And once again...

[jhetley]

...LiveJournal reminds me why I have never gone to a con...

Comments

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

And me why I stopped. *nod*

[wolfette]

as a writer GoH? Or in general as an attendee?

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

In general, either as attendee or spectator.

[moondancerdrake.livejournal.com]

I've been to many many con and no one has been stupid enough to pull this crap with me. They'd likely lose a few fingers. Lots of good stuff happens at con, in fact Wiscon is what inspired me to start writing.

[summers-place.livejournal.com]

Pulled what crap? I was offline for a day due to a severe case of RL; what did I miss?

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

A bit of assholery at Penguin Con, which has aroused vast numbers of rioters who weren't within three states...

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

I'm not comfortable in crowds, even if they are sober.

[summers-place.livejournal.com]

Ah, okay...

[green-knight.livejournal.com]

Behaviour that Harlan Ellison would approve of. I've just read it and, well, if I was living in a comic I'd have a whole fonts' worth of punctuation floating above my head. And a few letters, including WTF

[oneminutemonkey.livejournal.com]

Huh.
See, I don't understand why people are blaming all conventions, or conventions in general, for a little bit of mass foolishness/stupidity/whatever-you-want-to-call-it.

The cons I attend are places of awesomeness with lots of people to talk to, books to buy, authors to meet, panels to attend... y'know, fun stuff.

Everytime I hear something like "This is why I don't go to cons" or "I'm never going to a con again" or the like, I wonder if they're not overreacting. If a crazed gunman held up a Burger King in Tennessee, would you avoid all Burger Kings in general?

World Fantasy's my con of choice. I've never seen any boob-related antics there.

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

Conventions have, by definition, large numbers of people (for my definition of "large", which, with strangers, starts somewhere around a dozen). Even professional conventions, such as the American Institute of Architects, those large numbers of people behave in ways they never would at home, with forethought, or sober...

I don't like crowds, or drunks, or idiots. Cons often provide all three in abundance.

[dsgood.livejournal.com]

The Open Boob Project, which is dumber than it sounds.

[origamilady.livejournal.com]

heh! I was at penguicon -had an absolutely wonderful time and this is the first I've heard of the "openboob" project - idiots abound anywhere you go. I'm glad I missed this particular a@@hattery tho.

[starcat-jewel.livejournal.com]

*shrug* I've seen my share of asshattery at cons... from a distance. It's not terribly hard to keep one's distance. One of the keys is to hang out with your own friends, who are more or less guaranteed (by circular definition) to be decent people.

[wolfette]

frankly this sounds less like "a SF convention thing" than a "bunch of stupid drunks in one place" thing.

[wolfette]

they also provide like minded souls who understand one's taste in literature and media - though with the 'net that's becoming less important. Twenty seven years ago this summer I went to my first convention - and made my first ever female real friend, because up to that point I'd been "the weird person who reads that skiffy stuff and comic books and doesn't do proper girly stuff like talking make-up and boys all day". (hey, I can talk boys and make up too - but there are other things to talk about all day). Even the English teacher said I was "weird" - in fact she was the one who first told the class it was "weird" for girls to want to read SF or Fantasy. Consequently as far as the girls at my school and in my neighbourhood were concerned, I had nothing in common with them (and those that *might* have had something in common with me - ie SF - learned to hide their interest in "weird" things and behave like proper girls).

Conventions IME are normally relaxed, not crowded (I do NOT do crowds - I'm phobic about crowds), and pretty well devoid of "drunks" - yes, people drink, but they do so in a relaxed manner with drinks well spaced out so that they never really have more than two beer's worth in their system at any time.

One suspects if something like this was started at a British convention, the boob-toucher would touch the first boob whose owner hadn't given express permission for the touching ........ and draw back a bloody stump. At which point the other males around would have said "well, hell mend ye".

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

Indeed.

Just a reminder to me that "cons" represent a subset of the larger phenomenon.