Appropriation and Fandom

NB I got so annoyed with the lack of word-wrap on the original incarnation of this post that I re-posted, but in the process lost all of the embedded videos. Fera not, however, for i valiantly went through YouTube and re-retrieved all of the embed codes for your listening and viewing pleasure. Sweet joy.

I wanted to add something on here about fandom and appropriation. I wonder if, in this glorious postmodern age of new technologies and tinternet, fandom represents a new form of appropriation.

Watch this in a dark room:

What does this video mean? Is it possible that this video has any meaning at all?

????????

I'm not interested, however in engaging with the text itself, but rather with the text as an object/ phenomenon.

Click through to YouTube and you'll see the video's had over 2.5million views. As the person who showed me this video said, "what will you ever do in your life that is seen by 2.5million people?".

What do we make of this?

Secondly, notice that the video is not actually their work (according to the notes left by SexyPuerto by the video on the YouTube page); it is that of someone else. They have appropriated the work of someone else which appropriated the work of someone else (Peter Jackson).

What does this say about appropriation?

Now it gets messy:
It seems 'Isengard' is actually part of (or maybe the start of) an entire genre of YouTube appropriations:

A version using the American version of The Office:


A version using Star Wars:

Then there's an entire range of films that appropriate these appropriations:



What does that mean? Some sort of postmodernism2

Now watch this:


And this:


best of all:


I guess there are some conclusions that could be drawn about authorship. Discuss.