A sea of happy oddness
On my morning drive I listened to a podcast this morning interviewing James Randi, noted stage magician and skeptic. He raved about Dragon*Con, calling it a gathering of 37,000 people where everyone is weird, smart, and surprisingly nice. Randi expressed amazement at the way that everyone “fits in” at Dragon*Con, even a cranky 80-year old magician, and that he’d be attending future Dragon*Cons whenever possible.
Fandom sure doesn’t have all the answers, but when we get it right, fandom rocks, doesn’t it?
I hope to go next year. I wanna meet some Mythbusters.
Totalitarian Fan Fashion
tzel reposted an very good article from
Rule One: Steampunk fashion is a real-world reproduction of the clothing that is or could be found in steampunk literature. It’s that simple. Note the phrase “could be” in that sentence.
Rule Two: When in doubt, dress Victorian and then add. Here’s a nice simple baseline. Again, that’s baseline, not Scripture.
Rule Three: Steampunk fashion is about creating an [entertaining] outfit […]. Never feel obliged to take away from the style or appeal of an outfit simply because you fear it will be “not steampunk enough.” There is no “steampunk fashion bible”, and attempts to create one should be ignored.
Rule Four: There is no “steampunk color.” Some people have claimed that steampunk is only brown, or only black, or only white, or only light, or only dark. They are wrong. In reality, Victoria herself may have stuck to black, but the rest of the world didn’t. And we’re not exactly recreating reality here anyway.
Rule Five: You are allowed to like other genres. If you like a style of fashion that does not fit into steampunk be proud of it. This is not One Fandom to Rule Them All, any more than pulp SF, Trek, anime, B5, fursuiting, Galactica, or Firefly were. It is a way for like-minded individuals to have fun.
Rule Six: Have fun and be yourself. That’s what this is about. Don’t feel compelled to conform with everyone else. Fandom needs individuals and noncomformists. You didn’t join the counterculture just to find a clique within it. Express your vision!
I often feel that there are too many rules, too many pecking orders, too many boundaries in fandom. Perhaps some of them evolved from guidelines intended to help the socially unskilled from being complete jerks. But I think much of it comes from people’s natural tendency to find a leader and be part of a movement, safe inside something bigger than they are. But fandom’s roots are in dreams, imagination, and fun; and when a leader intentionally or unintentionally suppresses that in service to his or her own vision, it’s a mistake.
The very first group I hooked up with, Starfleet, had ranks imitating its fictional namesake. The idea was that these ranks would reflect a recognition of service to the club and a responsibility for the club’s operation. But some of the fans decided that the rank gave them paramilitary power, and that they could make decisions for the other club members. This caused enough trouble that, eventually, Chapter Chairpersons were specifically advised to downplay the “rank” structure in chapter activities.
Conversely, my own first chapter, and the ones that followed it, encouraged personal uniforms of the fan’s own design; ran role-playing sessions in which anything that could be shoehorned into the Trek universe was allowed; and treated ‘ranks’ as a subject for silly wordplay. (Woe to my first chapter chairperson when she attained the rank of Rear Admiral.) We did massive damage to Paramount canon in those days, but boy, did we enjoy ourselves.
I suspect that the modern preoccupation with the ‘right way’ to be a fan is partly the Internet’s fault; by making it so easy for a fan to find people who agree with their point of view, the ‘Net made it less necessary to learn tolerance and even appreciation of the fen who didn’t quite. But it also offers more exposure to new and different ideas, and opportunities to have more fun and meet more people, not to mention more places to buy cool costume and accessory stuff, so there’s no point in technology-bashing.
Recently, I’ve had the privilege of visiting some cons willing to relax the boundaries, ditch the unnecessary rules, and throw wrenches into the artificial fan heirarchies. I love this, and I think it’s beneficial to nearly every fan. So at the next con you attend, help bring some craziness back; wear a hall costume, cheap or fancy, and wear it your way! Wear a leather miniskirt with your Galactica uniform; furry ears and tail of a species unknown to real or speculative zoology; an anime costume where the fabric choice and sleeve length are darn well inaccurate, thank you; or, horrors, a steampunk costume in red and silver! Sure, some small-minded person may write something insulting in their blog when they get home.
So what? You’re having fun.
And The Heavens Shall Tremble
Today in Paris, at their WorldWide Invitational event, Blizzard Entertainment announced their upcoming game Diablo III.
That is all. (That’s plenty!)
Tunic +1 to Confusion Charms
Swung by the grocery store today to pick up dinner. I was wearing my Technicon 17 (2001) t-shirt, and the cashier kept staring at it. I think kittenchan‘s catgirl in Grecian robes confused the heck out of him.
I just don’t wear the number of t-shirts I used to. At Staples, I had to wear corporate red, but at B&D, Thrifty Nickel, Decipher, and BCT, I could wear what I wanted as long as it was neat, clean, inoffensive, and gender-appropriate. I owned a LOT of t-shirts. But at NASA, polo shirts are the order of the day, so my t-shirt wear has been cut by five-sevenths, and much of my collection has felt the bite of the ongoing ‘stuff’ purge.
Kinda sucks, because I kept seeing t-shirts I like at cons – such as an excellent Jennie Breeden shirt at MarsCon – and having to tell myself, “When will you be wearing this, and how much room do you really have in the dresser?” Sigh. I have a rule that I can buy something new for every two objects of similar kind or size I purge. Maybe I need to do another t-shirt purge soon to make room. Wish I could justify doing another run of TeeFive shirts (and find the art for the back).
EDIT: It has been pointed out to me that I was wearing the TCon 18 shirt. Either I fail at reading Roman numerals upside down, or the +1 to Confusion is working better than I thought.
Mt. Fuji comes to Mohammed
Just found out that Anime Mid-Atlantic is being held right in my backyard next month.
Anyone on my Friends List planning to go? Not much fun going to a con unless I can hang with some cool people. Besides, I haven’t been to an anime con in years and years – may need someone to show me the ropes!
Religion, on the other hand, is pushing it.
Hmm. I learned something from my last post that I wasn’t expecting to learn, which is of course more fun that way.
It seems that most of the people I know would put themselves somewhere between “Way of Life” and “A Nice Hobby” on the fandom scale, so apparently we do need another node for the 21st century.
Or do we? I think perhaps I should have stressed more that FIAWOL does not necessarily mean “shallow, pasty, anti-social nerd with nothing to look forward to in life but the next Stargate: Atlantis episode.” I answered FIAWOL for myself because fandom touches almost every part of my life, even when I’m not specifically geeking out. Just to name two examples, I got my first job in Hampton Roads because of miniatures gaming; and my significant others have all been fans, and we’ve had some good times because of it.
When you’ve got a closet of costumes, a vast library of genre media, at least three devices on which you play video games, have extensive convention staff (or even chair!) experience, and can put Chris Pike and Jon Archer in either chronological or created order… you might just be a Way-Of-Lifer. (I’m not referring to anyone specifically. If you thought I was referring to you… then that perhaps should tell you something.)
But really, you know, that’s okay. As long as the bills get paid, the bosses stay satisfied, friends and S.O.s get the attention they deserve, and we get out into the sunlight on occasion, FIAWOL is an entertaining way to spend the days.
EDIT: jdunson suggests that the “F” in each refers to an outdated type of fandom prevalent in the 60s and 80s, and that the fan culture most of us currently inhabit is a different beast completely. (I paraphrase heavily.) Interesting concept, and I believe I can see his point. Thoughts?
The Last Days of Technicon 25
My Sunday Technicon experience was brief and poignant. Reluctantly awake by 10:00, and out of the Microtel by 11:00, I headed back to McBryde for a final time.
My plan was to leave Blacksburg by 1:00, thereby getting home around 6:30-7:00 and having time for dinner and decompression, so my time was brief and rushed. I got to catch up briefly with nanoreid, had my picture taken with ranchonmars‘ Skull plush, and won an awesome Thunderchild print from rattrap. (It’s based on a plastic model I designed and we built many years ago.)
I finally had a few seconds to stop into Spiel, where I talked to jsciv for the only time during actual con hours. Touched base with rubinpdf, too; I hear ashoemaker was there, but I didn’t see him, though I did see markush on the way out. Since auction pickup hadn’t yet started, shrewlet offered to collect the print for me so that I could get on the road, and as I left the auditorium where the auctions were held, it seemed like half the con called out goodbyes. Just a little tiny bit verklempt, I was.
I drove home on 460 rather than battle the interstates; I got a far more peaceful drive for my trouble. Faint rain misted my windshield most of the way back, but posed no driving hazard, though I more than once encountered the damned “I refuse to be passed by a Hyundai, even if I was 15 miles under the speed limit!” attitude. Though I didn’t realize it at the time, I was so bushed that I sat a couple inches lower in the car seat, making the hood seem to disappear behind the dash.
Finally, I made it home. Starr and Midori were most pleased to see me. I presented Starr with the custom art I commissioned from rainbowsaber, and heard happy squees for the rest of the evening.
Sleep came upon me with no trouble at all, that night; and thus endeth the story of a happy Technicon. I’m already looking forward to next year’s: Jerry’s a good man who knows a thing or two about making a con happen, and I’m already tagged to do my shtick again. And this time, I’m bringing Starr!
(Say, who’s FanGOH for 26? And who’s got pics online?)
The weekend officially begins
I drove back to Blacksburg in a much happier car. On the way, jsciv called and set up a meet, wherein I found that for $10 more a night I could have had a suite twice the size (not that I would have used it for much). We hit Christiansburg’s new Panera with Lucy, and talked a lot of game industry shop. Joe seems to be doing quite well for himself these days, which is great; we made hyper-flimsy plans for a Disney run out there sometime in the hazy future. (Flying. Not driving.)
Made it to the con, and picked up my Staff badge. I think I’m permanent TCon staff now… not that I mind, it’s a pleasure every year, but it amuses me nevertheless. I did not recognize tltrent at first, gomen, gomen! But I traded a lot of greetings with lots of great folk in those first minutes. I remember yubbie looking quite distracted, for reasons I would later discover…
I spent most of Friday re-learning my way around McBryde Hall on the Virginia Tech campus, location of many VTSFFC and USS McKay events. I socialized quite a bit, catching up with long-time fandom friends. In a lot of ways, Technicon for me is like getting to be 25 again, and getting to spend time with all these fun, intelligent people without being a broke, know-it-all slacker fanboy. I don’t miss that aspect of myself much!
Dwight’s Friday night dance was short and unfortunately-scheduled, turning more into an excuse to play exotic cuts really loud in a University auditorium while the iTunes Visualizer hypnotized the small crowd. nius‘s quote, “We’re rocking McBryde 100, bitches!” ended up on buttons for him and Dwight and me.
Shut down con and move to the Microtel conference room, where I snagged ursulav, Meche, and Bert for Saturday night’s panels, and finally caught up to shrewlet. First, colleenk and I got some long-awaited personal chat time – let’s not make it so long before the next one! – and then Cindy and I got a little conversation in before she had to take a guest home for the evening.
An excellent Technicon Friday! Saturday would be a bit rougher…
