Am I making a distinction between originality and individuality? I hadn't thought so, but you may be right.
I'll try to uncompress -- sorry if I'm saying things you already know. Harold Bloom has this theory, "the anxiety of influence," that great poets are afraid of the influence/interference of other people on their work, especially their poetic forefathers, and that they cope by misprision, by deliberately or semi-deliberately misreading earlier work in order to create something new. The poetic son must misread/kill the poetic father in order to become king/create new work. Very Freudian, but also very Romantic with a capital R, because it comes out of the Romantic conviction that art is the pure expression of individuality and is best when it is closest to nature and farthest from the polluting influences of society.
And intellectually I know this is bullshit, and furthermore link the whole set of theories to a a particular social structure that's damaging to women, and also people of color and colonized peoples, anyone on the wrong side of a power divide. What gets defined as "natural" and who has the time, money, freedom, and social support to do the work of "solitary" genius are all defined by the existing social order, as is what gets recognized as "genius", "original", or "derivative". One of the things I like about fandom is that it not only recognizes, it depends upon, the community and collaborative underpinnings of individual works of art, at least for fans; I wish more people were willing to make the same realization about the professional work we organize around, but I do think more people are getting there.
At the same time, I have this emotional longing to do something really special and unique that no one else could do. And that's not really useful, because it's not about the work. It's about me. It's just ego.
I'm used to it with writing, and I'll get used to it with vidding. It's just easier to deal with for writing because with writing I know what I'm doing.
Like, right now I am trying to quash a vidbunny because it's not *different* enough -- it's too close to a recent vid, and it's too close to "Low Red Moon": it's Supernatural, and it's non-human POV, and it's probably going to use some of the techniques that I figured out in "Low Red Moon," and also I'm not 100% convinced I can make the bizarre song choice work. I wanted to do something different from my second vid. Different fandom, different focus, different techniques -- I wanted to learn something new, flex some other muscles, do something my friends who don't watch SPN could appreciate better or at least differently.
But as you can tell by the past tense I'm about giving up on the fight. Another weird non-human POV with Biblical imagery coming up. Please let this one not take 6 months.
Re: Allow me to adjust my tiara...
I'll try to uncompress -- sorry if I'm saying things you already know. Harold Bloom has this theory, "the anxiety of influence," that great poets are afraid of the influence/interference of other people on their work, especially their poetic forefathers, and that they cope by misprision, by deliberately or semi-deliberately misreading earlier work in order to create something new. The poetic son must misread/kill the poetic father in order to become king/create new work. Very Freudian, but also very Romantic with a capital R, because it comes out of the Romantic conviction that art is the pure expression of individuality and is best when it is closest to nature and farthest from the polluting influences of society.
And intellectually I know this is bullshit, and furthermore link the whole set of theories to a a particular social structure that's damaging to women, and also people of color and colonized peoples, anyone on the wrong side of a power divide. What gets defined as "natural" and who has the time, money, freedom, and social support to do the work of "solitary" genius are all defined by the existing social order, as is what gets recognized as "genius", "original", or "derivative". One of the things I like about fandom is that it not only recognizes, it depends upon, the community and collaborative underpinnings of individual works of art, at least for fans; I wish more people were willing to make the same realization about the professional work we organize around, but I do think more people are getting there.
At the same time, I have this emotional longing to do something really special and unique that no one else could do. And that's not really useful, because it's not about the work. It's about me. It's just ego.
I'm used to it with writing, and I'll get used to it with vidding. It's just easier to deal with for writing because with writing I know what I'm doing.
Like, right now I am trying to quash a vidbunny because it's not *different* enough -- it's too close to a recent vid, and it's too close to "Low Red Moon": it's Supernatural, and it's non-human POV, and it's probably going to use some of the techniques that I figured out in "Low Red Moon," and also I'm not 100% convinced I can make the bizarre song choice work. I wanted to do something different from my second vid. Different fandom, different focus, different techniques -- I wanted to learn something new, flex some other muscles, do something my friends who don't watch SPN could appreciate better or at least differently.
But as you can tell by the past tense I'm about giving up on the fight. Another weird non-human POV with Biblical imagery coming up. Please let this one not take 6 months.