what's in a video room?
I wrote the following essay during this year's MediaWestCon, and posted it on my door and on the vid room door.
I'm extracting myself from the video room position on concom; I won't be doing it next year. It was a pretty good way to meet people, and to see tantalizing fragments of shows I wouldn't otherwise see. But it was also a big chunk of precious vacation time that I could have spent with people I don't see enough, instead of tethered to a dark corner of the hotel.
And yet, no one else has offered to take over. For a little while, I felt guilty about that. But I never signed on to do the room until I either died or produced an heir.
Plus, I theorize, the video room isn't as important to fandom as it used to be. Maybe it's time for something else to take its place. And maybe my absence (and the likely absence of anyone new) will speed things along.
Social Viewing, and the Future of Video Rooms
There are two ways to watch a show: privately, or socially. Certainly one can watch a show privately while sitting in a crowded room; the distinction lies in whether the other people are an intrusion on the experience or an enhancement of it. And although people tend to be more vocally interactive during certain shows, talking is not the sole identifier of social viewing; even during a show where everyone is viewing quietly and carefully, people may still feel a connection, and can (and hopefully will) talk/debate/gush after. In social viewing, the people add dimensions to the experience that can alter one’s interpretation of the show.
Both private and social viewing have their benefits and drawbacks; personally, I prefer my first viewing of a show to be private, so my initial opinion is uninfluenced. And social viewing can be messy; people might talk over bits that seem key, or stop you in your tracks with an appallingly different interpretation. But private viewing can be done, well, privately. The shared experience, and the part of it that is social viewing, is why conventions exist. Without it, we might as well just all stay home, huddled in front of our A/V setups and our laptops.
I theorize that the human connection should be the basis for a modern convention-run video room. In the era of box sets, amazon.uk, high-speed downloads, and on-demand video, is there any purpose to a room that is not consciously built around that connection? Without it, isn't a modern video room nothing more than a budget theater?
In the early days of fandom, before online communities and affordable electronics, a video room was the exclusive source for some fandoms. People would squint at 4th generation camera copies to catch a glimpse of what just could not be seen anywhere else. Certainly the sense of shared experience was still there, but there was also a basic practical need; the video room was part of the fannish infrastructure.
On some level the practical need still exists. Not everyone has high-speed (or any) internet access, or cable, or the money to purchase box sets. But many do, enough that those who do not can find, with a minimum of social networking, a free and accessible viewing source to carry them over until they have the means to go pro. The fannish infrastructure is being converted from video room destinations to decentralized networks of the willing and the wanting.
Without the practical need, what would remain of the video room is the social interaction. To promote that interaction, the basic concept of a video room might need to be re-interpreted. Its current form, as a centralized point with a single person (or handful of people) ultimately controlling the schedule and content, is becoming archaic, and might even be holding back the development of the decentralized network of fans.
I’m idealizing fandom, and the potential of such a network. My personal beliefs lean toward trusting chaos to provide people with more options, and therefore to provide an endeavor with greater resiliency. Decentralized collections of fans, shockingly diverse in their desires and interpretations, bear little resemblance to the early days of fandom. Yes, something is lost there, as new fans enter the network unaware of the roots of the community. Things, though, are always lost, and it cannot be avoided; watching the new fandom emerge certainly is...interesting. The concept appeals to my sense that diversity (the input of many rather than one) and decay (to make room for new concepts) are an essential part of any healthy community.
But I digress. The traditional video room is generally organized and tidy and reliable. The alternative can be messy and a little unnerving, but in my opinion it’s truer to the convention experience.
If the concept of a video room needs to be redesigned to support the new nature of fandom, in what way should it change? Any idealization of a video room needs to be tempered by certain practicalities. Perhaps the room should be more like the fannish networks that are replacing the infrastructure: a place that is not controlled by one person, but is instead spread out between various groups, a sort of party suite with high-quality hardware. But the practicality is that there are very real security concerns to address when passing expensive rental equipment from one group to another. Perhaps eliminating the traditional video room would be best, if one buys the idea of promoting and encouraging the emerging fannish network. Video rooms are a monetary and human drain on convention resources, and money and volunteers are often in short supply. Perhaps hall-crawls and in-room viewings are the logical, pro-network alternative.
The time has come, or will be here soon, to make a break and try something new. The status quo, of letting a small number of people prop up a structure that decreases in value with each year, is inefficient. The fannish collective will eventually, as a matter of survival, fashion better ways to promote social viewing within conventions. At least, I hope it will. Perhaps the energy currently devoted to video rooms would be better spent encouraging people to strengthen the fannish social network, and to promote the sense of community that is, really, the reason we go to conventions in the first place.