gwyn | Just call me crank

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Just call me crank

(That Catherine Wheel song has always been one of my all-time faves. And now I'm thinking, why isn't anyone doing this for House, or Chloe on 24, or any of the other great TV cranks and curmudgeons?)

I ordered my first BPAL stuff the other night! Go, me. I know it will take a long time to get them, but I'm excited nonetheless. I ordered the Purple Phoenix LE (which I keep wanting to call Purple Passion) just because it sounds nice, and even though I may hate it and I have no idea what most of the scents will be like (talk about going in blind!), the cool thing about this is that I can pass it along to someone else if it doesn't work. I ordered six imps, most of them from the Love Potions category, I think, just because I picked it at random and it had a lot that sounded good. And in the meantime while I wait, I have a nearly full bottle of my beloved frankincense and myrrh perfume oil that I bought at Barney's NY last year that's heinously expensive but comes in the most beautiful Moroccan perfume bottle, something I'm always on the lookout for. (Seriously, if you ever stumble on some Moroccan style bottles at a flea market or whatever, I will totally reiumburse you for picking them up.)

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But now to my crankness. See, those of you who know me more recently think I am nice. Ha! Little do you know that I am considered by many people from olden times as the Great Fannish Crank. I'm always kvetching and pointing out flaws, and griping, and telling people why they're stupid, etc. I got a lot better a while ago, but there are still people who stay far away from me.

And I'm feeling like a crank about... imeem. Oh come one, like you couldn't have guessed!

astolat sent me an invitation, so I thought, okay, I'll look at it, at least (before the invite, I really didn't have any intention of looking at it because I hate streaming media), but I accidentally started an account (my mistake for not looking closer!), and so I just figured I'd make a placeholder page -- like the fifty other blog things I have that I don't use but jumped into the great fannish landgrab over. And I think that's the first two things right there that I'm not completely sold on -- 1) I hate streaming media, because it's small, it still looks like ass (better ass is still ass), and it stutters and can't handle transitions or fast edits, and 2) as fans we are always very lemming-like, and sometimes I wish that we weren't. Some things I've taken a long time to get on the bandwagon with, but lately I've been jumping up a lot, and I'm not always sure why other than that I don't want my friends to leave me behind.

And I'm not sure that's a good justification for this. I still believe, no matter how much people want to make us out and proud, that fan vidders in live action are playing a game of chicken here. For some, maybe a C&D letter or demand for reparations, or losing your web space, or getting hit with a lot of threatening TOS violations, isn't scary. But it is to me. And this "the boys do it so why don't we wonderful women" thing kind of gets my goat, too -- it sets up something I saw a lot of before VVC this year, a kind of you're either in the closet hiding like a girl or you're a real adult and putting your vids out where you could get slapped legally.

See, I don't think it comes down to that, and I hate the conversation becoming about Brave, Liberated Female Vidders vs. lame, pathetic, closeted losers or something, and this concerns me a lot. I don't think we're doing anyone any favors when we present it like that, and even if the intention isn't bad, the practice is -- I've seen it dicussed this way a lot, and it makes me... cranky. And I don't believe competing with the vidboys (whether it's machinima or AMV or what have you) makes us any better, either. If people want to get things more out there, mainstream them more, that's certainy their choice. But I dislike intensely that increasingly, the choice is being delivered as a "if you mainstream your vids, you're cool; if you don't, you're lame and a coward." I would hate to see this belief take over my corner of vidding fandom.

And so I'm not sure what we gain with imeem. I feel as if we're taking a huge step backward -- we've gone to a lot of trouble to find and use new codecs that will allow us to present our vids in lovely big sizes, with flawless compressions, etc. And now we're moving far backward by streaming them in a small window with herky jerky quality that can't handle fast cuts and lots of effects. I'm not impressed with it visually, and since I have only a regular DSL line, I have to stop the file every single time I click on anything -- to comment, to add to a playlist, to view comments, or it just stutters and barfs. To view a vid, I have to just wait for it to load, and I'm not sure I see how that's a value over DLing--takes the same amount of time and is just as much a blind date as before.

I find the interface incredibly confusing. It shows up so differently in FF for my mac, Safari on my Mac, and IE6 on my Windows laptop that it's like looking at different services. Half the time I have no real idea what I'm doing, and I can't stop the damn vid from playing every time I have to click through. I did like the fact that they notified me when my test vid loaded.

I don't know if this is what people are heading to, though. We're going back to small jittery vids, and let's face it, the kinds of people who watch streaming vids are never going to go DL your better quality vid at your site. So then, do we all do away with the expense of putting our vids up on a server, and just use this, till such time as Universal or Fox finds us and we get booted? I don't know. I'm just not seeing the value for people who are concerned about quality, etc.

My friend Michael pointed out that the only value he sees with those types of sites is that it's a clearinghouse to find things you might otherwise not. And I can see the value in that in some respects, but I also see the dangers -- us saying that the dangers will go away if we're out and proud seem naive at best to me, at least from my past experience. But I also don't see people using imeem as a clearinghouse and then going to your site to DL vids, leaving you feedback, etc. I put up my new BSG vid last night and this morning it said it had 13 views, but one comment. Being able to comment right away doesn't change anything -- people don't care, and they're still crappy. They're still never going to leave you feedback and you're still unlikely to ever get to know those people, to build community. So, are we gaining anything? I don't know. I don't know exactly what I think.

mlyn was bitching at me for saying some of this stuff last night, but this is what I do -- I'm always looking for the missing emperor's clothes, or pointing out the cracks in cement, because I'm, you know, a crank.

But I'd be interested to hear what other people think or what their experience has been so far. (At least, if you can disagree or argue respectfully. I'm getting really tired of trying to be respectful to people while presenting my differing take on things, only to have them spit in my face or call me hostile names.) I mean, nothing's perfect (certainly not YouTube!), but what is it we're looking for besides herky-jerky playback and small windows that allow us instant access to vids? I am curious what others hope for.

And btw, my page there is gwyneth.imeem.com and the vid there right now is Battlestar Galactica, Digging in the Dirt

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Not impressed with it, either, but then, I'm just a consumer, not a vidder. I do love the big, big files with flawless frames.

I like iMeem because it allows me to preview a vid - the quality is much better than most other streaming sites - and the jerkiness (and their lame interface) has been something we've all been commenting on since the start. In fact, we have entire threads on the lameness over at the iMeem Forum.

So for me - preview - then download. Handy tool.

As for the "we're the revolution" discussion - well that's another topic altogether and should not be confused with iMeem.

I did a post on it in my LJ - trying to explain the ways the iMeem fit is not perfect with what we as vidders and vid want/need (but that - for me- it is yet another tool to be used in my goal to get viewers). I did this so that people don't think they need to approach this small off the beaten path web site with religious fervor or as part of some greater debate.

In other words, it is what is is - reading anything more (or less) into it is wholly in our own minds.

As for the "we're the revolution" discussion - well that's another topic altogether and should not be confused with iMeem.

Unfortunately, I don't think it is anymore. I think this is the testing ground a lot of people are looking at as a way to make that stand (why do I hear Adam and the Ants singing "Stand and Deliver"?).

I joined your meem, but I still don't know what I think about it all. Maybe if the interface ever improves I would be able to formulate a better opinion, but until it does, it's driving me so batshit I can't see anything else.

"I think this is the testing ground a lot of people are looking at as a way to make that stand....."

I cannot speak for others, but as for me, I'd never join a revolution where I couldn't dance.

Second that as the central argument. i've already found a couple of vids that I didn't download for one reason or another (often vidders I like but not in my fandom), and i think if more people go, we'll have that option even more. Right now, most people over there are names I know, whose vids i'd probably download anyway. but what about the vidders where you'd never waste your time and bandwidth, yet here you can do it quickly and check it out?

i agree that the outness debate and imeem connect on some level, but I also think it's not a simple dichotomy but rather a spectrum of options. As far as I'm concerned (as a non-vidder and thus being nowhere in the position y'all are), I'm one of those people who talks about female fan cultures at conferences and noone comes. And everyone talks about the boys. And, yes, that hurts for myself, but also for my sense of the community. Vids are out there, but they are decontextualized, on youtube by vidders who may not have the context themselves, praised by people who have no idea that they're part of a large and proud tradition.

And that's ultimately the reason I think it may be useful to talk about it more openly...and that may not necessarily mean that everyone posts publically playing a game of chicken, but it might mean showing vids and explaining their contextual meaning to people who think they're the only ones doing cool stuff and what we do is what ends up on youtube... [which is not to say that all vids on youtube are bad--far from it, but Sturgeon's law and all :-)]

I hate to think I was *bitching* at you; more that I was responding to what you were saying, and we were all getting heated about it, so I was sharper than I intended to be. I'm sorry.

FWIW, I think you have good points, about sacrificing quality for ease of use, and playing chicken.

But I also think that if you believe there are other positions than the false dichotomy out there right now, the you're either in the closet hiding like a girl or you're a real adult and putting your vids out where you could get slapped legally one, then you should actually say it. I'm frustrated by the tease here. I'd like to think that there's a stance vidders can take, where we're not putting our hand out to be slapped with a C&D but not hiding in the closet either; where we can make a respectful name for ourselves. I'd gladly take that route. Show me the way, baby.

I also think Morgan Dawn's right about making of it what you will. If you don't like it, don't use it. The playing chicken/exposing vidding dialogue is separate.

Also tell Michael that he's right about clearinghouse sites: I went searching for music to make a playlist, and found two new Depeche Mode singles I'd never even heard *of*, one of which is from a film soundtrack, and it's AWESOME. Say what you will about imeem, it enabled me to hear that song and save it to listen to again.

I was totally blindsided last night, because I'd seen that you had made an account and added friends and put up a playlist (with our vid!), and then you started talking about how much you hate it. I was all "BZUH?" So again, sorry. I won't bring up imeem again.

I keep forgetting to suggest this.

I think a good use of imeem for you would be to make a 30-second sample clip of your vid, then tell people where to download it. You'd be encouraging users to use your website, go for the quality, but also give them the sampling a lot of viewers want from imeem.

I didn't say I hated it -- I said it had the crappy interface that I can't stand, where I can't figure out why things won't work or where they're hiding when they should be easy to figure out.

And I don't know what you mean by the tease. I said what I meant. I think right now that there are a lot of vidders and vid fans who see this as "if you don't want to be out and proud, then you suck." They use very positive words to describe the people willing to be mainstream, and very negative phrases for people who aren't. And I don't even think they realize they are, but they are.

I'm ambivalent to Imeem and other streaming sites. Another uncool thing to say, but I joined just because so many others have. :D I don't really feel the need to "mainstream myself" beyond what I'm already doing, so I don't know how active I'll be and definitely won't put my entire catalogue up there, probably just a few that I particularly like to act as a portal to my site.

As for legal infringement concerns, I think they're still hugely valid even though there's been a huge migration of vidders all of a sudden. It might even make us an easier target. But I think the titling/tagging system being implemented at the moment is a way to lower the risk.

I agree with you that the people who usually stream vids are probably not the ones who will leave you detailed feedback. However, taking the "vidder migration" into account, it's also an easier way for people in the existing vidding community to access the works of vidders they know. And if they were going to send feedback anyway, it might be quicker for them to stream/comment instead of download/email or whatever.

I think it's very smart to protect yourself. The only reason why I don't have a password on my site is because I'm too un-tech-coordinated to know how. And I was surprised to read about this conversation about Brave Liberated Vidders vs Lame Closeted Ones. I honestly don't think that's the opinion of most vidders out there, but I haven't really been paying attention to this discussion so I'm probably just missing the boat here. At any rate I don't think it should have anything to do with a feminist movement and, if it is really getting presented that way, then that's not such a good thing.

I think you've said it very well , and made really good points. I honestly can't see people heading over to DL permanent copies of the vids they see, but... I'm willing to be surprised. I just don't think that kind of fan is the same one that would be attracted to imeem.

I think the hard thing for me about this quasi feminist discussion is that people don't even realize what they're saying. You can see them cheering on the brave ladies, and right there, they've set up an us vs. them situation that makes me more than a bit frustrated.

I think (correct me if I am wrong gwyn) gwyn is referring to this Meta Vidding thread here: http://community.livejournal.com/vidding/893694.html

My best advice - to find out what people are saying, head over there and read it for yourself.

Thanks for the link MD! :)

oh and I had some commentary on my LJ - but I think I am on your reading list?

Aye - I jumped on the bandwagon a bit late so am just now catching up with the commentary. Cheers for the iMeem 101 guide, twas v. useful and I chucked it into my memories for easy reference. :)

No, I'm referring to a couple of personal LJ posts that came up before VVC, but I don't want to just sort of out the individuals. And I've seen similar reactions to this post you mention, in other personal LJs. Just... frustrates me that the conversation is turning that way.

Since you just made metafandom, you may want to toss in a a few links to those public posts - otherwise people may not know where you're coming from (aka the background).

(hustling off to check my post on iMeem since I also was linked on metafandom)

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.

Yes, good points, all. (And yeah, wouldn't it be fun to sic talking sock on them?)

When this out and proud vs. lame and closeted thing first came up, I answered one post by asking why it mattered if we mainstreamed ourselves so much. Because the thing is, the people who watch some of these vids who aren't fans are never going to get it. They are no fan friendly, and just because they're viewing it and a couple people think "cool," the majority will mock and disparage the vids and the vidders. Nonfans have never gotten us, and they never will. I don't see the point in trying to be big in the mainstream. I work for fandom, dude. I'm not interested in people who want to paint me as a parents'-basement dwelling dweeb with no life. Whether they see or appreciate vids doesn't help me at all. I care about the fans, and the mundanes are pretty much meaningless, and should stay that way.

Nascent fan type will find their way whether we're mainstream or not. And I had enough experience with my ex using fandom, especially slash, against me when we broke up that I don't ever care to be dealing with people who don't get me and never will, again.

I hope you don't feel I'm setting up an "out and cool vs. closeted and lame" dichotomy, because that's certainly not been the goal of my post at all. I am interested in teasing out all the reasons why we hide as a subculture, and the advantages and disadvantages of continuing to do so vs. the advantages and disadvantages of making vidding more public. As I said in my post, I think that concept should not be conflated with the decision of any individual vidder to remain hidden if she chooses. There are many valid reasons for doing so.

My own view is that it is valid to give vidding a public face in order to tackle some of the social criticism we may face, but I would never chastise any fan for choosing not to engage in that experience.

Actually, I hadn't seen your post yet (been a pretty hectic time recently). But it's a reaction I've seen to this topic when it's brought up (the whole thing about getting out there, being more visible) -- that people are all "yay, go you brave women!" and then make the rest of us sound like quivering cowards. I don't even think they realize they're doing it, but when I've mentioned it to people, they saw how that could be construed.

I just have had so much exposure of my fan activities to mundanes that I really don't feel a need to be out there. I think the only reason I'm even doing this imeem thing is that all the cool kidz are, and I'm always feeling so left behind, so I figured I'd try it out. I don't know if it's just another land grab like vox and greatest journal and what have you that people seem to not even use once they get it. But I just hope that the concept of finding a place that might make it easier to reach the mainstream audience if you want to doesn't turn into "if you don't, you're lame and antifeminist" or whatever argument they want to throw at it. I've seen the way people even treat those of us with passwords that I start wondering if it would really last -- any kind of "do what you feel comfortable with" attitude. I'm not sure!

The fact, that isn't going to change, is that our source material is illegal (no streaming video host service is ever going to be able to strike a deal with every music label/artist/company or tv/movie studio in the world). So, I do fear, that all that this whole going more public trend will accomplish is that in the end, we have to go even more private with our vids than we were before this trend started in order to evade lawsuits.

I don't either really see much of sense in making vids available for wider audience, as understanding of the most of the vids requires at least some sort of knowledge of the tv/movie source used, and understanding nuances of the vids requires often very deep understanding of the source material, understanding that only fans possess. Also, making vids more available increases the risk of clip theft, as well as, the risk that some third party will illegally try to profit from the fanvids.

And I don't really get the whole feminist idea behind this as the vidding has been mostly female culture because fandom community (vidding, fanart, fan fiction) has been very much female audience dominated. But still fandom hasn't ever been about feminism, but about tolerance, open mindedness (or at least it used to be), and being inspired by tv series or movies regardless the sex of the fan. It just happened that the tv character relationships seemed to be more important and inspiring for female audience, however, the few males who found fandom were very much welcomed join it. So, if now more males are finding fandom and vidding I don't see why we would have to start to be more protectionist of it and start raising our voice how this is female culture, while it really essentially was/is fan culture. In my opinion some testosterone will just do some good for the current estrogen over-abundant culture.

Also, I don't see any reason why we would have to go more public just because some guys are stupid enough to make their illegal stuff very public. How much some additional feedback or status will really weigh when RIAA is suing you, I must ask. Especially, as the real reason why we are vidding, doing fan art, writing fan fiction etc. isn't feedback or status (or at least it didn’t used to be), but because we are inspired by some aspect of the movie or tv series.

Sorry, got a bit carried away. When I learn not to start composing an answer at 5am?

I could say it best by friending you and inviting you to join my Superheroes meem -- so I will. :)

My favorite thing about imeem is that I can load lots of content onto my page without any technical hoop-jumping. And I love having my Amazon wishlist and my netflix queue on my profile. I also really like the meems -- as an interface imeem has quite a way to go, but I love watching tv commercials on the commercials meem & have found a lot of things that make me laugh lately.

I've been refusing to even dip my toe in the imeem water.

I'm naive on the legal issues, and have decided not to worry about it at this point. But, speaking as both a vidder and a watcher, I LIKE my vids big and beautiful!

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Just call me crank

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