somniloquence

I remain underwhelmed by imeem, though some of the concepts or ideas behind what it's trying to do I can get behind. But in this particular interface, and its variable site performance (slowness, stutteryness, unreachability), the theory is more interesting than the execution. The UI is an absolute trainwreck in its awfulness, and I'd point talking_sock over there to mock it if I didn't know she had already had too many horrors in her life right now. And if the site disappears tomorrow, I won't be surprised. There's something very uncertain and flaky about it, like it can't decide what it wants to be.

And *yes*! Streaming video is poop, and a huge step backward. It has its uses -- I agree with morgandawn that having it as a preview tool is useful. But I also think the number of viewers who make the leap to go dl a vid they liked from a website is tiny, and getting smaller. The idea of a vidder jumping through hoops to get pristine HDTV source -- to make a vid that's going to be 400x300, jerky, crap-ass streaming video... It doesn't compute.

On the other issue, about being out/empowered/whatever... As a cave-dweller, I'm not taking it personally. It's something other people want or need, fine. If it makes me a Luddite fan not worthy of respect, so be it. It isn't going to stop me from vidding or writing. I guess I just don't really see what the ultimate goal of it all is. I make fan-stuff for other fans, and it's other fans who enjoy them, and that's cool to me. Ways that let me share stuff with other fans -- ways that do not push me into the faces of the copyright holders -- are also cool. But I get this feeling that my modest aims aren't what other fans -- maybe even most fans these days -- want, and reaching the wider audience of non-fans and the attention of copyright holders is part of either their process or their goal. I don't understand it, but it's happening whether I understand it or not. I stay in the cave, which has never been risk-free anyway, and wait for some shoes to drop. If the shoes never drop, that's cool. I don't want people I like, but who need that proactive public exposure in their fannish life, to get hurt, either.

That being said, I know it's hard not to take it personally, because some of the rhetoric going around is fierce. I guess all I'm trying to say is that if not being in the vanguard makes you a crank, you're not the only crank hanging back and wondering WTF.