My Fandom

Last night I went to see a movie specifically because of the trailer. The trailer played and I gasped and went still and got chills and it was BEAUTIFUL and to all my friends around the country who will go and see this movie today? I hate you all.

The Boy got excited when the Revenge of the Sith trailer came up right after "Serenity" and then I was ready to go home. He said no, so we stayed and the Mos Def fangirl within is very glad we did (there is *nothing* that man cannot do). But man - I could have just watched the trailer for "Serenity" for two hours and have been just as happy... in fact I think I have done so, repeatedly, at my computer, since it was released.

Yay for digital technology!!!

Also, I don't hate my friends. I am writhing in painful jealousy, but I am happy that y'all get this opportunity. Just... ACK!! I want to know but I really really don't want to know so someone just needs to tie me up and stick me in a corner until September, 'kay?


sockkpuppett posted a bit yesterday about vidding as a fandom and so my thinking is kind of pointed in that direction. I say this a lot, now - that vidding is my primary fandom, because people always want to know "what is your primary fandom?" - it is like asking someone in college what their major is, it is just that ubiquitous question that hangs over us all at the Panfandom Social Mixer.

And while the very presense of vividcon goes a long way in supporting that this, this thing we do with the music and the television, that it is its own special group with mores and ideals and shared language -- I don't know that it does that (on the surface) any more than the existence of Escapade or Connexxions supports that slash itself is a fandom.

Of course - attending Vividcon is an entirely different matter than what it just appears on the surface -- once you are there you *get* it almost at once. We all do this thing, this watching of the vids and some of us make them and some of us analyze them and some of us just sit there gobsmacked in front of the screen and die a little on the inside because you *just* figured something really important out and had a very significant moment with your subconscious and if this was fanfiction, you and your identity would be making out in the backseat of its car by now.

Because this is what vids do. Sometimes. Sometimes they do something else and this is exciting.

But why? Why do they do this to us? Why are we so rabid about this topic, so protective of this mode of expression? I don't know - I have thoughts though.

By and large if you discover music videos and become fasinated by them, then it is already a fannish act. You feel fannish enough about a particular show to either have fannish friends who bring tapes/DVDs of vids to your home, or you seek them out/stumble across them online, or you are attending a con and see them then. The very act of seeing and engaging with this medium is fan-driven. Mundanes don't do this.

Now, I have forced many a mundane down and played some vids for them. The reaction is usually one of general puzzlement. They might make a general connection and say "Oh, she just wiggled her head to the music!" and at this point, as a vidder, I must concede that this reaction is so very painful to me that I don't even try anymore. You have to ask to see my vids, unless you are related to me.

Fannishly inclined people have already made the jump from casual viewing to going somewhere in the vicinity of a deeper meaning of the text. Sometimes they don't quite go that far, but they understand certain concepts like repeated viewings and character arcs. They don't think it is unusual that you have all of the dialogue from "The X Files" episode "Pusher" memorized. They understand when someone explains that their big strong hero has the emotional intelligence of a gerbil and then proceed to provide concrete examples. They are already there.

But by and large, they are not going to be all "OH! Vidding is a fandom" and this is fine. This is more than fine - this is good. It is a natural expression of the infinite variations of the human mind. We are all snowflakes, or something.

There is nothing wrong with connecting deeply with your television show (or shows) and connecting deeply with fanmade videos of the same and not feeling the desire to seek out more in this medium. No one says you have to be multifannish to participate and you definitely don't have to share my fandoms to hang with me. I don't expect everyone I have ever met to watch "The Invisible Man" (although they really should. It is a great show ;) and I don't expect everyone I know to Get Down With the Music videos. I am always taken aback when someone comments in my LJ that they don't watch music videos because... well, that is pretty much all I do and I don't understand why they would have me friended otherwise. It would be like me friending a guy who believed passionately in building his own Formula One race car. I am sure he is a great person, but if the majority of his posts were about engine performance and friction drag - I'm gonna be lost.

But I digress. Why am I fannish about music videos?- to the extent that some of my favorite videos are to shows that I have never seen and to the point that I watch so many things now - or I keep up with what is happening, just so I can have a greater context to draw from when watching these videos.

Part of it is just a craft thing, or it started out being a craft thing. When I first started making music videos, I was deeply immersed in BtVS. I watched BtVS vids. I made BtVS vids. I read BtVS fan-fiction. When I engaged in fannish discussion it was about BtVS with the occasional foray into "Oh, you were into TXF? Me, too!" but mainly it was all about some Buffy.

And then I met Luminosity. And Lum had these BtVS vids and they were incredible and I learned so much by watching them obsessively. But Lum also had these other vids, from a show I never really watched, and they were mostly about this dude Duncan and sometimes they were about what this guy Methos thought about this guy Duncan, and for the most part - I could get the idea of what was happening, what was being said and what the conflict was - just by watching.

I do think I needed Kronos explained to me, cause really - I wouldn't have gone to the Four Horseman place automatically (although now - in other fandoms, I kinda do. I have a default Four Horsemen Assumption thing going now).

But I was deeply into making vids and learning about this and making myself a better vidder who could tell these stories that I needed to tell. So I started watching all these other vids and lo and behold - I started liking all of these other vids and having emotional reactions to them and so I would need to watch them some more to figure out *why* I am feeling this way about clips of a bunch of strangers set to music?

And that is when I realized, that if you do this correctly, this vidding thing - if you do it the right way, then you can make people in the audience forget they don't know this person or their struggle and you can bypass all of that and go straight to the heart of the matter. Sometimes. With some audiences.

And once this happened - this connection - I wanted more. I wanted not only to experience it (cause there is nothing like watching a really good vid. It blows me away all the time) but to figure them out - why does this do this to me? Why am I laughing? Why am I crying? Can *I* do this? Can I make someone cry? Can I make myself cry?

And it is more than just a mini-movie. The combination of music - of source - of filters and mood and just plain good editing create something that isn't a movie - it is something else. My favorite vids make an emotional connection with me. They elicit a response from me - I feel a certain way because of all the things the vidder controlled and it is just fantastic to be able to connect to something like that or to make something that connects to someone else like that or to just feel like you have opened up something really important about yourself and smeared it all over the timeline and other people see it and GET IT!

It doesn't always happen. Not every vid makes your throat close up because it is so beautiful or makes you feel suddenly wistful for a summer when you were eight or causes your side to ache with laughter or causes you to wonder if you are going into a diabetic coma from the sweetness or makes you scared to turn out the light. But a lot do just that - and more. And I get to hang out with the people that make these things and the people that love these things and we get to talk about these things and analyze why it does what it does and why it doesn't do what it wants to do and where do we go from here? And it doesn't matter that I never watched "dueSouth" or I didn't get into "Deep Space Nine" -- that is beside the point.

At least for me. But remember - I am the gal who could have watched the "Serentity" trailer on repeat last night for two hours. Saying I have a high tolerance for repetition is an understatement. So not everyone will feel this way.

But there are people who do and that is the biggest blessing of all.