Living Room Vid

Synonyms:
See also:	con vids
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A living room vid is a term used in the 1990s to early 2000s vidding community to describe a vid that was structured to appeal to fans watching a vid at home, in their living room. At the time the term came into use, most vids were seen at fan run conventions; however vidders began noticing that the convention going audience reaction was often quite different from the reaction fans would get when they returned home, put the songtape into the VCR and watched the vid again.

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):"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." Read the entire essay on structuring your vid here.
• Lynn C.: "We used to talk a lot about "living room vids" vs. "con vids," the difference being something to do with complexity and how easy it was to appreciate a vid after a single viewing. Generally, "living room vids" were assumed to have more narrative that relies on the clips' original context (i.e., if two people are having a break-up conversation, you're expected to know that when you see the clip in the video). I've more or less convinced myself that even a living room vid with a really complicated context-dependent story to tell (graduate level meta-fandom critique) should still be fun to watch even if the viewer has no context. This is the test of good editing, for me. It should be accessible at multiple levels, all of them well done. If it looks good and seems to be telling a compelling story, it might be a good recruiter vehicle. If it looks boring and seems to be telling a story, who cares." Read Lynn's List of Aesthetic Vidding Reminders (to Herself).