I had to cut most of the quotes short because of the comment limit, sorry!
(Oh, and you mentioned you were on the fringes of fandom here, too. What fandoms, if I may ask?)
I'm not in them; I just lurk, or read some fic but don't write it, etc. For some reason media fandom is scary to me, because everyone is so fiercely affectionate and unfailingly brilliant. I'm a fan-not-fandom of HP, Buffy, and Heroes, among a smattering of others.
Whereas AMV making - hmmm. I'm not sure where it came from, but I'm pretty sure the founders weren't writing Gundam Wing slash before they decided it was time to go audiovisual.
Some were! But as a whole, it seems to have been a semi-random "hey, I can do video editing; why don't I overlay this song for darkly comic effect like they did at the end of [movie]" somewhere in the late '70s/early '80s. At least that's the theory from a panel I went to a while back...
Awww, that's just sad. I mean, we're all fans, yes? That means we all spend way more time than most folks would consider normal on stuff that doesn't interest the average person at all. So once we've got this far, well, it seems like owning the geekishness is a better route than playing the "I'm marginally less geeky than you! By a fraction so tiny as to be indistinguishable to anyone except people as geeky as we are!"
That's kinda enviable. Granted, there's solidarity in AMV fandom too, and there are "geekier than thou" chest-beatings. It's my impression that there's less owning of the geekishness (well put) than in media. And there's a little "this series is only raw material for MY GENIUS." Maybe because media's source material is held in higher esteem among regular folk than otaku fandom's source material is. And maybe it's gender bias. People try to look cool.
As far as I can tell, AMV meta seems to take place mostly in discussions at cons (well, and in vids). Which depresses me, because I want to know what other people think, and how can I if they're just chatting amongst themselves? Unless someone took really good notes, I mean.
You could always ask them - there are a lot of articulate fans on the org's boards even if there are cynics and such mixed in. Some horses have been thoroughly beaten already, but they will discuss them anyway. :)
But it is a really pervasive fear - for me, for other non-vidders trying to talk about vids. We'll say it wrong! We'll sound stupid! You (the collective you: vidders) will make fun! So I always try to cover that objection when I'm encouraging non-vidders to give vid feedback a shot.
Ah, okay. That makes sense.
(Where are the big AMV recs sources, by the way? Aside from the org-resident ones, like the top ten % list and the forums, because I've plundered those.)
I think it's word of mouth. If you socialize, you get to know the editors and hear about their upcoming works, and if you don't, you still get to recognize editors whose work you tend to like. So when $badasseditor posts a new video announcement, everybody flocks. A few people brave the wilds and watch random stuff, then report on the best in LJ and such.
I'm guessing, partly. I'm semi-random; I'll search within my fandoms, follow people's recs, and search songs that I think might make interesting videos, just to see what turns up.
(I am curious, though. In the AMV world, if someone was really angered by a score, would he reply to the opinion? Or would he be more likely to ignore it? For all I know, the folks who didn't reply were all biting their tongues.)
S/he might reply, and might not. That's probably an individual quirk. If you're really curious, you could also check out hir journal (linked in each editor's site profile) and see if there's passive-aggressive whining going on in there. :P
Re: This is tl;dr, sorry!
(Oh, and you mentioned you were on the fringes of fandom here, too. What fandoms, if I may ask?)
I'm not in them; I just lurk, or read some fic but don't write it, etc. For some reason media fandom is scary to me, because everyone is so fiercely affectionate and unfailingly brilliant. I'm a fan-not-fandom of HP, Buffy, and Heroes, among a smattering of others.
Whereas AMV making - hmmm. I'm not sure where it came from, but I'm pretty sure the founders weren't writing Gundam Wing slash before they decided it was time to go audiovisual.
Some were! But as a whole, it seems to have been a semi-random "hey, I can do video editing; why don't I overlay this song for darkly comic effect like they did at the end of [movie]" somewhere in the late '70s/early '80s. At least that's the theory from a panel I went to a while back...
Awww, that's just sad. I mean, we're all fans, yes? That means we all spend way more time than most folks would consider normal on stuff that doesn't interest the average person at all. So once we've got this far, well, it seems like owning the geekishness is a better route than playing the "I'm marginally less geeky than you! By a fraction so tiny as to be indistinguishable to anyone except people as geeky as we are!"
That's kinda enviable. Granted, there's solidarity in AMV fandom too, and there are "geekier than thou" chest-beatings. It's my impression that there's less owning of the geekishness (well put) than in media. And there's a little "this series is only raw material for MY GENIUS." Maybe because media's source material is held in higher esteem among regular folk than otaku fandom's source material is. And maybe it's gender bias. People try to look cool.
As far as I can tell, AMV meta seems to take place mostly in discussions at cons (well, and in vids). Which depresses me, because I want to know what other people think, and how can I if they're just chatting amongst themselves? Unless someone took really good notes, I mean.
You could always ask them - there are a lot of articulate fans on the org's boards even if there are cynics and such mixed in. Some horses have been thoroughly beaten already, but they will discuss them anyway. :)
But it is a really pervasive fear - for me, for other non-vidders trying to talk about vids. We'll say it wrong! We'll sound stupid! You (the collective you: vidders) will make fun! So I always try to cover that objection when I'm encouraging non-vidders to give vid feedback a shot.
Ah, okay. That makes sense.
(Where are the big AMV recs sources, by the way? Aside from the org-resident ones, like the top ten % list and the forums, because I've plundered those.)
I think it's word of mouth. If you socialize, you get to know the editors and hear about their upcoming works, and if you don't, you still get to recognize editors whose work you tend to like. So when $badasseditor posts a new video announcement, everybody flocks. A few people brave the wilds and watch random stuff, then report on the best in LJ and such.
I'm guessing, partly. I'm semi-random; I'll search within my fandoms, follow people's recs, and search songs that I think might make interesting videos, just to see what turns up.
(I am curious, though. In the AMV world, if someone was really angered by a score, would he reply to the opinion? Or would he be more likely to ignore it? For all I know, the folks who didn't reply were all biting their tongues.)
S/he might reply, and might not. That's probably an individual quirk. If you're really curious, you could also check out hir journal (linked in each editor's site profile) and see if there's passive-aggressive whining going on in there. :P