Dear fandom

[yagathai]

Did you ever wonder why Worldcon is shrinking, why fandom is greying, why new people aren't joining at the same rate that the old-guard is dying out?

This is the problem, friends. This is the problem. In fact, honestly, every single comment by Eric Van in these two posts is the problem.

Now, it would be easy to say that calimac and ericmvan's tin-eared comments weren't carefully considered, the result of post-con burnout and irritation and ultimately just the cranky brayings of a couple of disgruntled old-timers. That may or may not be, but ultimately their attitude is representational -- and symptomatic of the greater issue.

In brief, the problem is that like any other dynamic entity, fandom is constantly faced with the choice to adapt or die, and time and time and time again, they have chosen not to adapt. The old guard, having found their promised land, promptly built a wall around it and decided that anyone who didn't conform to their standard would be rebuffed, rejected and cast out from their private playground. I see this attitude reflected a hundred times a day at every convention I go to, in every programming track, every panel discussion, every dealer's table, every closed circle of grey ponytails at almost every room party I've ever been to. It's a combination of institutional myopia and the fear of becoming irrelevant -- it's difficult, after all, for the chronically insecure to relenquish their stranglehold on being the big fishes in the tiny, tiny pond.

As a result -- well, see for yourself. Worldcon, once the gathering of the nerd tribes, has a good year when it hits 8,000 people, the average example of which is probably pretty close to collecting Social Security. By contrast, Otakon is a non-profit, volunteer-operated anime convention that started in 1994 with less than 400 attendees. Today, average draw is about 26,000 with an average attendee not old enough to legally drink yet. And it's by no means unique -- DragonCon has 30,000, the bigger anime cons pull 40,000, and San Diego Comicon regularly breaks 100,000.

The simple, logical and Darwinian solution is to let the old-model conventions die out by simple attrition -- sooner or later, peanut-butter-and-cheeto sandwiches and scooter accidents will take their toll, and all that will be left are the for-profit, new-model conventions, the slick commercial operations run by multibillion-dollar corporations.

On the other hand, where does that leave us, the (dwindling) generation of younger fans? I'm looking at you, stegoking, yuki_onna, tithenai, redstapler, rosefox, misunderstruck, farwing, xraytheenforcer, aghrivaine, zarhooie, kdsorceress and all the rest of you that I'm too tired to name. What's the solution, assuming we don't all decide to pull a Paul T. Riddell* and retire from fandom to pursue a (admittedly very entertaining) career of flinging poo at the grognards from the sidelines?

Frankly, I don't really know, but something's going to have to be done. I tend to be conservative by inclination, but every con that I attend makes me want to declare a revolution, storming the barricades and flinging greybeards** from the ramparts, just a little bit more. It seems as if the first step might be organization, though what form that organization would take, I have no idea.

And yes, txtriffidranch, I know what you're thinking, but first of all I don't have chains that heavy, and besides where would we find anthills big enough?

* Whose books, incidentally, I highly recommend.
** a gender-neutral term, often literally so.

ETA: Cross-linking of this post would be welcome. I'm looking for dialogue, to help create ideas.

Comments

[txtriffidranch.livejournal.com]

I won't call for chains or anthills. Instead, I'll call for someone to try something different. You're right in that the problem with conventions is the same as with the rest of the genre: too many fevered egos who manage to demonstrate the Peter Principle works even at the lowest levels. Everyone's also absolutely right in that the days of the convention as sole opportunity to meet fellow writers and readers is as dead as home milk delivery and digest fiction magazines. Sadly, everyone's right in that you have a lot of individuals who like it that way, and they're the ones expecting the mere attendees to bow and curtsy when they walk by. The slan has been replaced by Cat Piss Man, and he's just as arrogant about his place in the universe.

Now, I'll admit that I quit attending Readercon for many reasons, even though several good and dear friends continue to attend and run various operations behind the scenes. The first is that I learned a very long time ago never to trust any convention where the convention chair lists himself as a guest solely by dint of running the convention. It's right up there with the magazine editors who take multiple Glamour Shots poses for publication in Locus. (Sorry, kids, but your chosen profession requires you to be the silent partner behind the scenes. I used to work for a weekly newspaper editor who regularly threw tantrums because he wasn't recognized and adored on the street, and my basic response was "Having Buddy Holly's glasses, Fat Elvis's physique, and Phil Collins's hair will NOT make you a rock star.")

Unfortunately, until someone kicks Eric Van's ass out of the chair and tells him that the con is going to be run in a sane fashion, nothing's going to change. That little letter about how he's burned out wasn't a resignation or even a call for assistance. That was a pathetic cry for attention, so that people will pat him on the head and tell him that he's the greatest for having been a complete control freak about the convention for the last twenty years. If he really was burned out, and if he cared about Readercon as anything other than a validation of his ego, he'd have stepped aside, offered his advice to his successor but otherwise left well enough alone, and dealt with the fact that he's not absolutely indispensable. Instead, he's going to continue to insist upon being in charge, until he's either deposed or he dies.

As for myself, I know that this is going to piss off a few of Van's sycophants, and I fully expect that he's going to pop up and whimper about how this is all completely unfair. The nice thing about having gotten the hell out of the field, all the way round, is that if I get threats about not being invited to attend incompecons, I can just quote one of the great philosophers of the Nineteenth Century: "Oh, Puh-LEEEEEEZE, Brer Fox, don't throw me in that briar patch!"

[yagathai.livejournal.com]

The slan has been replaced by Cat Piss Man, and he's just as arrogant about his place in the universe.

I love that sentence.

[txtriffidranch.livejournal.com]

Feel free to steal it. Picture Cory Doctorow in a certain scene from the film Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, only with the phrase "Open source" replacing "Oklahoma".