“Come together”: a fanvid insight on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and fandom

Abstract

Through the in-depth analysis of a single fanwork, Luminosity’s concept-vid Scooby Road (2005), made with images appropriated from the acclaimed TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer, this paper will investigate the strong and complex relationship between fan communities and media. A vid is a form of remix that consists in appropriating clips from movies or TV shows, and setting them to music. The author of the remixed work, the vidder, uses editing strategies in order to comment upon the sources, criticize them or praise them. Building on the concept of fandom ecology, and providing an overview of the main characteristics of the vidding community, this paper will focus on how the shared knowledge of both the original work and of fannish interpretations of such work, combined with fannish conventions and modes of media consumption, shape fandom creative productions. After examining the relevance of Buffy the Vampire Slayer for the vidding community and its history, we will then focus on Scooby Road’s peculiar context of creation and distribution, and proceed to analyze several of the fifteen vids that compose this peculiar, 42- minute concept-vid.