I live in the Dallas-Ft. Worth area and recently started helping a good friend of mine and his wife who have a small side business selling vintage toys and comic books at small conventions. I had stopped going to most Conventions for a while. A couple of years back the guy who ran the major ones in this area sold to Fan Expo and it wasn't as fun as it once was. I am loving going to the small conventions because you get to interact with legit fans and talk about sci-fi/fantasy or comic books.
I used to have it on my bucket list to one day go to the San Diego con or the annual Star Trek convention in Vegas but they seem to (like so many others) have stopped catering to actual fans and are more interested in the woke garbage. Panels about more diversity/women in gaming or how evil nerd culture is doesn't cut it for me.
Kind of reminds me of my beloved Sci-Fi channel. It came out when I was 10 or 11 and I loved it because as a sci-fi nerd, it seemed to be a channel for people who liked sci-fi. Now like so many other nerd sites it has turned into the usual fake geek hangout. I stopped going on the syfy channel website when the lady reviewing Brightburn complained about white supremacy and the evil white male nonsense.
I used to go to the Calgary one but you probably know the Honeybadger drama, chose not to support them after that since they're woke leftists who hate me.
Earlier this year I started listening to their podcast. I love it. These small conventions were a pleasant surprise. It took me back to talk to actual fans and not activists posing as fans.
the cons (and indy gaming) appear to have been taken over by the woke offendatrons for the same reason trannie jannies are - no lifers with few morals, who probably rape and assualt for most of their lives.
I stopped going about 4 or 5 years ago and decided with the way trends were going they weren't for me anymore.
Will also probably have heavy-handed requirements because of the location provider, insurer, convention committee, or government. I've already seen requirements that force people with costume masks also having to wear surgical masks. Social distancing, positive tests, and vaccine passports are all likely, if not already required.
I was looking forward to heading back to MagFest this year, but they decided to be fucking retarded and demand injections and masks for everyone. Fuck that gay shit. If people are worried about catching Covid they have no business hosting or attending a convention.
Same I wa going to go to Nekocon but they went the same way and went even so far to detail what masks aren’t allowed and how you have to wear one when dancing... like bro most weebs are out of shape & that’s asking for a visit from the EMTs
Yea I’ve tuned out the Covid zombies. You are right. They are free to stay at home for the rest of their lives
go and protest lmao
The last SDCC I went to was 2015. I just lost interest after that. I don't miss cons at all. I had 5 day tickets to go to 2020 SDCC and I was actually relieved that it got canceled and I was able to get a full refund.
When the movie industry started taking notice of SDCC it didn't take long for it to become shit. Same with Fan Expo.
Smaller and Independent conventions are the only ones worth going to. The hosts need to be actual fans (and not woke) instead of just being in it for profit. Having a strong independent creator section is also probably a good sign, where possible (not possible with vintage toys). These conventions also have much more fair pricing.
Even the major studios started to abandon SDCC right before 2020. Disney was going to stop doing panels entirely and instead focus on their own D23 Expo. Warner Bros was going to follow suit. The major studios were starting to realize that they were getting incorrect data points from SDCC. SDCC was telling them that Snakes on a Plane and Scott Pilgrim were going to be hits, but they were both flops. The comic book industry is just starting to realize that Twitter is the same - that pandering to the Twitter and Tumblr crowd is pointless because those communities are a very small but very vocal minority that does not even pay for content.
they are still marginally popular, though... so its not entirely a bad reading.
' ive had enough of these mother fuckin jannies on my mother fuckin subrddit'
Don’t blame you. If I wasn’t getting paid to help him I wouldn’t go. I can have as much fun at the used book store
You dont miss the holier than thou rapists that run most of these woke cons?
I went to a couple a long time ago, but I can't stand extroverted geeks so they got annoying. The cosplay was fun.
I've never seen it put that way before. Spot-on. Those people are insufferable.
I think a big part of it is autists. They get into geeky shit ✅, they have obsessions ✅, they generally lack the social skills to know when not to go on about them ✅✅✅. And of course those'll be the more sociable autists; The other ones are at home.
No knock against 'em, I've done the same thing because I'm on the spectrum. I feel sorry for the diatribes I subjected people to back then!🤣
I kinda wanted to go to ones when I was younger, but even then I just couldn't justify the cost of travel, food, lodging and time for the bigger ones. Nevermind the increasing corporate nature of them.
The urge to go went away entirely as I moved away from being a weeb and saw how obnoxious a lot of these fandoms are. They're just too obnoxiously into things for me. Extends past weebshit into tabletop, vidya, and TV, of course.
I think a lot of this feeling is just a function of interests shifting. I'm just not obsessed with any sort of mass media anymore, and thus not part of the audience cons are geared to. Though I'm sure part of it is a smattering of sour grapes because I've never really had the time or luxury to go to one.
Definitely yes, I do a lot more things with my time now compared to back then and I'd say my life satisfaction is 100% better compared to when I was a consoomer.
Not to say I don't spend spare time playing games or watching garbage, I do, just a much healthier amount. It isn't to the level of obsession like it was back then.
I used to go to an Anime convention. People stopped caring about anime and only cared about the convention itself. Cosplayers often didn't know anything about what they were cosplaying as. Most people spent more time doing drugs in their hotel rooms packed to the brim, rather than go to any panels or do any actual fandom stuff. This was before the woke stuff started settling in. I haven't been in almost 5 years, and don't plan on going back.
i kno one of the ones your talking about, its not on the west coast lmao. #nerdfriends
i went to one and had more fun hanging out with friends than actually doing con stuff
Use to go to Weeb cons in my teens til I was around 25, then anime got popular and the cosplay thots and normies started going. It went full commercialized and started to suck dick hard around 2011 and I dipped out. Normies REALLY do ruin everything. ONLY one I would recommend is Anime Matsuri, still got that old con vibe and leftist avoid going to it like the plague cuz of Vic and now Rekieta being constants there so it's con non grata to them, they can have the consumerist sanitized bullshit.
cosplay thots ruined nerdism, ban them and balance will be restored to the nerd force at cons. also ban non nerds, idc if they go to a camp. permaban them
NORMIES AND THOTS GET OUT! REEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!
I used to. I was fairly active in written SF fandom (I love books and I love talking about books), went to my local convention regularly, Worldcon a few times, and even helped publish a fanzine.
My local convention has evolved into something I’m no longer interested in. SF fandom made me angry and upset for a lot of reasons, the Tiptree award fiasco being the last straw. And I’m more into mysteries and non-fiction now.
I’ve officially renounced SF fandom, at least as represented by Worldcon et al. If I had a chance to go to BasedCon or something like it locally, I might think about that.
Is there still any Sci-Fi conventions for actual fans? I know how Worldcon is super woke. What happened with Tiptree? Don’t give up on Sci-Fi. Still a ton of great older stuff out there. I still need to read the book your username is named for.
I like non-fiction too but mystery/crime drama is my second favorite genre.
Smith1980:
I have not given up on SF as a genre: only on organized SF fandom as represented by things like Worldcon. I’ll read anything except a romance novel.
The Tiptree story is kind of long, but short version: they renamed an award created in her honor because she was “ableist”. “Ableist” in this case meant: she was battling depression, and couldn’t continue to take care of her blind senile husband. So she shot him, called her agent to let her know, and then killed herself. The Catholic Church literally has more compassion for people who have killed themselves than organized SF fandom.
I’d recommend the first five Stainless Steel Rat novels at least. Actually, the first one might even be a good light choice for the book club. Short story version here.
Gotcha. Thanks for explaining that. I’ll look her up. Yea I have a mountain of books to get through but I’ve heard good things about those.
By an absolute miracle I was able to attend SDCC in 2006. Got to see some of the webcartoonists I used to follow who've all since gone woke. Had some giant Snakes on a Plane promo thing since that was the meme of the time.
Was glad I went the one time I was able, but it's not something I needed to do again; and I don't understand the people who go year after year.
Also gone to a couple auto shows which can be interesting to see the concept cars and do the test drives. I think the last one I went to was the year all the VW/Audi diesels got yeeted, so there was a lot of empty space in their exhibitions where those cars would have been. Those are fun to attend about once per decade: long enough to see the production versions of the concepts you saw at the last show.
Used to, pre-COVID. But I felt them getting worse and worse as time went on. As Wokeness went on. More panels about Blamxns In Anime or whatnot drivel, and less about, you know, anime, at an anime convention. Cosplays got worse as more and more rules restricted what you could do: First it was no guns, then no gun-like objects, then weapons in general, then "weapon-like objects" in general. Then clothing restrictions and modesty requirements.
It went from custom-gun-toting bikini babes talking about how awesome the next seasons of anime showings would be, to No Fun Allowed you can only show sexuality if it is homosexuality (somehow they got a by) and no speaking about anime, only about how problematic it is. And that's just sad.
I know someone in a LARP group that goes to the same cons... They said that in recent two or three years, they don't even buy a pass for the con, just do their work showcasing their LARP as a contractor and don't even participate outside it because it isn't worth it... And LARPers are, well, LARPers, so that shows how bad it's gotten.
if its a woke con, good for them. dont give the feaujustice commies any money.
I went to Dragon Con annually for about 5 years running. That last year is when I noticed the quality really take a nose dive and I stopped after that
downhill in 2017?
This was back in the mid 2000s actually. Should of specified
Never been. Never even thought of going but then again I was never deep into any fandom so that isn't surprising I guess.
I've seen some footage of comic conventions online which makes me think that at certain ones have attendance is down (though maybe people are raring to go to certain ones?) so i don't know how economically profitable these places are at the moment, but getting out and meeting fans would probably be fun. People who are more hardcore fans seem to like the more personal, smaller ones, as the bigger ones are more, uh, "corporate". Also the mask mandates have caused some drama. I would like to go to conventions in the future but have to find a good fit. Don't think i could go now being unvaccinated, but maybe in the future.
Luckily I live in Texas so there are no mandates. I’ve met a lot of cool people at the small ones
Retro Game Conventions tend to dodge it. People are more worried about games, and buying games than caring about anything else.