(This is not the entire post)

danmeth:

Some general observations about animators.

• Animators are really nice and down to earth. They can only get so famous. Unlike Hollywood directors or rock stars, they rarely are arrogant jerks who won’t associate with up-and-comers. Even the most legendary icons of animation like Richard Williams were kicking back and exchanging business cards with students. I talked to some heroes of mine and within moments I realized that they are just regular dudes. The egos don’t get too big in animation, I guess.
• Animators love to dance. And they can tell you how many frames per second they are dancing on.
• Animators don’t get tired of watching cartoons. After 5 days straight, people were still filling up the theaters.
• Animators are everywhere. I met directors and saw films from every continent this past week.
• Animators almost always grow beards by their later years.
• Animators are child-like.

The odd thing about this is that if I had seen this a couple of years ago, I wouldn’t believe it, particularly the first bullet.  Most of the animators I knew of were independent and made online cartoons, so these were guys from places like Newgrounds and whatnot.  And whether their cartoons were a smash hit or they were underdogs, the animators were jerks and some of them were just straight-up assholes to be honest.  I would send messages to these people and they would either go completely ignored, or I’d get a really nasty reply signaling that they were too high and mighty and I had no business talking to them.  Trying to gain any kind of recognition or even a foot-hold was out of the question.  I didn’t meet any approachable creators until after I had been following Channel Frederator for a while.  Early on, I just kind of lurked and enjoyed the episodes, read the blogs, etc. from a distance. By doing so, however, I noticed that a lot of regulars fit into the points Dan wrote here (well, I don’t know about the dancing, but that may still be true, haha) and that’s when I finally started making some contributions.  Since then, all the animators I’ve met—professional, independent, or otherwise—have been incredibly friendly.  They actually acknowledge people when they make a comment about their stuff, and they take the time to answer personal questions or even give you advice.  I just hope that as time carries on that I meet and have the pleasure of working with more animators like this and also that I become someone like that.
Just wanted to add my two cents on that…