We talked to the girl who is making vines of every single episode of the X-Files ever
Colleen Evanson has seen the X-Files a few times. Well, more than a few times. Enough times to recreate every single episode from memory with Mulder and Scully action figures, and in only six seconds per episode. Her Vine Project “The X-Files Abridged,” also viewable on Instagram and YouTube, has become a passion project that inspires us all to participate in fandom a little more (and poke gentle fun at the things we love most).
Worship the Fandom sat down with Colleen to talk about her inspiration and advice. There isn’t enough space to fit all we discussed -- everything from George Clooney to marine biology – but the best excerpts are here! Let’s open the files:
“It’s my dad’s fault that I have no life. I remember him watching the show when it was on Friday nights, in 1996. And he was watching the season finale of season 3. I had no idea; I just wandered into the living room. I was like ‘What are you watching?’ and he was like ‘Oh, the X-Files.’ So I walked in halfway through the episode and he was explaining what was happening. And it ends with To Be Continued and I was like what? What happens? I was so engrossed in it… I slowly became completely obsessed.”
“The show was actually the reason I got into the entertainment business… I just remember it was so different from anything else I was watching at the time. And I was a big TV-watcher as a kid. I just remember thinking it would be so cool if my job was to write something like that, or to work on something like that. And so then after that, I pursued a career in the entertainment industry. And my family was like, where the hell did this come from?”
“When I was 16 I didn’t want a party. At the time it was the seventh season and it wasn’t guaranteed if the show was going to continue or not. And I had a family member that lived in California and I was like “Can I, like, go to California? And see the set or something?” And so my family was like, “it’s a lot cheaper than a sweet sixteen.” And I looked up on fan websites where they were shooting. And I wound up seeing them shoot an episode.”
“I’ve had many rewatches. Mostly taking friends through it, the first time. It’s really fun for me to watch people watch it, their first time, vicariously I’m living through them as I do it. I’ve rewatched it way too many times because of that. Even with boyfriends.”
“I told [my friend] about this project I was going to do. And she was like “Oh, before you make one do you have to, like, rewatch the episode?” and I was like “Oh, Honey…” I don’t need to rewatch it. I know it all unfortunately.”
“I personally have a separate account on Vine that has about 52,000 followers or so and I started doing Vine with a friend of mine when it first came out… So I had done, on my other main account, a couple little X-Files things that went over well. Where I just did generalization of the show. And I was like okay, let me just see. So I banged out 8 or so one afternoon.”
“And I showed it to my husband when I got home. He put it up on Reddit, and Reddit got a big kick out of it, like “You need to show this to Kumail Nanjiani,” and FOX needs to know about this, they were freaking out about it. So I was like oh, I guess it will work. So I promoted it a couple times on my own account. I reached out to the X-Files news people. ”
“Now it’s sort of that I’m friendly with all of them. We’re like Facebook friends and stuff. And like we’ve had many twitter conversations between ourselves, to where there are the people doing the rewatch every night who think I’m a part of the actual thing and will tweet at me stuff.
“I’m making fun of it but in a fan-girly way. And the thing about the Mulder voice I did is, it’s a combination of the “Ermagerd Gersberms” girl, and my husband and I do this stupid voice that we do to each other about dumb stuff. So I channeled that. It makes sense to me to give him a weird stupid voice because, even though he’s right all the time, it makes no sense that he’s right, the things that come out of his mouth, when you abridge it, it’s nonsense. ”
“I think any fan that knows a show in and out can find ways to voice their love or opinion of it. And I think when you’re engaged within a fandom, most people nowadays don’t just watch a show and that’s it. You might be able to live tweet it, or go online and find a Tumblr account that has thousands of images or every little moment. I think there are so many ways now and so many options for social media, between twitter, Tumblr, Vine, YouTube, there are plenty of amazing fan videos about a show. ”
“Sometimes when you really like something or you’re really into a thing, it might mean a lot to you, you might be kind of afraid to share your love of it. You’re afraid people might judge you or think it’s weird or you’re afraid to let your freak flag fly, I guess… There’s a safety in hiding out in your comfort zone. But it’s kind of cool sometimes to test the waters sometimes to see how people will respond to this thing you’re doing. ”
For more X-Files adoration and fandom musings, visit Colleen's channels: