huh

[kindkit]

Our Flag Means Death fans on Twitter* seem to have independently re-invented the concept of the fanvid.

They call them "edits," and they're what vids used to be a looooooong time ago: a string of fairly lengthy clips (10+ seconds each), often with dialogue, with a song in the background. But the edits that I've seen are usually under two minutes, so not the whole song.

(*I don't know if this originated with OFMD or with Twitter, and I suspect TikTok conventions/rules were a factor. But what I've seen has been OFMD on Twitter.)

I'm trying to be charmed by this rather than wanting to ask them all to go and study really ambitious modern vids with fast editing, effects, etc. and learn to do better.

Speaking of which, anybody know if there are any good OFMD vids yet?

Comments

[laurajv]

I first ran into "edits" a ways ago, back in the heyday of YouTube, so they definitely predate OFMD & tiktok. They can be very odd -- something like very oldschool vids, but also not really?

[kindkit]

Much less new than I thought, then! I fine the whole phenomenon strange and interesting--one of those fandom things that's Not For Me, but that a lot of people like.

[torachan]

Someone on FFA made this one set to a Flight of the Conchords song, Leggy Blonde. (It's sung by Rhys Darby.)

(I have no desire to actually get into namespace fandom but I have really been enjoying the OFMD discussion on FFA.)

[goodbyebird]

NOOOOO my brilliant idea 😭😭😭

[kindkit]

Thanks for the link!

I'd forgotten about FFA. I used to read it a lot, and it often had some of the best discussion (when people weren't being vicious).

[torachan]

I always tend to be a few posts behind because I just don't have that much time to read it, so I don't tend to get involved in discussion, but the OFMD posts have been surprisingly busy, so it's fun to just read along even if I'm not actually in the conversation. And frankly I'd rather deal with the occasional trolls and wank on FFA than what goes on in namespace fandom these days...

[goodbyebird]

Edits have been happening for a while, so not OFMD specific. First started cropping up on Instagram, I believe, but way more effects-laden there. Then TikTok jumped on it.

Btw if you want to shout some about the show, ourflagmeansgay is here for you ;)

[kindkit]

Oh cool, have joined!

I've been no more than fandom-adjacent for years, so I guess it's not surprising that edits have been around much longer than I thought. I find their existence a bit baffling, but . . . *shrugs*. There are certainly a lot of them, so people must enjoy them.

[goodbyebird]

It does bring me joy to imagine people sealclapping in unison to scenes that bring them joy. I'm a very big vid fan and can be real picky about it, but there's more than room enough for both expressions of love. It's not like my brain doesn't do the same with gif sets lol.

(Also you can whip them up in no time and gleefully shove them out the door 😉)