I joined Viki at the end of 2013. After high school I went to college and a classmate told me about Viki when she noticed that I like K-Pop. In the end, I quit because the school and studies didn’t turn out to be right for me so the only good thing about it was that I got to know Viki
According to the oldest mail I can find, my volunteer work started at 23rd June 2014 when I asked to be a subber for ‘Deep Rooted Tree’ (Do watch it). However, back then there were a lot of fan channels with video’s in them that we could freely sub, so I might have started earlier.
I’d been watching shows on Drama fever… still miss it. When that crashed I needed another place to watch my shows and tried out several sites. I didn’t create an account right away but I know I started watching on Viki quickly after Drama Fever went down so that was in 2018. Viki please stay around for a long, long, long time. Drama Fever leaving was traumatic enough
DF didn’t crash. It had over 400.000 subscribers. It was popular among Asian drama fans. It’s just that in a world dominated by Netflix where you need 400.000.000 subscribers to create your own Scrooge McDuck money bin, a niche streaming service like DF just isn’t going to cut it. It became another poor victim of corporate greed.
I’d say, for people who learn languages, the easiest trap to get into kworld is To improve your proficiency and understand native speakers, listen to some songs in that language or go watch some regional content
I don’t know if my Korean improved or not, but I can say my knowledge about kdramas did.
For insight into the demise of dramafever, read this: https://digiday.com/future-of-tv/dramafever-casualty-big-money-ott-war/. Four hundred thousand subscribers and income of $25 million per year was not enough to pay up to $1 million for a single drama license. Contrast 400,000 subscribers in 2018 with viki’s viewership in 2014 of 35 million per month.
I used “crash” as a term for how abruptly Drama Fever was abandoned and for the emotional impact that it caused. I’m sadly aware of why it was taken down suddenly despite all of the paying members it had. In the end it’s their loss and I’m glad Viki is here so I can still watch my shows.
Yes, of course. I just wanted to reinforce the notion that these corporations aren’t our friends. They don’t care about the fans. They only care about their own bottom line.
I didn’t knew I’d add this to my story but just a few minutes ago I became a QC
I was hoping for a Plus Pass but I got Standard.
How is this criteria decided?
There was a time when I was only watching Jdrama and one day I finished one and I wanted to give an another one a try but there wasn’t really anything at that time that really sparked my interest. Then someone suggested I should give Goong (Princess Hours) a try. But the subbing team was slow and I couldn’t wait, was very impatient because I was hooked. I went to YT where some eps where translated slightly faster. And then some people started to mention Viki on discussion boards and the comment sections of the video. So I went to check it out and indeed the translations on Viki where faster then YT and the subtitle team. Only downside was that the video quality was really bad and sometimes parts of episodes here missing.
On 20 september 2009 I decided to sign up because I wanted to help out but I still didn’t figure out how and on which project I wanted to work. And after a few more months I decided to sub Personal Taste in Dutch. Found out it was a lot of work but I did receive messages from people thanking me.
After spending time as a Dutch subber and mod I thought let’s give segmenting a try and signed up for Segmentor101. I had to segment a Harry Potter trailer and my tutor was amazed that it was my first try because I did so well.
After I completed my training I started to work on the Kdrama Hundred Year Inheritance as a segger and a whole new world opened for me. As a Dutch subber/moderator I was quite invisible and really didn’t know much of the dynamics within the rest of the team. Learned more about the whole process, made a few new friends and had fun. After that project was done people asked me if I wanted to join new projects and it started snowballing in a way from there. Made more friends and got to know more people.
After a while I was thinking maybe I should give being a channel manager a try too and submitted a channel for Emergency Couple, and there it was… my very first CM project. I was so overwhelmed so I decided I needed some help and asked some CM’s I worked with before for advice and tips on managing a channel. And again an another world opened. There was so much I never thought of before and such and I was so glad with the help. After I had some kind of plan on how I wanted to manage it I started to PM people I worked with before to ask if they wanted to help me out and most of them wanted to help out so I had a good team within no time with many people who already had experience so it was easier to manage.
I also helped with the founding of NSSA a little by making designs for the first badges and diploma’s and I was on the grad panel for a while and was asked to be a sensei for a few times but teaching someone how to segment properly isn’t really my thing. I have no patience for it.
Now I mainly focus on segmenting and sometimes a CM project if Viki gives me one.
Over the past few years I saw many people come and go, saw quite a few changes on Viki. Also made quite a few friends and some people at times think I’m VikiStaff which I’m not.
I started watching dramas on Viki because all tv channels in my country were getting more and more pathetic. They air only reality shows, soap operas and mockumentaries now.
Last year was the premiere of The Untamed. I tried watching it on another platform, but subs there were not very good (now they are better). Viki volunteers started translating it into many different languages. My native language too, but it stopped on first episode. Personally, I think it’s one of those masterpieces that should be translated into as many languages as possible. That is why I messaged my wonderful moderator and thanks to her I was part of subtitling team. There were four of us and now I’m a lonely wolf, the only one actively participating here.
My viki story :
i’ve been here for more than 7 or 8 years , i guess while watching city hunter kd …
viki is always special for me as i feel like am not alone while watching dramas even when i am , as so many people express their feelings on comments and actually at the same time they express mine too ,
hope that site will remain for forever , <3
Oh my! I never saw this thread until now so thank you for the bump ^^
My beginng started in the year 2011/2 where I started to watch Autumn Concerto on youtube (which was a coincidence) and that drama struck me so hard that I wanted more of those melodramas. After that I found viki through some search and started to satify my addiction for 1-2 years until I saw that those subs are from volunteers and started somehow back in 2013 through a kind soul who helped to start as a subber. PS: My first drama ever on viki was “I Miss You” which was also a melo xD
Since 9-10 years I am a viewer, 8 years as a subber, 2 years as a moderator and channel manager here (+page designer as well). So much has changed… some things are better and some things are not better than in the past.
I’m “relatively” new here, compared to others. I loved anime and mangas since ages and in August 2018, I saw the first Japanese drama (on Netflix, though) which was a live action of a manga which I quite enjoyed. It was weird and rather cringeworthy but I was looking for something else to watch. I ended up seeing “Oh my ghost” on Netflix and just realized half way through that this is actually Korean and not Japanese… and I loved it! Well, this is how the whole story began.
Then, I started to do some research and finally found out that some of my friends watched these KDramas before. A friend of mine recommended Viki and only after 1,5 months being a regular viewer, I decided to start supporting as a contributor. I couldn’t bear that some of the subtitles were soooo bad *haha So, with this said I’m going to have my 2nd anniversary in November and I’m reaching my 200k subs soon. There is almost no day where I’m not online, at least for a while
Now, I’m not just a subtitler, I’m also German moderator, editor, I’ve been lucky enough to be Channel Manger for 2 dramas already. I’m a Channel Page creator and even started my segmenter training a few months ago. Every aspect in this community is fun for me and I love talking to all these lovely people here, who share the same passion for Asian dramas as I do. I’ve build up friendships which I don’t want to miss anymore and I hope, to find even more of these lifetime companions. <3
OMG. That was one of my all time favorite drama for years. I have re-watched it multiple times. Haha. It was also the drama that really kick started my drama addiction. I am so glad to see that someone else began their drama journey with that show.
To be honest, I did the mistake to take on too many dramas when I first started as subtitler at Viki. I made them all and all within the given time, but during my “high season” I had 15 dramas and almost no free time. It was nice at that time, but soon I realized that’s not what I want to do at Viki and with my private life.
So now I’m back to 2 (max 3) subtitler jobs and 2 aktive Mod-jobs. And that is perfect. In addition, I do my own edit which takes time because, as you said before, you need at least double (if not triple) the time to edit an episode than to translate it. If you want to do a proper edit. My Mod-Jobs are my babies and I want them to be as good as possible with my “final touch” on them. That’s why I usually pick my Mod-jobs pretty thoughtful.
And for me it’s important to have a good balance of work, Viki and private life. None of them should be left behind in any way. If I take on a role I’m dedicated to that, but my main role is being a human being and enjoying life I think, we all have to learn that in one way or the other.
Viki please stay around for a long, long, long time. Drama Fever leaving was traumatic enough 
I think, we all have to learn that in one way or the other.