Con Vid

Synonyms:
See also:	living room vids
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A "con vid" is a term used in the 1990s to early 2000 vidding community to describe a vid that was structured to appeal to fans watching a vid at a fan run convention vid show.

As the Internet and computer vidding began to dominate the fandom world, fewer fans attended conventions and the term is now less used in vidding circles.

Examples of usage

• Sandy Herrold, posting to the Virgule-L mailing list in Nov 1995 (reposted here with permission):"Another catagory with huge overlap with promoter vids are 'con vids'. These are vids with clear, obvious lyrics and clips that can be understood on the first viewing with people chatting in the row right behind you. Cons vids can be contrasted with living room vids: the ones that can require close attention, take multiple views to 'get' all the different things the vidder was trying to say, that take really thinking about the context of each shot to realize why they used each one. The trick for the vidmaker is to give them enough on the first viewing so that they'll be willing to watch it enough times to figure it out."
• "I didn't feel like viewing [vids] at the con invalidated the choices I make at home as a viewer; I feel it expanded my possibilities and freed me up in a positive way, as well as teaching me more about myself and others as viewers." bop-radar's on Watching vids in a con setting, ^{Archived version}, dated September 10, 2010.

Essay on Watching A Con Vid

In 2010, bop-radar wrote an essay on Watching vids in a con setting after attending her first Vividcon. Portions are summarized in bullet points below.

• A con audience can be very focused. The Vividcon audience is extremely attentive and anticipatory.
• Laughter. It's a great feeling to share laughter with a crowd, but the laughing itself takes time, so the vid viewing gets a little interrupted.
• The obvious is more bearable. Obvious lyric and image combinations 'popped' better at the con than they would have to me at home, in part because the audience was so open and receptive and predisposed to like the vid.
• You live in the moment as the viewer. Everything is before your eyes so fleetingly that even just seeing a character, fandom, ship or canon moment you like can be a 'high point' of the vid.
• This also meant that the one-concept vid is more enjoyable.
• Vid Fatigue: watching so many vids consecutively—having to change pace, emotion, fandom, viewpoint, mood and level of intellectual engagement every three to four minutes—leads to vid fatigue.
• Parallels: watching vids back to back allowed for greater capacity to see parallels between them or to draw links across and between vids and enhances the viewing experience.
• Motion: because the vid screen is much larger, motion took on a whole other level of importance.
• Some of the most exciting vids at the con for me were that ones that I can't wait to watch again and again at home. I can't honestly say I grasped them in their entirety at the con.

Examples of Con Vids

• RESPECT, Pink, Diana Williams, Multi-Media. A fun con vid of the garbage-can variety (shown at Escapade 2002.
• Another Sunday, Stargate Atlantis vid shown at the 2007 Vividcon vid show