience issues when trying to portray a female character because it is hard to maintain the sexualized femininity of a character. Male cosplayers may also be subjected to discrimination, including homophobic comments and being touched without permission. This affects men possibly even more often than it affects women, despite inappropriate contact already being a problem for women who cosplay, as is "slut-shaming". Animegao kigurumi players, a niche group in the realm of cosplay, are often male cosplayers who use zentai and stylized masks to represent female anime characters. These cosplayers completely hide their real features so the original appearance of their characters may be reproduced as literally as possible, and to display all the abstractions and stylizations such as oversized eyes and tiny mouths often seen in Japanese cartoon art. This does not mean that only males perform animegao or that masks are only female. "Cosplay Is Not Consent", a movement started in 2013 by Rochelle Keyhan, Erin Filson, and Anna Kegler, brought attention to the issue of sexual harassment in the convention attending cosplay community. Harassment of cosplayers include photography without permission, verbal abuse, touching, and groping. Harassment is not limited to women in provocative outfits as male cosplayers talked about being bullied for not fitting certain costume and characters. Starting in 2014, New York Comic Con placed large signs at the entrance stating that "Cosplay is Not Consent". Attendees were reminded to ask permission for photos and respect the person's right to say no. The movement against sexual harassment against cosplayers has continued to gain momentum and awareness since being publicized. Traditional mainstream news media like The Mercury News and Los Angeles Times have reported on the topic, bringing awareness of sexual harassment to those outside of the cosplay community. As cosplay has entered more mainstream media, ethnicity becomes a controversial point. Cosplayers of different skin color than the character are often ridiculed for not being 'accurate' or 'faithful'. Many cosplayers feel as if anyone can cosplay any character, but it becomes complicated when cosplayers are not respectful of the character's ethnicity. These views against non-white cosplayers within the community have been attributed to the lack of representation in the industry and in media. Issues such as blackface, brownface, and yellowface are still controversial since a large part of the cosplay community see these as separate problems, or simply an acceptable part of cosplay.[citation needed] Cosplay has influenced the advertising industry, in which cosplayers are often used for event work previously assigned to agency models. Some cosplayers have thus transformed their hobby into profitable, professional careers. Japan's entertainment industry has been home to the professional cosplayers since the rise of Comiket and Tokyo Game Show. The phenomenon is most apparent in Japan but exists to some degree in other countries as well. Professional cosplayers who profit from their art may experience problems related to copyright infringement. A cosplay model, also known as a cosplay idol, cosplays costumes for anime and manga or video game companies. Good cosplayers are viewed as fictional characters in the flesh, in much the same way that film actors come to be identified in the public mind with specific roles. Cosplayers have modeled for print magazines like Cosmode and a successful cosplay model can become the brand ambassador for companies like Cospa. Some cosplay models can achieve significant recognition. While there are many significant cosplay models, Yaya Han was described as having emerged "as a well-recognized figure both within and outside cosplay circuits". Jessica Nigri, used her recognition in cosplay to gain other opportunities such as voice acting and her own documentary on Rooster Teeth. Liz Katz used her fanbase to take her cosplay from a hobby to a successful business venture, sparking debate through the cosplay community whether cosplayers should be allowed to fund and profit from their work. In the 2000s, cosplayers started to push the boundaries of cosplay into eroticism paving the way to "erocosplay". The advent of social media coupled with crowdfunding platforms like Patreon and OnlyFans have allowed cosplay models to turn cosplay into profitable full-time careers. During protests During various protests, cosplaying as a satirization of important people and political events. In Myanmar various protests after the 2021 coup d'état various protests occurred with cosplayers. Youth groups protested on the roads by wearing cosplay costumes, skirts, wedding dresses, and other unusual clothing for daily life while holding signboards and vinyl banners that break with the country's more traditional protest messages for the purpose of grabbing attention from both domestic and international press media. Other times fictional characters are used to convey a message such as women dressing like characters from The Handmaid's Tale to protest bodily restrictions in the United States. Cosplay by country or region Cosplayers in Japan formerly referred to themselves as reiyā (レイヤー), pronounced "layer". In contemporary Japan, however, cosplayers are more commonly referred to as kosupure (コスプレ), pronounced "ko-su-pray", as the term reiyā is now more frequently used to describe literal layers (for example, hair or clothing). Words such as kawaii (可愛い) (lit. 'cute') and kakko ī (かっこいい) (lit. 'cool') were often used to describe these changes, expressions that were closely tied to notions of femininity and masculinity. Those who photograph players are known as cameko (カメコ), a shortened form of camera kozō (カメラ小僧) (lit. 'camera boy'). Originally, cameko would give printed photographs to players as gifts. Growing interest in cosplay events—both among photographers and cosplayers willing to model—has led to the formalization of procedures at events such as Comiket. Photography is conducted in designated areas separate from the exhibit halls. In Japan, wearing costumes outside of conventions or other designated areas is generally discouraged. Since 1998, Tokyo's Akihabara district has contained a number of cosplay restaurants catering to devoted anime and manga fans, in which waitresses dress as characters from video games, anime, or manga; maid cafés are particularly popular. In Japan, Tokyo's Harajuku district serves as a favored informal gathering place for engaging in cosplay in public. Events held in Akihabara also attract large numbers of cosplayers. Ishoku-hada (異色肌) is a form of Japanese cosplay in which players use body paint to alter their skin color to match that of the character they portray. This practice allows for the representation of anime or manga characters, as well as video game characters, with non-human skin tones. A 2014 survey conducted for the Comiket convention in Japan reported that approximately 75% of cosplayers attending the event were female. Cosplay is common in many East Asian countries. For example, it is a major part of the Comic World conventions taking place regularly in South Korea, Hong Kong and Taiwan. Historically, the practice of dressing up as characters from works of fiction can be traced as far as the 17th century late Ming dynasty China. Western cosplay developed primarily from science fiction and fantasy fandoms. Compared with Japan, Western cosplayers are more likely to portray characters originating from live-action television series and films. Western costuming traditions also encompass a variety of related hobbyist subcultures, including participants in Renaissance faires, live action role-playing games, and historical reenactments. Costume competitions at science fiction conventions commonly feature masquerades, in which costumes are formally judged during stage presentations, as well as hall costumes that are evaluated informally throughout the event. The growing international popularity of Japanese cartoon during the late 2000s contributed to a rise in American and other Western cosplayers portraying characters from manga and anime. Over the following decade, anime conventions became increasingly common across Western countries, often rivaling long-established science fiction, comic book, and historical conventions in terms of attendance. At these events, cosplayers—much like their Japanese counterparts—gather to display their costumes, be photographed, and participate in competitive costume events. Convention attendees also frequently choose to dress as characters from Western comic books, animated works, films, and video games. Despite increasing global exchange, cultural differences in taste remain evident. Certain costume styles that may be worn without hesitation by Japanese cosplayers are often avoided in Western contexts, particularly those that resemble Nazi uniforms. Western cosplayers may also encounter debates regarding legitimacy when portraying characters whose canonical racial backgrounds differ from their own, and instances of insensitivity toward cosplayers depicting characters of different skin tones have been documented. Western cosplayers who portray anime characters may likewise experience targeted ridicule or misunderstanding. In comparison with Japan, wearing costumes in public spaces is generally more socially accepted in countries such as the United Kingdom, Ireland, the United States, and Canada. These regions possess longer-standing traditions of Halloween costuming, fan dress, and related practices. Consequently, it is not uncommon for convention attendees in costume to be seen in nearby restaurants and public venues outside the immediate boundaries of the event itself. Media Japan is home to two especially popular cosplay magazines, Cosmode (コスモード) and ASCII Media Works' Dengeki Layers (電撃Layers). Cosmode has the largest share in the market and an English-language digital edition. Another magazine, aimed at a broader, worldwide audience is CosplayGen. In the United States, Cosplay Culture began publication in February 2015. Other magazines include CosplayZine featuring cosplayers from all over the world since October 2015, and Cosplay Realm Magazine which was started in April 2017. There are many books on the subject of cosplay as well. Cosplay groups and organizations See also Notes References Bibliography External links |
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[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IGN#cite_note-TheEscapist-Perry-60] | [TOKENS: 3612] |
Contents IGN IGN[b] is a compromised American video gaming and entertainment media website operated by IGN Entertainment Inc., a subsidiary of Ziff Davis, Inc. The company's headquarters is located in San Francisco's SoMa district and is headed by its former editor-in-chief, Peer Schneider. The IGN website was the brainchild of media entrepreneur Chris Anderson and launched on September 29, 1996. IGN features articles on games, films, anime, television, comics, technology, and other media. Originally a network of desktop websites, IGN is also distributed on mobile platforms, console programs available on the Xbox and PlayStation, Nintendo Switch, PC, Mobile, FireTV, Roku, and via YouTube, Twitch, Hulu, and Snapchat. Originally, IGN was the flagship website of IGN Entertainment, a website which owned and operated several other websites oriented towards players' interests, games, and entertainment, such as Rotten Tomatoes, GameSpy, GameStats, VE3D, TeamXbox, Vault Network, FilePlanet, and AskMen. IGN was sold to publishing company Ziff Davis in February 2013. History IGN was created in September 1996 as the Imagine Games Network, the IGN content network was founded by publishing executive Jonathan Simpson-Bint and began as five individual websites within Imagine Media: N64.com (later renamed ign64.com), PSXPower, Saturnworld, Next-Generation.com and Ultra Game Players Online. Imagine expanded on its owned-and-operated websites by creating an affiliate network that included a number of independent fansites such as PSX Nation.com, Sega-Saturn.com, Game Sages, and GameFAQs. In 1998, the network launched a new homepage that consolidated the individual sites as system channels under the IGN brand. The homepage exposed content from more than 30 different channels. Websites Next-Generation and Ultra Game Players Online were not part of this consolidation; U.G.P.O. dissolved with the cancellation of the magazine, and Next-Generation was put "on hold" when Imagine decided to concentrate on launching the short-lived Daily Radar brand. In February 1999, PC Magazine named IGN one of the hundred-best websites, alongside competitors GameSpot and CNET Gamecenter. That same month, Imagine Media incorporated a spin-off that included IGN and its affiliate channels as Affiliation Networks, while Simpson-Bint remained at the former company. In September, the newly spun-out standalone internet media company, changed its name to Snowball.com. At the same time, small entertainment website The Den merged into IGN and added non-gaming content to the growing network. Snowball held an IPO in 2000, but shed most of its other properties during the dot-com bubble. IGN prevailed with growing audience numbers and a newly established subscription service called IGN Insider (later IGN Prime), which led to the shedding of the name "Snowball" and adoption of IGN Entertainment on May 10, 2002. In June 2005, IGN reported having 24,000,000 unique visitors per month, with 4.8 million registered users through all departments of the site. IGN has been ranked among the top 500 most-visited websites according to Alexa. In September 2005, IGN was acquired by Rupert Murdoch's multimedia business empire, News Corporation, for $650 million. IGN celebrated its 10th anniversary on January 12, 2008. IGN was headquartered in the Marina Point Parkway office park in Brisbane, California, until it relocated to a smaller office building near AT&T Park in San Francisco on March 29, 2010. On May 25, 2011, IGN sold its Direct2Drive division to Gamefly for an undisclosed amount. In 2011, IGN Entertainment acquired its rival UGO Entertainment (owners of 1Up.com) from Hearst Corporation. Ultimately, News Corp. planned to spin off IGN Entertainment as a publicly traded company, continuing a string of divestitures for digital properties it had previously acquired (including MySpace and Photobucket). On February 4, 2013, after a failed attempt to spin off IGN as a separate company, News Corp. announced that it had sold IGN Entertainment to the publishing company Ziff Davis, which was recently acquired by J2 Global. Financial details regarding the purchase were not revealed. Prior to its acquisition by UGO, 1UP.com had previously been owned by Ziff Davis. Soon after the acquisition, IGN announced that it would be laying off staff and closing GameSpy, 1UP.com, and UGO in order to focus on its flagship brands, IGN and AskMen. The role-playing video game interest website Vault Network was acquired by IGN in 1999. GameStats, a review aggregation website, was founded by IGN in 2004. GameStats includes a "GPM" (Game Popularity Metric) rating system which incorporates an average press score and average gamer score, as well as the number of page hits for the game. However, the site is no longer being updated. The Xbox interest site, TeamXbox, and the PC game website VE3D (Voodoo Extreme 3D) were acquired in 2003. IGN Entertainment merged with GameSpy Industries in 2005. The merger also brought the game download site FilePlanet into the IGN group; as of 2011 both FilePlanet and the GameSpy website still operate as video game-related web sites. IGN Entertainment acquired the online male lifestyle magazine AskMen in 2005. In 2004, IGN acquired film review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes and in 2010, sold the website to Flixster. In October 2017, Humble Bundle announced that it was being acquired by IGN. IGN Entertainment acquired Gamer Network and its properties in May 2024 for an undisclosed sum. These included Eurogamer, Rock Paper Shotgun, VG247 and others. As a result, some layoffs were made due to redundancies. A member of the IGN staff writes a review for a game and gives it a score between 0.1 and 10.0, which is assigned by increments of 0.1 and determines how much the game is recommended. The score is given according to the "individual aspects of a game, like presentation, graphics, sound, gameplay and lasting appeal". Each game is given a score in each of these categories, but the overall score for the game is an independent evaluation, not an average of the scores in each category. On August 3, 2010, IGN announced that the site would be changing to a new scoring scale. Instead of a 100-point scale, where games are scored in increments of 0.1, all future reviews would use a 20-point scale where games are scored in increments of 0.5. Under both systems, the maximum possible score a game can receive is 10.0. The scoring change was not retroactive: all scores on reviews written before the change would remain the same. This change also did not affect the scoring system for reader reviews. On September 13, 2012, IGN revealed that as part of its new review format all future reviews would follow a 100-point scale again, but without using decimals, meaning a score of 8.5 would become an 85. Unlike the previous conversion to the 20-point scale, this latest scoring system change was retroactive and all previous IGN review scores were to be updated to follow the new system. However, despite the announcement, the article included a short addition, post-release; it stated that after much discussion, they had decided to retain the decimal point in all upcoming scores. In early 2014, IGN introduced a new policy, in which a game's review score can be re-reviewed and improved, provided that continuous updates form a significant change compared to the game at launch. Examples of games that have been re-reviewed were League of Legends, Heroes of the Storm, Warframe, and the pocket edition of Minecraft. In January 2020, IGN revealed that reviews would be reverted to a 10-point scale, from 1 to 10, finding that the finer distinction of the 100-point scale was difficult to maintain, whereas a 10-point scale would still be true to its reviews and would be easier to promote. IGN 'Best of' awards IGN's 'Best of' is an end-of-year event to annually honor the year's best games, films, television shows and comics. Winners of each award category are selected by IGN staff from a list of nominees, while readers are able to cast their own votes online to determine the 'People's Choice' award for each category. Other sections In 2000, Snowball.com purchased an E-federation called the Internet Wrestling Organization (IWO). Since Snowball owned both IWO and IGN, IWO would go on to become IGN's first official E-Fed, even doing a column on the website. The IGN For Men section officially closed down on October 2, 2001, and is no longer updated. IGN has sites such as IGN Stars and AskMen.com that fulfil much of the function of the old IGN For Men site. IGN Wrestling met its end in early 2002 when many of the staff departed. Interviews with professional wrestling personalities and coverage of wrestling games have been folded into IGN Sports, headed by Jon Robinson. IGN Sci-Fi: Largely dead since 2002, this section of the site included movie news, comic book reviews, anime coverage and other associated items. It has since been discontinued. The site, SciFI.ign.com redirects to the recently created SciFiBrain.ign.com, which covers some of the content of the old Sci-Fi site.[citation needed] In 2002, IGN launched a dedicated video game FAQs site specifically designed to host user-submitted guides. This was launched following the cancellation of affiliation with GameFAQs.[citation needed] In 2004, IGN launched GameStats, which was intended to be a more unbiased rating network, as it takes in scores from every corporate-owned game rating site and averages them all into one score to give a general idea of the quality of a game. IGN also launched Direct2Drive.com in 2004. Its primary focus is selling digital downloads of full PC and Mac video games, as well as anime, comics and game guides. In 2005, IGN launched its comics site, which is devoted to not just the staple Marvel and DC titles, but also manga, graphic novels, statues and toys.[citation needed] In 2006, IGN launched its television site. It provides interviews with various television celebrities, in addition to a TV schedule, TV trivia and TV news. Like the film section, IGN's TV section has a variety of exclusive clips from upcoming television shows.[citation needed] On May 30, 2006, IGN Dreamcast was restarted; however, none of the Dreamcast updates were posted on the main IGN webpage.[citation needed] In 2007, IGN launched its anime site. It provided features on anime and manga, including trailers and free episodes. It also included reviews of manga and anime from other sections of IGN, such as IGN Comics and IGN DVD. The anime channel was dropped after IGN redesigned the site. In 2008, the IGN Retro channel was launched to mark IGN's 10th anniversary. To coincide with the release of Super Smash Bros. Brawl, IGN created the Super Smash Bros. World site. On the site, people can submit their user-created stages from the game and download ones made by other people. IGN subsequently launched a similar website called GTA 'Hood on April 29, 2008, for Grand Theft Auto IV.[citation needed] Along with its popular website content, IGN also publishes many different podcasts on both its website and on iTunes. Some of its podcasts include console-oriented shows like the PlayStation-focused "Podcast Beyond" and the Xbox-oriented "Podcast Unlocked", the Nintendo-oriented "Nintendo Voice Chat", and Game Scoop!, a podcast where a variety of editors discuss news and topics surrounding the video game industry. Regional websites IGN has 28 editions in 25 languages, as of 2021. The US & Canada, UK & Ireland, and Australia & New Zealand editions are operated by Ziff Davis subsidiaries, with all others being franchised publishers. Since 2006, IGN Entertainment began launching regional versions of the website for various countries and pan-regions. Initially, IGN began opening new offices outside the United States in order to support those regional websites, but later IGN began franchising its brand as a more cost-effective means of globalization, wherein it licensed various media publishers in many countries to use the IGN brand and manage regional websites on their own. Licensed regional publishers work on their own servers, albeit can link to IGN's HQ database, where they can import or translate articles, and use videos uploaded on IGN's servers that use IGN's own hosted video player.[citation needed] When visiting www.ign.com from an IGN-supported region, the site automatically redirects visitors to their localized version using geolocation software, based on their countries' IP addresses. Each version of the site has a modified logo with their country's/region's respective flags near the IGN logo. However, it is still possible to access the original American website using a navigation bar above or below (depending on the regional website) the page's master template.[citation needed] IGN Con IGN Convention (IGN Con) is a video games, movies, comics and pop culture convention held in various cities in the Middle East. The event generally includes celebrities, video game tournaments, table top games, card games, movie previews, comic book stalls and a cosplay competition. A number of Middle Eastern artists and game developers also showcase their work at IGN Convention. This convention is owned and operated by IGN Middle East, the Middle Eastern edition of popular video games website IGN. IGN Convention is the spiritual successor to GameFest, a biannual, smaller scale gaming gallery which was originally hosted by IGN Middle East's parent company T-break Media between 2010 and 2012, before the hosting duties were subsequently taken over by AMD EMEA. The IGN Convention logo was designed by prominent Gulf based artist Ashraf Ghori. Conferences have included: IGN Pro League In 2011, IGN launched IGN Pro League, a professional esports circuit that ran tournaments for StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty, ShootMania Storm and League of Legends. On March 6, 2013, only weeks prior to the event, IGN abruptly canceled the finals of IPL 6—which were to be held in Las Vegas from March 28 through 31, and discontinued the league. IGN indicated that it was no longer in a position to commit to compete with the increasing number of esports events that were being held. On April 8, 2013, Blizzard Entertainment announced that it had acquired the staff and assets of the IPL from IGN; its former staff were reassigned to work on in-house esports productions. Controversies In 2007, Video Game Media Watch accused former IGN editor Doug Perry of "journalistic misconduct" for an exclusive review of Prey. In November 2017, some IGN employees refused to work to show solidarity with Kallie Plagge, a former editor who alleged that in 2016, another editor, Vince Ingenito, sexually harassed her and another female employee and made inappropriate comments. Human resources allegedly told her that she "needed to have better judgment about who [she] was 'friends' with" and that she was an "equal participant" in "inappropriate flirtation". This incident was widely circulated across social media. In August 2018, the owner of YouTube channel Boomstick Gaming accused the IGN reviewer Filip Miucin of plagiarizing his video review of the game Dead Cells. On August 7, IGN stated that it had found "substantial similarities" between the reviews, apologized, and announced that it had dismissed Miucin. On August 10, IGN published a new review by Brandin Tyrrel, which included an editor's note apologizing again and stating that "this review (and its score) represents solely the opinion of the new reviewer". In a subsequently unlisted video, Miucin responded that while he took "complete ownership over what happened", the similarity was not intentional. Kotaku found similarities between Miucin's other reviews, reviews on Nintendo Life and Engadget and material posted on the games discussion forum NeoGAF. On August 14, IGN announced that it would remove all of Miucin's work pending further review. On April 19, 2019, Miucin admitted plagiarism and issued an apology on his YouTube channel. During the 2021 Israel–Palestine crisis, the main IGN site posted an article on May 14 urging readers to donate to charities helping Palestinian civilians such as the Palestine Children's Relief Fund and linked to relevant news reporting. A Palestinian flag was also added besides the IGN logo. Shortly after the article went up IGN Israel made statements on social media condemning the article. The Palestinian flag was soon replaced with a Red Cross. On May 16, the article was deleted and a statement was made on the IGN Twitter account saying that it was wrong to only highlight one side of the conflict. A reposted version on South Africa-based IGN Africa was also removed. On May 17, over 60 members of IGN's staff signed an open letter condemning the article's removal for going against the site's editorial freedom and policies for retracting or correcting articles, as well as the lack of communication with IGN staff. IGN reinstated the article on August 24 under a new headline alongside a statement of newly formalized editorial policies. Television and films Notes References External links |
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[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosplayer#cite_note-55] | [TOKENS: 6859] |
Contents Cosplay Cosplay, a blend word of "costume play", is an activity and performance art in which participants called cosplayers wear costumes and fashion accessories to represent a specific character. Cosplayers often interact to create a subculture, and a broader use of the term "cosplay" applies to any costumed role-playing in venues apart from the stage. Any entity that lends itself to dramatic interpretation may be taken up as a subject. Favorite sources include anime, cartoons, manga, comic books, television series, musical artists, video games, memes, and in some cases, original characters. The term has been adopted as slang, often in politics, to mean someone pretending to play a role or take on a personality disingenuously. Cosplay grew out of the practice of fan costuming at science fiction conventions, beginning with Morojo's "futuristicostumes" created for the 1st World Science Fiction Convention held in New York City, United States, in 1939. The Japanese term "cosplay" (コスプレ, kosupure) was coined in 1983. A rapid growth in the number of people cosplaying as a hobby since the 1990s has made the phenomenon a significant aspect of popular culture in Japan, as well as in other parts of East Asia and in the Western world. Cosplay events are common features of fan conventions, and today there are many dedicated conventions and competitions, as well as social networks, websites, and other forms of media centered on cosplay activities. Cosplay is very popular among all genders, and it is not unusual to see crossplay, also referred to as gender-bending. Etymology The term "cosplay" is a Japanese blend word of the English terms costume and play. The term was coined by Nobuyuki Takahashi [ja] of Studio Hard in an article for the Japanese magazine My Anime [ja] in June 1983. Takahashi decided to coin a new word rather than use the existing translation of the English term "masquerade" because it implied nobility and was old-fashioned. The coinage reflects a common Japanese method of abbreviation in which the first two moras of a pair of words are used to form an independent compound: 'costume' becomes kosu (コス) and 'play' becomes pure (プレ). History Masquerade balls were a feature of the Carnival season in the 15th century, and involved increasingly elaborate allegorical Royal Entries, pageants, and triumphal processions celebrating marriages and other dynastic events of late medieval court life. They were extended into costumed public festivities in Italy during the 16th century Renaissance, generally elaborate dances held for members of the upper classes, which were particularly popular in Venice. In April 1877, French novelist Jules Verne sent out almost 700 invitations for an elaborate costume ball, where several of the guests showed up dressed as characters from Verne's novels. Costume parties (American English) or fancy dress parties (British English) were popular from the 19th century onwards. Costuming guides of the period, such as Samuel Miller's Male Character Costumes (1884) or Ardern Holt's Fancy Dresses Described (1887), feature mostly generic costumes, whether that be period costumes, national costumes, objects or abstract concepts such as "Autumn" or "Night". Most specific costumes described therein are for historical figures although some are sourced from fiction, like Alexandre Dumas' The Three Musketeers or William Shakespeare's characters. By March 1891, a literal call by one Herbert Tibbits for what would today be described as "cosplayers" was advertised for an event held from 5–10 March that year at the Royal Albert Hall in London, for the so-named Vril-Ya Bazaar and Fete based on a science fiction novel and its characters, published two decades earlier. A.D. Condo's science fiction comic strip character Mr. Skygack, from Mars (a Martian ethnographer who comically misunderstands many Earthly affairs) is arguably the first fictional character that people emulated by wearing costumes, as in 1908 Mr. and Mrs. William Fell of Cincinnati, Ohio, are reported to have attended a masquerade at a skating rink wearing Mr. Skygack and Miss Dillpickles costumes. Later, in 1910, an unnamed woman won first prize at masquerade ball in Tacoma, Washington, wearing another Skygack costume. The first people to wear costumes to attend a convention were science fiction fans Forrest J Ackerman and Myrtle R. Douglas, known in fandom as Morojo. They attended the 1939 1st World Science Fiction Convention (Nycon or 1st Worldcon) in the Caravan Hall, New York, US dressed in "futuristicostumes", including green cape and breeches, based on the pulp magazine artwork of Frank R. Paul and the 1936 film Things to Come, designed and created by Douglas. Ackerman later stated that he thought everyone was supposed to wear a costume at a science fiction convention, although only he and Douglas did. Fan costuming caught on, however, and the 2nd Worldcon (1940) had both an unofficial masquerade held in Douglas' room and an official masquerade as part of the programme. David Kyle won the masquerade wearing a Ming the Merciless costume created by Leslie Perri, while Robert A. W. Lowndes received second place with a Bar Senestro costume (from the novel The Blind Spot by Austin Hall and Homer Eon Flint). Other costumed attendees included guest of honor E. E. Smith as Northwest Smith (from C. L. Moore's series of short stories) and both Ackerman and Douglas wearing their futuristicostumes again. Masquerades and costume balls continued to be part of World Science Fiction Convention tradition thereafter. Early Worldcon masquerade balls featured a band, dancing, food and drinks. Contestants either walked across a stage or a cleared area of the dance floor. Ackerman wore a "Hunchbackerman of Notre Dame" costume to the 3rd Worldcon (1941), which included a mask designed and created by Ray Harryhausen, but soon stopped wearing costumes to conventions. Douglas wore an Akka costume (from A. Merritt's novel The Moon Pool), the mask again made by Harryhausen, to the 3rd Worldcon and a Snake Mother costume (another Merritt costume, from The Snake Mother) to the 4th Worldcon (1946). Terminology was yet unsettled; the 1944 edition of Jack Speer's Fancyclopedia used the term costume party. Rules governing costumes became established in response to specific costumes and costuming trends. The first nude contestant at a Worldcon masquerade was in 1952; but the height of this trend was in the 1970s and early 1980s, with a few every year. This eventually led to "No Costume is No Costume" rule, which banned full nudity, although partial nudity was still allowed as long as it was a legitimate representation of the character. Mike Resnick describes the best of the nude costumes as Kris Lundi wearing a harpy costume to the 32nd Worldcon (1974) (she received an honorable mention in the competition). Another costume that instigated a rule change was an attendee at the 20th Worldcon (1962) whose blaster prop fired a jet of real flame; which led to fire being banned. At the 30th WorldCon (1972), artist Scott Shaw wore a costume composed largely of peanut butter to represent his own underground comix character called "The Turd". The peanut butter rubbed off, doing damage to soft furnishings and other peoples' costumes, and then began to go rancid under the heat of the lighting. Food, odious, and messy substances were banned as costume elements after that event. Costuming spread with the science fiction conventions and the interaction of fandom. The earliest known instance of costuming at a convention in the United Kingdom was at the London Science Fiction Convention (1953) but this was only as part of a play. However, members of the Liverpool Science Fantasy Society attended the 1st Cytricon (1955), in Kettering, wearing costumes and continued to do so in subsequent years. The 15th Worldcon (1957) brought the first official convention masquerade to the UK. The 1960 Eastercon in London may have been the first British-based convention to hold an official fancy dress party as part of its programme. The joint winners were Ethel Lindsay and Ina Shorrock as two of the titular witches from the novel The Witches of Karres by James H. Schmitz. Star Trek conventions began in 1969 and major conventions began in 1972 and they have featured cosplay throughout. In Japan, costuming at conventions was a fan activity from at least the 1970s, especially after the launch of the Comiket convention in December 1975. Costuming at this time was known as kasō (仮装). The first documented case of costuming at a fan event in Japan was at Ashinocon (1978), in Hakone, at which future science fiction critic Mari Kotani wore a costume based on the cover art for Edgar Rice Burroughs' novel A Fighting Man of Mars.[Notes 1] In an interview Kotani states that there were about twenty costumed attendees at the convention's costume party—made up of members of her Triton of the Sea fan club and Kansai Entertainers (関西芸人, Kansai Geinin), antecedent of the Gainax anime studio—with most attendees in ordinary clothing. One of the Kansai group, an unnamed friend of Yasuhiro Takeda, wore an impromptu Tusken Raider costume (from the film Star Wars) made from one of the host-hotel's rolls of toilet paper. Costume contests became a permanent part of the Nihon SF Taikai conventions from Tokon VII in 1980. Possibly the first costume contest held at a comic book convention was at the 1st Academy Con held at Broadway Central Hotel in New York in August 1965. Roy Thomas, future editor-in-chief of Marvel Comics but then just transitioning from a fanzine editor to a professional comic book writer, attended in a Plastic Man costume. The first Masquerade Ball held at San Diego Comic-Con was in 1974 during the convention's 6th event. Voice actress June Foray was the master of ceremonies. Future scream queen Brinke Stevens won first place wearing a Vampirella costume. Ackerman (who was the creator of Vampirella) was in attendance and posed with Stevens for photographs. They became friends and, according to Stevens "Forry and his wife, Wendayne, soon became like my god parents." Photographer Dan Golden saw a photograph of Stevens in the Vampirella costume while visiting Ackerman's house, leading to him hiring her for a non-speaking role in her first student film, Zyzak is King (1980), and later photographing her for the cover of the first issue of Femme Fatales (1992). Stevens attributes these events to launching her acting career. As early as a year after the 1975 release of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, audience members began dressing as characters from the movie and role-playing (although the initial incentive for dressing-up was free admission) in often highly accurate costumes. Costume-Con, a conference dedicated to costuming, was first held in January 1983. The International Costumers Guild, Inc., originally known as the Greater Columbia Fantasy Costumer's Guild, was launched after the 3rd Costume-Con (1985) as a parent organization and to support costuming. Costuming had been a fan activity in Japan from the 1970s, and it became much more popular in the wake of Takahashi's report. The new term did not catch on immediately, however. It was a year or two after the article was published before it was in common use among fans at conventions. It was in the 1990s, after exposure on television and in magazines, that the term and practice of cosplaying became common knowledge in Japan. The first cosplay cafés appeared in the Akihabara area of Tokyo in the late 1990s. A temporary maid café was set up at the Tokyo Character Collection event in August 1998 to promote the video game Welcome to Pia Carrot 2 (1997). An occasional Pia Carrot Restaurant was held at the shop Gamers in Akihabara in the years up to 2000. Being linked to specific intellectual properties limited the lifespan of these cafés, which was solved by using generic maids, leading to the first permanent establishment, Cure Maid Café, which opened in March 2001. The first World Cosplay Summit was held on 12 October 2003 at the Rose Court Hotel in Nagoya, Japan, with five cosplayers invited from Germany, France and Italy. There was no contest until 2005, when the World Cosplay Championship began. The first winners were the Italian team of Giorgia Vecchini [it], Francesca Dani and Emilia Fata Livia. Worldcon masquerade attendance peaked in the 1980s and started to fall thereafter. This trend was reversed when the concept of cosplay was re-imported from Japan. Practice of cosplay Cosplay costumes vary greatly and can range from simple themed clothing to highly detailed costumes. It is generally considered different from Halloween and Mardi Gras costume wear, as the intention is to replicate a specific character, rather than to reflect the culture and symbolism of a holiday event. As such, when in costume, some cosplayers often seek to adopt the affect, mannerisms, and body language of the characters they portray (with "out of character" breaks). The characters chosen to be cosplayed may be sourced from any movie, TV series, book, comic book, video game, musical artist, anime, or manga. Some cosplayers even choose to cosplay an original character of their own design or a fusion of different genres (e.g., a steampunk version of a character), and it is a part of the ethos of cosplay that anybody can be anything, as with genderbending, crossplay, or drag, a cosplayer playing a character of another ethnicity, or a hijabi portraying Captain America. Cosplayers obtain their apparel through many different methods. Manufacturers produce and sell packaged outfits for use in cosplay, with varying levels of quality. These costumes are often sold online, but also can be purchased from dealers at conventions. Japanese manufacturers of cosplay costumes reported a profit of 35 billion yen in 2008. A number of individuals also work on commission, creating custom costumes, props, or wigs designed and fitted to the individual. Other cosplayers, who prefer to create their own costumes, still provide a market for individual elements, and various raw materials, such as unstyled wigs, hair dye, cloth and sewing notions, liquid latex, body paint, costume jewelry, and prop weapons. Cosplay represents an act of embodiment. Cosplay has been closely linked to the presentation of self, yet cosplayers' ability to perform is limited by their physical features. The accuracy of a cosplay is judged based on the ability to accurately represent a character through the body, and individual cosplayers frequently are faced by their own "bodily limits" such as level of attractiveness, body size, and disability that often restrict and confine how accurate the cosplay is perceived to be. Authenticity is measured by a cosplayer's individual ability to translate on-screen manifestation to the cosplay itself. Some have argued that cosplay can never be a true representation of the character; instead, it can only be read through the body, and that true embodiment of a character is judged based on nearness to the original character form. Cosplaying can also help some of those with self-esteem problems. Many cosplayers create their own outfits, referencing images of the characters in the process. In the creation of the outfits, much time is given to detail and qualities, thus the skill of a cosplayer may be measured by how difficult the details of the outfit are and how well they have been replicated. Because of the difficulty of replicating some details and materials, cosplayers often educate themselves in crafting specialties such as textiles, sculpture, face paint, fiberglass, fashion design, woodworking, and other uses of materials in the effort to render the look and texture of a costume accurately. Cosplayers often wear wigs in conjunction with their outfit to further improve the resemblance to the character. This is especially necessary for anime and manga or video-game characters who often have unnaturally colored and uniquely styled hair. Simpler outfits may be compensated for their lack of complexity by paying attention to material choice and overall high quality. To look more like the characters they are portraying, cosplayers might also engage in various forms of body modification. Cosplayers may opt to change their skin color utilizing make-up to more simulate the race of the character they are adopting. Contact lenses that match the color of their character's eyes are a common form of this, especially in the case of characters with particularly unique eyes as part of their trademark look. Contact lenses that make the pupil look enlarged to visually echo the large eyes of anime and manga characters are also used. Another form of body modification in which cosplayers engage is to copy any tattoos or special markings their character might have. Temporary tattoos, permanent marker, body paint, and in rare cases, permanent tattoos, are all methods used by cosplayers to achieve the desired look. Permanent and temporary hair dye, spray-in hair coloring, and specialized extreme styling products are all used by some cosplayers whose natural hair can achieve the desired hairstyle. It is also commonplace for them to shave off their eyebrows to gain a more accurate look. Some anime and video game characters have weapons or other accessories that are hard to replicate, and conventions have strict rules regarding those weapons, but most cosplayers engage in some combination of methods to obtain all the items necessary for their costumes; for example, they may commission a prop weapon, sew their own clothing, buy character jewelry from a cosplay accessory manufacturer, or buy a pair of off-the-rack shoes, and modify them to match the desired look. Cosplay may be presented in a number of ways and places. A subset of cosplay culture is centered on sex appeal, with cosplayers specifically choosing characters known for their attractiveness or revealing costumes. However, wearing a revealing costume can be a sensitive issue while appearing in public. People appearing naked at American science fiction fandom conventions during the 1970s were so common, a "no costume is no costume" rule was introduced. Some conventions throughout the United States, such as Phoenix Comicon (now known as Phoenix Fan Fusion) and Penny Arcade Expo, have also issued rules upon which they reserve the right to ask attendees to leave or change their costumes if deemed to be inappropriate to a family-friendly environment or something of a similar nature. The most popular form of presenting a cosplay publicly is by wearing it to a fan convention. Multiple conventions dedicated to anime and manga, comics, TV shows, video games, science fiction, and fantasy may be found all around the world. Cosplay-centered conventions include Cosplay Mania in the Philippines and EOY Cosplay Festival in Singapore. The single largest event featuring cosplay is the semiannual doujinshi market, Comic Market (Comiket), held in Japan during summer and winter. Comiket attracts hundreds of thousands of manga and anime fans, where thousands of cosplayers congregate on the roof of the exhibition center. In North America, the highest-attended fan conventions featuring cosplayers are San Diego Comic-Con and New York Comic Con held in the United States, and the anime-specific Anime North in Toronto, Otakon held in Washington, D.C. and Anime Expo held in Los Angeles. Europe's largest event is Japan Expo held in Paris, while the London MCM Expo and the London Super Comic Convention are the most notable in the UK. Supanova Pop Culture Expo is Australia's biggest event. Star Trek conventions have featured cosplay for many decades. These include Destination Star Trek, a UK convention, and Star Trek Las Vegas, a US convention. In different comic fairs, "Thematic Areas" are set up where cosplayers can take photos in an environment that follows that of the game or animation product from which they are taken. Sometimes the cosplayers are part of the area, playing the role of staff with the task of entertaining the other visitors. Some examples are the thematic areas dedicated to Star Wars or to Fallout. The areas are set up by not for profit associations of fans, but in some major fairs it is possible to visit areas set up directly by the developers of the video games or the producers of the anime. The appearance of cosplayers at public events makes them a popular draw for photographers. As this became apparent in the late 1980s, a new variant of cosplay developed in which cosplayers attended events mainly for the purpose of modeling their characters for still photography rather than engaging in continuous role play. Rules of etiquette were developed to minimize awkward situations involving boundaries. Cosplayers pose for photographers and photographers do not press them for personal contact information or private sessions, follow them out of the area, or take photos without permission. The rules allow the collaborative relationship between photographers and cosplayers to continue with the least inconvenience to each other. Some cosplayers choose to have a professional photographer take high quality images of them in their costumes posing as the character. Cosplayers and photographers frequently exhibit their work online and sometimes sell their images. As the popularity of cosplay has grown, many conventions have come to feature a contest surrounding cosplay that may be the main feature of the convention. Contestants present their cosplay, and often to be judged for an award, the cosplay must be self-made. The contestants may choose to perform a skit, which may consist of a short performed script or dance with optional accompanying audio, video, or images shown on a screen overhead. Other contestants may simply choose to pose as their characters. Often, contestants are briefly interviewed on stage by a master of ceremonies. The audience is given a chance to take photos of the cosplayers. Cosplayers may compete solo or in a group. Awards are presented, and these awards may vary greatly. Generally, a best cosplayer award, a best group award, and runner-up prizes are given. Awards may also go to the best skit and a number of cosplay skill subcategories, such as master tailor, master weapon-maker, master armorer, and so forth. The most well-known cosplay contest event is the World Cosplay Summit, selecting cosplayers from 40 countries to compete in the final round in Nagoya, Japan. Some other international events include European Cosplay Gathering (finals taking place at Japan Expo in Paris), EuroCosplay (finals taking place at London MCM Comic Con), and the Nordic Cosplay Championship (finals taking place at NärCon in Linköping, Sweden). This table contains a list of the most common cosplay competition judging criteria, as seen from World Cosplay Summit, Cyprus Comic Con, and ReplayFX. Portraying a character of the opposite sex is called crossplay. The practicality of crossplay and cross-dress stems in part from the abundance in manga of male characters with delicate and somewhat androgynous features. Such characters, known as bishōnen (lit. 'pretty boy'), are Asian equivalent of the elfin boy archetype represented in Western tradition by figures such as Peter Pan and Ariel. Male to female cosplayers may experience issues when trying to portray a female character because it is hard to maintain the sexualized femininity of a character. Male cosplayers may also be subjected to discrimination, including homophobic comments and being touched without permission. This affects men possibly even more often than it affects women, despite inappropriate contact already being a problem for women who cosplay, as is "slut-shaming". Animegao kigurumi players, a niche group in the realm of cosplay, are often male cosplayers who use zentai and stylized masks to represent female anime characters. These cosplayers completely hide their real features so the original appearance of their characters may be reproduced as literally as possible, and to display all the abstractions and stylizations such as oversized eyes and tiny mouths often seen in Japanese cartoon art. This does not mean that only males perform animegao or that masks are only female. "Cosplay Is Not Consent", a movement started in 2013 by Rochelle Keyhan, Erin Filson, and Anna Kegler, brought attention to the issue of sexual harassment in the convention attending cosplay community. Harassment of cosplayers include photography without permission, verbal abuse, touching, and groping. Harassment is not limited to women in provocative outfits as male cosplayers talked about being bullied for not fitting certain costume and characters. Starting in 2014, New York Comic Con placed large signs at the entrance stating that "Cosplay is Not Consent". Attendees were reminded to ask permission for photos and respect the person's right to say no. The movement against sexual harassment against cosplayers has continued to gain momentum and awareness since being publicized. Traditional mainstream news media like The Mercury News and Los Angeles Times have reported on the topic, bringing awareness of sexual harassment to those outside of the cosplay community. As cosplay has entered more mainstream media, ethnicity becomes a controversial point. Cosplayers of different skin color than the character are often ridiculed for not being 'accurate' or 'faithful'. Many cosplayers feel as if anyone can cosplay any character, but it becomes complicated when cosplayers are not respectful of the character's ethnicity. These views against non-white cosplayers within the community have been attributed to the lack of representation in the industry and in media. Issues such as blackface, brownface, and yellowface are still controversial since a large part of the cosplay community see these as separate problems, or simply an acceptable part of cosplay.[citation needed] Cosplay has influenced the advertising industry, in which cosplayers are often used for event work previously assigned to agency models. Some cosplayers have thus transformed their hobby into profitable, professional careers. Japan's entertainment industry has been home to the professional cosplayers since the rise of Comiket and Tokyo Game Show. The phenomenon is most apparent in Japan but exists to some degree in other countries as well. Professional cosplayers who profit from their art may experience problems related to copyright infringement. A cosplay model, also known as a cosplay idol, cosplays costumes for anime and manga or video game companies. Good cosplayers are viewed as fictional characters in the flesh, in much the same way that film actors come to be identified in the public mind with specific roles. Cosplayers have modeled for print magazines like Cosmode and a successful cosplay model can become the brand ambassador for companies like Cospa. Some cosplay models can achieve significant recognition. While there are many significant cosplay models, Yaya Han was described as having emerged "as a well-recognized figure both within and outside cosplay circuits". Jessica Nigri, used her recognition in cosplay to gain other opportunities such as voice acting and her own documentary on Rooster Teeth. Liz Katz used her fanbase to take her cosplay from a hobby to a successful business venture, sparking debate through the cosplay community whether cosplayers should be allowed to fund and profit from their work. In the 2000s, cosplayers started to push the boundaries of cosplay into eroticism paving the way to "erocosplay". The advent of social media coupled with crowdfunding platforms like Patreon and OnlyFans have allowed cosplay models to turn cosplay into profitable full-time careers. During protests During various protests, cosplaying as a satirization of important people and political events. In Myanmar various protests after the 2021 coup d'état various protests occurred with cosplayers. Youth groups protested on the roads by wearing cosplay costumes, skirts, wedding dresses, and other unusual clothing for daily life while holding signboards and vinyl banners that break with the country's more traditional protest messages for the purpose of grabbing attention from both domestic and international press media. Other times fictional characters are used to convey a message such as women dressing like characters from The Handmaid's Tale to protest bodily restrictions in the United States. Cosplay by country or region Cosplayers in Japan formerly referred to themselves as reiyā (レイヤー), pronounced "layer". In contemporary Japan, however, cosplayers are more commonly referred to as kosupure (コスプレ), pronounced "ko-su-pray", as the term reiyā is now more frequently used to describe literal layers (for example, hair or clothing). Words such as kawaii (可愛い) (lit. 'cute') and kakko ī (かっこいい) (lit. 'cool') were often used to describe these changes, expressions that were closely tied to notions of femininity and masculinity. Those who photograph players are known as cameko (カメコ), a shortened form of camera kozō (カメラ小僧) (lit. 'camera boy'). Originally, cameko would give printed photographs to players as gifts. Growing interest in cosplay events—both among photographers and cosplayers willing to model—has led to the formalization of procedures at events such as Comiket. Photography is conducted in designated areas separate from the exhibit halls. In Japan, wearing costumes outside of conventions or other designated areas is generally discouraged. Since 1998, Tokyo's Akihabara district has contained a number of cosplay restaurants catering to devoted anime and manga fans, in which waitresses dress as characters from video games, anime, or manga; maid cafés are particularly popular. In Japan, Tokyo's Harajuku district serves as a favored informal gathering place for engaging in cosplay in public. Events held in Akihabara also attract large numbers of cosplayers. Ishoku-hada (異色肌) is a form of Japanese cosplay in which players use body paint to alter their skin color to match that of the character they portray. This practice allows for the representation of anime or manga characters, as well as video game characters, with non-human skin tones. A 2014 survey conducted for the Comiket convention in Japan reported that approximately 75% of cosplayers attending the event were female. Cosplay is common in many East Asian countries. For example, it is a major part of the Comic World conventions taking place regularly in South Korea, Hong Kong and Taiwan. Historically, the practice of dressing up as characters from works of fiction can be traced as far as the 17th century late Ming dynasty China. Western cosplay developed primarily from science fiction and fantasy fandoms. Compared with Japan, Western cosplayers are more likely to portray characters originating from live-action television series and films. Western costuming traditions also encompass a variety of related hobbyist subcultures, including participants in Renaissance faires, live action role-playing games, and historical reenactments. Costume competitions at science fiction conventions commonly feature masquerades, in which costumes are formally judged during stage presentations, as well as hall costumes that are evaluated informally throughout the event. The growing international popularity of Japanese cartoon during the late 2000s contributed to a rise in American and other Western cosplayers portraying characters from manga and anime. Over the following decade, anime conventions became increasingly common across Western countries, often rivaling long-established science fiction, comic book, and historical conventions in terms of attendance. At these events, cosplayers—much like their Japanese counterparts—gather to display their costumes, be photographed, and participate in competitive costume events. Convention attendees also frequently choose to dress as characters from Western comic books, animated works, films, and video games. Despite increasing global exchange, cultural differences in taste remain evident. Certain costume styles that may be worn without hesitation by Japanese cosplayers are often avoided in Western contexts, particularly those that resemble Nazi uniforms. Western cosplayers may also encounter debates regarding legitimacy when portraying characters whose canonical racial backgrounds differ from their own, and instances of insensitivity toward cosplayers depicting characters of different skin tones have been documented. Western cosplayers who portray anime characters may likewise experience targeted ridicule or misunderstanding. In comparison with Japan, wearing costumes in public spaces is generally more socially accepted in countries such as the United Kingdom, Ireland, the United States, and Canada. These regions possess longer-standing traditions of Halloween costuming, fan dress, and related practices. Consequently, it is not uncommon for convention attendees in costume to be seen in nearby restaurants and public venues outside the immediate boundaries of the event itself. Media Japan is home to two especially popular cosplay magazines, Cosmode (コスモード) and ASCII Media Works' Dengeki Layers (電撃Layers). Cosmode has the largest share in the market and an English-language digital edition. Another magazine, aimed at a broader, worldwide audience is CosplayGen. In the United States, Cosplay Culture began publication in February 2015. Other magazines include CosplayZine featuring cosplayers from all over the world since October 2015, and Cosplay Realm Magazine which was started in April 2017. There are many books on the subject of cosplay as well. Cosplay groups and organizations See also Notes References Bibliography External links |
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