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Okay, so it's that time of year again and a lot of people are feeling the pressure and the angst that comes with being a vidder who is going to Vividcon. There's been a kind of...expectation that has built up over the years, that if you're going you must submit a vid, and that vid better be awesome because it is known as such a major showcase for 'vid fandom'. I not only get that, I feel it to at least some degree every year. It's nerve wracking. Combined with the social anxiety of meeting people for the first time it can make things pretty miserable right about now with the deadline breathing down our necks.
The thing is, Vividcon itself is not like that. It's really, really, really not. My first year I made my father walk me into the hotel I was so freaked out...within minutes![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
jackiekjono had identified me as a species of fellow fan without knowing me from Adam, struck up a conversation with my father about his VMI shirt and shared her blueberries with me. Less than an hour later sockkpuppett found me on an elevator and hugged the stuffing out of me. Vividcon is, above else, about people. Fans. Being hopelessly silly and having questionable conversations that scare bystanders in Outback. It is outrageous outfits and glowsticks and making the floor shake at Club Vivid. It is room parties where a combination of squished seating and judiciously applied alchohol lead to all the lesbians on the bed loving heresluck (sadly, that isn't as dirty as it sounds). It is hanging out on the benches outside the vid and panel rooms getting to know that lj name that you vaguely recognize but never had a chance to talk to before.
Are there some extremely talented people who come to Vividcon? Absofreakinglutely. Do they show amazing vids? Damn straight. But the real reason to go isn't that. It's for the shared love of vids and vidding...all of them. Even the ones that aren't to your specific taste or style or even if you hate your own, because dude, we commited vids! Isn't that awesome? Trust me, the glow of that feeling will have you walking ten feet off the ground the whole weekend. Forget everything else...it is being able to talk to a group full of people who don't look at you funny when you talk about that one time you spent hours and hours adjusting four frames. Because they get it. It is about seeing things through the eyes of non-vidders who love vids as much as vidders who make them, and there are tons of them there (most, actually, I think?). Watching vids, making vids, it is the process that is king at VVC and the love of that process including all the times it makes us want to bash our heads through walls and feel awful. Because the fan sitting next to you knows. And she's got a glowstick and an inappropriate joke to make you smile about it.
Vidshows and panels, they are social gatherings more than they are anything else. And yes, I say that as someone who has a hard time not puking when I have a vid in a show. Insecurity and a drive to unatainable perfection and comparing ourselves to all the vidders we think are better than us is the nature of the beast, hence the need for an I Suck panel (pimpimpimp). But it's not Vividcon. Vividcon is love, man. Nothing but love.
The thing is, Vividcon itself is not like that. It's really, really, really not. My first year I made my father walk me into the hotel I was so freaked out...within minutes
jackiekjono had identified me as a species of fellow fan without knowing me from Adam, struck up a conversation with my father about his VMI shirt and shared her blueberries with me. Less than an hour later sockkpuppett found me on an elevator and hugged the stuffing out of me. Vividcon is, above else, about people. Fans. Being hopelessly silly and having questionable conversations that scare bystanders in Outback. It is outrageous outfits and glowsticks and making the floor shake at Club Vivid. It is room parties where a combination of squished seating and judiciously applied alchohol lead to all the lesbians on the bed loving heresluck (sadly, that isn't as dirty as it sounds). It is hanging out on the benches outside the vid and panel rooms getting to know that lj name that you vaguely recognize but never had a chance to talk to before. Are there some extremely talented people who come to Vividcon? Absofreakinglutely. Do they show amazing vids? Damn straight. But the real reason to go isn't that. It's for the shared love of vids and vidding...all of them. Even the ones that aren't to your specific taste or style or even if you hate your own, because dude, we commited vids! Isn't that awesome? Trust me, the glow of that feeling will have you walking ten feet off the ground the whole weekend. Forget everything else...it is being able to talk to a group full of people who don't look at you funny when you talk about that one time you spent hours and hours adjusting four frames. Because they get it. It is about seeing things through the eyes of non-vidders who love vids as much as vidders who make them, and there are tons of them there (most, actually, I think?). Watching vids, making vids, it is the process that is king at VVC and the love of that process including all the times it makes us want to bash our heads through walls and feel awful. Because the fan sitting next to you knows. And she's got a glowstick and an inappropriate joke to make you smile about it.
Vidshows and panels, they are social gatherings more than they are anything else. And yes, I say that as someone who has a hard time not puking when I have a vid in a show. Insecurity and a drive to unatainable perfection and comparing ourselves to all the vidders we think are better than us is the nature of the beast, hence the need for an I Suck panel (pimpimpimp). But it's not Vividcon. Vividcon is love, man. Nothing but love.
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