I'm feeling more and more like the cranky old guy shouting at the kids on his lawn, but my impression is that the hobby has very suddenly skewed younger as I've gotten older, and brought a lot of teen angst & HS bullshit with it.
*nods*
That's happened here, too. Fortunately, the bifurcation I mentioned means that the kids get a few of their roughest edges knocked off before they come onto my lawn. Still. I know the feeling.
The very first AMVers (mid 80's on) all vaugely knew one another through the daisy-chain tape-trading circles that had cropped up in the 70's
Live-action vidding had this, too, but I have only the vaguest clue about it. Names like "the Media Cannibals" are still spoken in these parts (and their VCR vids have been digitally remastered, so you can see what they did), but I got into vids way after I got into fandom, and I got to fandom after it had already been transformed by the LJ revolution.
The advent of the AMV contests in the mid-to-late 90's, however, meant a place to go and show your work and actually MEET other AMVers.
Live-action vidding probably has the analogy of Vividcon, which is a vids-only con that takes place in August. It's got a capped membership of (I think) 200. When it first started, that was, like, just about all the live-action vidders who could afford to be in one place in the US at one time. Now, membership sells out in the first few minutes of posting and most vidders, especially the, um - can I call them more informal? Because that's probably the nicest way to put it - the more informal ones can't go or don't want to.
And then the trolls showed up & any pretense of our hobby being an "all for one" utopia blew up.
I don't think live-action vidders ever had this pretense. But then, live-action vidding arose from slash fandom, which has been kerfluffling and trolling and wanking for about as long as I've been alive. (You don't know true fannish joy, I don't think, until you're caught up in an argument that started when you were learning to walk.)
(Hell, I could put a date to when that happened.)
Seriously? Oh, please do. I'm curious!
Anyrate, I kinda go into this here if you're at all interested.
Of course I'm interested; that was a fascinating post. It's also meta. Which means there is AMV meta being posted out there, and I'm just not finding it. Please please please tell me how to?
Well... I'm not familiar with the term. What does it mean?
I'm not exactly sure. No, really, I'm not. I picked it because of all the reoccurring discussions we have, that one makes me the most crazy, because I have never entirely understood it.
The best I can do is - okay. Fans, at least in my neck of the woods, virtually all share a common history of having been outcasts - having been the weird kid, the smart kid, the dorky kid, the kid who had interests no one else shared. Usually this happened in middle school or in high school. So, we all have this common experience of having been losers in the popularity war. And we were mostly afraid of the popular kids.
So, the "mean girls" thing is in some way connected to being "popular." As defined in fannish terms (mostly friend of list size and feedback numbers, as far as I can tell).
The second part is - well, some people are nice all the time, right? And some people are not. Some people mock. Some people make unkind remarks. Some people call other people on their bullshit. These people are mean.
So, the mean girls are - mean. And popular. And they are oppressing the nice girls, and attempting to keep them down.
I think. Don't quote me on it. I'm as lost as you are. But, believe me, someone uses the term "mean girls from high school" at least once a week in LJ fandom.
no subject
*nods*
That's happened here, too. Fortunately, the bifurcation I mentioned means that the kids get a few of their roughest edges knocked off before they come onto my lawn. Still. I know the feeling.
The very first AMVers (mid 80's on) all vaugely knew one another through the daisy-chain tape-trading circles that had cropped up in the 70's
Live-action vidding had this, too, but I have only the vaguest clue about it. Names like "the Media Cannibals" are still spoken in these parts (and their VCR vids have been digitally remastered, so you can see what they did), but I got into vids way after I got into fandom, and I got to fandom after it had already been transformed by the LJ revolution.
The advent of the AMV contests in the mid-to-late 90's, however, meant a place to go and show your work and actually MEET other AMVers.
Live-action vidding probably has the analogy of Vividcon, which is a vids-only con that takes place in August. It's got a capped membership of (I think) 200. When it first started, that was, like, just about all the live-action vidders who could afford to be in one place in the US at one time. Now, membership sells out in the first few minutes of posting and most vidders, especially the, um - can I call them more informal? Because that's probably the nicest way to put it - the more informal ones can't go or don't want to.
And then the trolls showed up & any pretense of our hobby being an "all for one" utopia blew up.
I don't think live-action vidders ever had this pretense. But then, live-action vidding arose from slash fandom, which has been kerfluffling and trolling and wanking for about as long as I've been alive. (You don't know true fannish joy, I don't think, until you're caught up in an argument that started when you were learning to walk.)
(Hell, I could put a date to when that happened.)
Seriously? Oh, please do. I'm curious!
Anyrate, I kinda go into this here if you're at all interested.
Of course I'm interested; that was a fascinating post. It's also meta. Which means there is AMV meta being posted out there, and I'm just not finding it. Please please please tell me how to?
Well... I'm not familiar with the term. What does it mean?
I'm not exactly sure. No, really, I'm not. I picked it because of all the reoccurring discussions we have, that one makes me the most crazy, because I have never entirely understood it.
The best I can do is - okay. Fans, at least in my neck of the woods, virtually all share a common history of having been outcasts - having been the weird kid, the smart kid, the dorky kid, the kid who had interests no one else shared. Usually this happened in middle school or in high school. So, we all have this common experience of having been losers in the popularity war. And we were mostly afraid of the popular kids.
So, the "mean girls" thing is in some way connected to being "popular." As defined in fannish terms (mostly friend of list size and feedback numbers, as far as I can tell).
The second part is - well, some people are nice all the time, right? And some people are not. Some people mock. Some people make unkind remarks. Some people call other people on their bullshit. These people are mean.
So, the mean girls are - mean. And popular. And they are oppressing the nice girls, and attempting to keep them down.
I think. Don't quote me on it. I'm as lost as you are. But, believe me, someone uses the term "mean girls from high school" at least once a week in LJ fandom.