The rest of the scene is very much appreciation for doing things within various technical constraints, and any appreciation of that requires more technical understanding. Even these days, many younger software engineers have trouble understanding what it takes to make and compete one of these constrained demos because the constraints themselves are virtually impossible to fathom for people who grew up smoking GB of RAM with poorly written Python code.
The idea of writing a 4kb demo for an ancient 8-bit computer that was dead in the market more than a decade before they were even born doesn't compute until you really start walking them through the fundamental CS concepts implied.
It didn't, though. It just took the scene a while to adapt to the reality that you can't learn how to push a GPU over the edge in a weekend any longer. As a result, making demos also became more accessible, and more directly related to game development (and related careers.)
The result is a scene that is so broad now, it's almost impossible to keep track of it all. It's no longer just Amiga, C64 and PC.
I interpreted you saying that it has died as a claim that it has died, not that it still thrives but—gasp—has evolved since the 90s.
> "The demoscene died" is a trope that means that the original demoscene feeling is gone for many. If you got into the demoscene in 2005, I doubt you experienced it first-hand, but I am sure you have read about it.
Presumably, that's about the extent of your involvement with the current demoscene as well. I am unable to comment on your feeling or how it disappeared. I think to some extent it simply boils down to teenagers growing up and losing interest, or not enjoying the direction of the scene. People have lamented the presumed imminent death of the demoscene for literal decades. It evolves and favored skill sets become obsolete: of course some people who were doing boot block demos for the Amiga 500 may feel alienated by the time the state of the art was 3D acceleration and shaders, just as someone doing C64 trackmos might have felt alienated once the Amiga 500 was the state of the art.
Fact remains that I can sit sweaty and drunk in a room crammed with 100 other drunk people in the middle of the summer and try to fix a fatal bug in the loader 20 minutes before deadline with two group mates standing around throwing out ideas, have an eureka moment just in time and then watch the competition results until three in the morning. I can ride on that feeling for weeks regardless of what your feeling is. If that's the demoscene being dead, I guess people weren't notified enough times despite it being a hot topic for such a long time.
The demoscene virus stuck, and I can really enjoy people doing unimaginable stuff with old and new hardware.
The way you describe the competition feeling also makes me remember similar fun at ICPC contests :)
The demoscene feeling that I have is probably a mix of nostalgia, and a sense of privilege of being part of a really weird subculture. But I also remember feeling out of touch even back then.
I was in the Demoscene (US) and wrote many demos and intros in the 80's and 90's. I don't write demos anymore, because the pressure to support my lifestyle means I write code for money now, but I do get the same feeling when I watch any of the many demos put out month after month by groups that were around back when I was coding demos, and new groups that have sprung up in the decades since. It still gives me the same wonderment when a C64 learns a new trick. It hasn't lost the excitement for me at all to view an impressive new thing. If anything it's gotten better with time and there are what seems like just as many demos coming out now as there were back in the 90s. I may even fly over to Europe someday to visit a demo party.
>In my personal opinion, after the end of the 90s the demoscene devolved into a "L'art pour l'art" incrowd which is great fun for some of its members, but less so for the general public.
I'm not sure what you define as art, but there are still plenty of demos coming out that push the C64 and Amiga past any limit people thought possible. PCs have evolved and basically have no real limits now with the latest Nvidia cards, but the 64k and lower compos are where it's at on the PC, it's still very impressive what can be done in a few KB. New tricks are still being discovered. New ways to do cool new things are still emerging. It's not necessarily "art" as much as it is clever programming, but maybe some people consider clever programming to be an art?
Take Through the Cracks by Still - it is not compressable, and everyone I show it to on the big projection wall agrees that it is unlike any video they've ever experienced.
"The demoscene died" is a trope that means that the original demoscene feeling is gone for many. If you got into the demoscene in 2005, I doubt you experienced it first-hand, but I am sure you have read about it.
Edit: To go into the Pixar argument a bit more: In 1993 a demo such as Second Reality could impress "normies" as much as an MTV video clip could. Remember that back then video clips were often total utter crap, and some demos were buttery smooth 50fps animations with a distinctive feel that you could not find anywhere in popular culture.
In my personal opinion, after the end of the 90s the demoscene devolved into a "L'art pour l'art" incrowd which is great fun for some of its members, but less so for the general public.