Comments | wombat_socho: It's happening again...I can feel it

wombat_socho

It's happening again...I can feel it

Jul 09, 2010 13:43

Ironically enough, I'm writing this on a Friday afternoon before the monthly PRSFS meeting.

P returned from the Great American Desert, where Convergence is held every Independence Day weekend, and had much news, most of it amusing in a "ha-ha, funny!" way and some of it amusing in a bitter, cynical "LOOK HOW STUPID YOU ARE" way.
( LOLWUT? )

other peoples' problems, convergence, the bush of fandom

Comments 18

huladavid July 9 2010, 18:35:38 UTC

From what Chris & Sue have told me Convergence was targeting crashers more than any particular group (unlike Minicon), and just badged the entire hotel. They both said it felt less of a crush than last year.

On a related note, I signed up as a "maybe attending" for next year.

Pointing and Jeering was a hell'a fun! (Aw, the poor bruwsed egos...)

wombat_socho July 9 2010, 20:30:57 UTC

This is correct, the main effort was to get rid of crashers & ghosts. I am given to understand that some room parties invited (literally) hundreds of their friends to drop by their party, whether they were CONVergence members or not, and the change in policy was aimed at preventing this sort of stupidity. Policy change appears to have been a success.

What I'm noting isn't an official policy at all (per burnunit's comment below) but rather some CONvergence staff wanting those noisy kids to get off their lawn.

darksumomo July 9 2010, 19:39:05 UTC

Which segment of SF fandom did the literature (and possibly movie) fans run out back in the day--the TV show fans?

The short version wombat_socho July 9 2010, 20:23:06 UTC

The "literary" fans in MNSTF basically ran off anyone who wasn't into books and/or the Grateful Dead, and their con attendance imploded from ~3400 to ~300/400 - depending on who you want to believe, since during the worst years no attendance figures were made public. I understand similar things happened at Boskone and elsewhere, and (in addition to hotel problems) did much to kill Disclave here in DC.

Please allow me to crash this party and say... burnunit July 9 2010, 19:52:42 UTC

...We fucking LOVE anime fans! You can mark that as Word, that I am speaking Officially as a Director of Convergence (I don't do that on LJ very often, but I feel it's relevant to do so here because maybe some of the right people will hear it).

Repeat: Like Are You Fucking KIDDING ME? Like serious? Anime fans and especially our friends from the AD crowd are invited, encouraged, urged, and occasionally begged to attend our con. Please come! We would Definitely notice if you skipped. It's fashionable to think that CONvergence doesn't like anime fans, but reality is over here, that other shit be fantasy. And what kind of sick fucker has fantasies where they exclude people from a party we're working so hard to make happen? Not me! Not this organization as long as I'm in it!

Anime fans and the youth in general are completely welcome at our convention.
We'll make bruising adjustments to any of our staff who behave otherwise (can't fix thoughts, but can Demand Behaviors and hold folks accountable for em). Because as far as we're ( ... )

Re: Please allow me to crash this party and say... wombat_socho July 9 2010, 20:19:05 UTC

Hey, the door's always open. Feel free to pull up a rock any time.

I'm very happy to hear all of this from somebody in charge. Even happier to hear that no singing of "Kumbaya" is involved. Man, I hate that song. ;) Detour owes a lot to CONvergence and the people that make it happen, and it pleases me no end to see that the two organizations are working together, synergistic improvements are happening, and Good Things in general are coming out of the relationship.

I'm not trying to start a witch-hunt for "non-inclusive" people. I'm also not trying to stoke any drama, appearances to the contrary. I'm just saying, "Hey, this is what I hear." In any group of people there's going to be some folks who aren't on board with the program, so I'm not entirely surprised that some people are saying dumb things. I do think it's worth noting, though.

(Actually, I was aware of the evolution of MISFITS into GPS and Convergence Events, but I couldn't resist the temptation of a joke involving navigation systems.)

Re: Please allow me to crash this party and say... badger2305 July 10 2010, 04:12:19 UTC

Good to hear. MinnStF/Minicon never did learn this lesson; part of the reason why I got out of Twin Cities fandom and con-running. Hope things work better for you.

jamestrainor July 9 2010, 21:16:56 UTC

Dad, I know you're paranoid about this kind of thing, but in the case of Convergence, you should probably lay off the Ovaltine. :)

wombat_socho July 10 2010, 01:24:20 UTC

Step away from the Tub of Happiness and nobody gets hurt.

phoenixalpha July 9 2010, 21:22:55 UTC

Extra delicious irony for hearing this out of CONvergence staffers, who seem to have forgotten where their con comes from in the first place. It's worth mentioning that obviously this isn't the main line of even a majority of the staffers. However, the fact that the sentiments exist at all, and exist enough that other people, especially Detour staffers are catching the edge of it, is concerning.

I like CONvergence a lot. I don't want to see it go the way of Minicon, and I don't want to see any kind of rift between Detour and CONvergence.

Now that I've said that, I almost feel like I should add a disclaimer saying I DON'T SPEAK FOR DETOUR, because people tend to miss that point easily.

wombat_socho July 10 2010, 01:26:31 UTC

"... I almost feel like I should add a disclaimer saying I DON'T SPEAK FOR DETOUR, because people tend to miss that point easily."

Good luck with that. I've been saying it since May 2007, but nobody (except people actually on Detour staff) seems to believe me for some reason.

Well, come on, if we're being honest burnunit July 18 2010, 02:45:23 UTC

To be fair the likelihood is manifestly HIGHER that AD staff would be among the first to catch it, not just dim reports from the edges. Because the way we gossip in this culture, someone overhearing awful sentiments would waste no time getting back to someone on AD staff in order to tell them about it. Just like I tend to hear tons of CVG scuttlebutt or interweb dramaz very quickly, even if people think it's "secret" or "off the radar ( ... )