Vid thoughts: "Us"
You've already seen it rec'd up and down your flist today, so I'm going to jump right into a non-spoilery discussion of it.
When I saw the recs for this vid, I thought "oh good!" I am always looking for good meta vids and gen vids: i.e., things I can show to people who aren't part of this particular segment of fandom* to talk about the long history of fan remixing, participatory culture, etc. etc. And Lim's videos take good advantage of the sorts of filters and effects digital tools provide, in ways that I think bring home how these tools really lower the bar of entry into high production values.
But, here's the thing. I can't show someone that vid without sitting them down and explaining to them, in detail, 40-odd years of slash and media fandom. Hell, I don't think I can explain all of it myself: there was certainly footage in there that I didn't recognize at all.
This is not, in itself, a good or a bad choice. But it's a choice I find interesting.
The fannish** community spends a lot of time explaining itself to itself. An understandable impulse for a group of people brought together around what is, essentially, an interpretative act. But -- here's the thing. There are a lot, a lot of people coming into your turf, if you're a vidder. And it's not just going to be BoingBoing linking to Killa's Spock vids, or people posting your work to YouTube. Now that anyone can vid, there are media corporations falling all over themselves trying to figure out if and how they can make money off the impulse. And when they work out how to do so, they're absolutely going to be spinning vidding as their latest and greatest innovation, something completely new that no one has ever done before.
I think it's great that there are celebrations of this small, queer (in every sense) community within this community itself. But I also think it's a community that's worth celebrating in a way that speaks to outsiders as well, so someone not already deeply versed in its shorthand can understand what's valuable about it.
* People calling majority-female media fandoms "fandom" is like me saying "America" when really I'm talking about New York City. I'm guilty of both, but that doesn't make either of them right!
** See! Did it again!
When I saw the recs for this vid, I thought "oh good!" I am always looking for good meta vids and gen vids: i.e., things I can show to people who aren't part of this particular segment of fandom* to talk about the long history of fan remixing, participatory culture, etc. etc. And Lim's videos take good advantage of the sorts of filters and effects digital tools provide, in ways that I think bring home how these tools really lower the bar of entry into high production values.
But, here's the thing. I can't show someone that vid without sitting them down and explaining to them, in detail, 40-odd years of slash and media fandom. Hell, I don't think I can explain all of it myself: there was certainly footage in there that I didn't recognize at all.
This is not, in itself, a good or a bad choice. But it's a choice I find interesting.
The fannish** community spends a lot of time explaining itself to itself. An understandable impulse for a group of people brought together around what is, essentially, an interpretative act. But -- here's the thing. There are a lot, a lot of people coming into your turf, if you're a vidder. And it's not just going to be BoingBoing linking to Killa's Spock vids, or people posting your work to YouTube. Now that anyone can vid, there are media corporations falling all over themselves trying to figure out if and how they can make money off the impulse. And when they work out how to do so, they're absolutely going to be spinning vidding as their latest and greatest innovation, something completely new that no one has ever done before.
I think it's great that there are celebrations of this small, queer (in every sense) community within this community itself. But I also think it's a community that's worth celebrating in a way that speaks to outsiders as well, so someone not already deeply versed in its shorthand can understand what's valuable about it.
* People calling majority-female media fandoms "fandom" is like me saying "America" when really I'm talking about New York City. I'm guilty of both, but that doesn't make either of them right!
** See! Did it again!