And that, I think, is why vidders have embraced LKBV. Partly as a backlash to vids they perceive as technically well-made but lacking heart
Okay, obviously I speak only for myself, not for other vidders who have made LKBVs, but I personally kinda see LKBV as a response to vids (mostly found online, made by feral vidders) that are *full* of heart, completely fueled by heart...and that really kinda suck — technically, aesthetically, narratively, by the standards of all I know and hold dear to my heart according to the standards of my vidding community and, uh, basic good taste. These are "bad vids" (sometimes compressed to "badvids"). The song choice is often cheesy as hell and/or overdone. The vidder's heart is clearly on her sleeve and sometimes people in love change colors just because the vidder figured out how to make her tech do that and they just....lack art (random special effects, what?). It's not that they are simple, it's that they are actively awful. As a personal expression they are valid, but as vids? I think they suck. It's mean to ridicule them in public, but in private chat? I will cop to having done so. And to taking an ironic sort of pleasure in the critique. So, if that's what "bad vid" means, then I see Lord King Bad Vid as a humorous name for an interesting phenomenon: what if you took the perceived attributes of the "bad vid" — heart-on-your-sleeve emotion from the vidder, overly sentimental or bombastic or just plain cheesy song choice, etc. — and vidded it really, really WELL? Technically and narratively and aesthetically pleasing and up to the quality standards of the vidding community that gathers at Vividcon. You might argue that it's just a "good" vid, then, instead of a "bad" one. And I think that's true. But because it's using the badvid — um, tradition? genre? whatever — because its using badvid signifiers in the creation of the "good vid," it falls into this category that has been named LKBV. (Um, I'm pretty sure that's how it got it's name, directly playing off the "bad vid" category.) The way I see it, while there may be some ironic awareness that the content choices should lead to crap, every LKBV vidder I've spoken to about their motivations will tell you that they mean the emotion in what they're doing wholeheartedly.
I don't think it's anything to do with acafen. I run with a few acafen and if I weren't so lazy I may have followed some inclinations in that direction myself, so I'm generally sympathetic to the theoretical whatever. It doesn't take an influx of critical theory and academic fen to account for changing perspectives or methods or interests in vidding. I think media fans absorb the increasingly sophisticated media that surrounds us all and, yes, use their increasingly sophisticated editing tools. We live in an increasingly po-mo world. It may take academics to observe and describe it, but certainly not to mediate the experience of it for non-academics.
A vid that isn't ironic, isn't self-mocking in its love for the source, well those vids are often labelled... I have no idea where this is coming from. What vids are you watching? All the vids I am watching are *deeply* engaged with and excited about their source. And I continue to be boggled by the supposed existence of these vids that are "technically well-made but lack heart." Or maybe it's just that I think fannish squee flows through both heart *and* mind and there is a corridor just for squee that provides a direct link between those two spaces. And it gets into both the nervous and circulatory systems and from there into every cell and fiber of self until you are a fan imbued with squee and love and love and squee.
Re: LKBV
Okay, obviously I speak only for myself, not for other vidders who have made LKBVs, but I personally kinda see LKBV as a response to vids (mostly found online, made by feral vidders) that are *full* of heart, completely fueled by heart...and that really kinda suck — technically, aesthetically, narratively, by the standards of all I know and hold dear to my heart according to the standards of my vidding community and, uh, basic good taste. These are "bad vids" (sometimes compressed to "badvids"). The song choice is often cheesy as hell and/or overdone. The vidder's heart is clearly on her sleeve and sometimes people in love change colors just because the vidder figured out how to make her tech do that and they just....lack art (random special effects, what?). It's not that they are simple, it's that they are actively awful. As a personal expression they are valid, but as vids? I think they suck. It's mean to ridicule them in public, but in private chat? I will cop to having done so. And to taking an ironic sort of pleasure in the critique. So, if that's what "bad vid" means, then I see Lord King Bad Vid as a humorous name for an interesting phenomenon: what if you took the perceived attributes of the "bad vid" — heart-on-your-sleeve emotion from the vidder, overly sentimental or bombastic or just plain cheesy song choice, etc. — and vidded it really, really WELL? Technically and narratively and aesthetically pleasing and up to the quality standards of the vidding community that gathers at Vividcon. You might argue that it's just a "good" vid, then, instead of a "bad" one. And I think that's true. But because it's using the badvid — um, tradition? genre? whatever — because its using badvid signifiers in the creation of the "good vid," it falls into this category that has been named LKBV. (Um, I'm pretty sure that's how it got it's name, directly playing off the "bad vid" category.) The way I see it, while there may be some ironic awareness that the content choices should lead to crap, every LKBV vidder I've spoken to about their motivations will tell you that they mean the emotion in what they're doing wholeheartedly.
I don't think it's anything to do with acafen. I run with a few acafen and if I weren't so lazy I may have followed some inclinations in that direction myself, so I'm generally sympathetic to the theoretical whatever. It doesn't take an influx of critical theory and academic fen to account for changing perspectives or methods or interests in vidding. I think media fans absorb the increasingly sophisticated media that surrounds us all and, yes, use their increasingly sophisticated editing tools. We live in an increasingly po-mo world. It may take academics to observe and describe it, but certainly not to mediate the experience of it for non-academics.
A vid that isn't ironic, isn't self-mocking in its love for the source, well those vids are often labelled...
I have no idea where this is coming from. What vids are you watching? All the vids I am watching are *deeply* engaged with and excited about their source. And I continue to be boggled by the supposed existence of these vids that are "technically well-made but lack heart." Or maybe it's just that I think fannish squee flows through both heart *and* mind and there is a corridor just for squee that provides a direct link between those two spaces. And it gets into both the nervous and circulatory systems and from there into every cell and fiber of self until you are a fan imbued with squee and love and love and squee.