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262 Patricia G. Lange and Mizuko Itowere available to them, and then they move on to a story about how theypicked up more advanced skills in media production. Often they referencebeing inspired by a particular media work or creator in deciding to pursuetheir own productions. One eighteen-year-old Brazilian editor, Gepetto, 5describes this trajectory, beginning with the first time he saw an AMV. Hisfriend had given him a CD with some anime episodes, and there was anAMV on it as filler. “I was amazed at the idea that such a pretty little videoclip was made by a fan just like me. . . . I was really affected by the video.I put it on loop and watched it several times in a row.” He went on tomake his own video soon after seeing this first AMV. “My first video tookabout two and a half hours to make and it turned out extremely horrible.But I loved it.” The key here is that beginning editors see AMVs as inspiringand impressive but also something that they can aspire to, somethingmade by “a fan just like me” (Ito, Anime Fans). Amateur media provide amore accessible model than professional media do, and a community ofavailable peers to start kids off in creative production.Unlike those in many other forms of specialized practice, experts ininformation technology often emphasize that they picked up their skillsoutside of formal training and instruction. Members of technical hierarchiespride themselves on being self-taught—learning how to manipulatecode, technical devices, and networked forms of distribution on their own(Lange 2003, 2007b). The media creators we interviewed often reflectedthese values by describing how they were largely self-taught, even thoughthey might also describe the help they received from online and offlineresources, peers, parents, and even teachers. Portelli (1991) notes thatexploring these tensions is particularly useful because they represent therealm of desire and what interviewees wish to convey in terms of identitiesof expertise and appropriate participation in technical, social groups. Forexample, one successful web comics writer, SnafuDave 6 , whom MizukoIto (Anime Fans) interviewed said: “Basically, I had to self-teach myself,even though I was going to school for digital media . . . school’s morevaluable for me to have . . . a time frame where I could learn on my own”(see box 7.1). Despite his adoption of “self-taught” discourse, SnafuDavenonetheless described learning to use Photoshop, Flash, and Illustratorby making use of online tutorials and a network of graphic artists hemet online. When makers describe themselves as self-taught, they aregenerally referring to the fact that they did not receive formal instruction,