Scholars within fan studies have generally maintained, with varying degrees of insistence, that fan texts are collaborative, but our understanding of the mechanics of fan collaboration, especially in vidding, is still incomplete. An ecological model of composition lets us have it both ways; it encourages us to pay attention to both the individual and social aspects of authorship and, perhaps more importantly, to the interactions between them. Studying the ecology within which vidders produce, including the generic and show-specific interpretive conventions that guide audience perception and thus vidder creation, allows us to think in new ways about vidders’ creative processes and the rhetorical work that goes into vidding.