Con-clueless

[jay]

I've been to exactly two SF cons ever -- a Worldcon (Noreascon II, in Boston in 1981) and a local one (Baycon, in 1991). I've never really gotten the impetus... both times I went for just a day membership, didn't know anyone there, sat in on some panels, walked around the dealers' room and bought stuff, and watched people dressed up in costume walk around. It was okay, but I felt very much like an observer at some other community's event, missing the signals and important cues. I didn't stay around in the evenings, since I knew no one and wasn't staying there overnight.

This weekend, many local friends are going to this years' Baycon, which reminds me of the difference in my perception of such events compared to theirs. There must be *something* which draws them back, year after year... I understand intuitively an attraction to Burning Man, say, even having never been there, because of the parallels with camping during field work. But I'm still mostly con-clueless.

That said, I did visit Baycon briefly yesterday, going over to give questioner a hair-check in her room before the festivities. I wasn't thinking and wore a NASA shirt -- actually, my "SETI Signal Detection Team -- Arecibo'92" polo shirt. Which then resulted in my being stopped and queried twice just between the elevators and parking lot, once by two attractive women with "guest" badges ("I'd like to work there, too!") and another time by some older guy with a mustache and about ten ribbons on his badge -- an organizer of some sort. I suppose that wearing work-related stuff is actually a button-pushing kind of display, in that environment. LOL... I guess that my project-patch-covered NASA flight jacket would be practically fetish-wear, over there. Or maybe not... I still don't really understand the con-cultural values. Anyway, hopefully my friends will enjoy themselves while I'm out at Costco or weeding this weekend. ;-)

Comments

[therealjae.livejournal.com]

I like sf cons, actually, though I care very little about science fiction as a genre. I haven't been to one in years, but I always loved the kinds of geeky people that frequented them. It was like getting a geek fix. By which I mean smart people who fixate on things, I suppose. I just love that kind of enthusiasm.

alt.polycon is based on an sf con model, and you've enjoyed those, right? Isn't it essentially the same thing?

-J

[brian1789.livejournal.com]

Sure, I've been to four alt.polycons and enjoyed them. But there, I actually knew some of the people... and those I didn't, many of them I knew from their online personas. And APCs are *much* smaller, more intimate activities. As well as the program panels usually being things relevant to my life...

Still, APCs also tend to be "geek fixes", given the Usenet group demographics. That aspect of SF cons makes more sense to me now.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Hey! Someone else who's NOT at the con? But is around? I thought I was the only one. (Today is Mad Spring Cleaning day, for which read: decluttering and trips to Goodwill.)

[brian1789.livejournal.com]

Kind of a Late Spring Cleaning day, but still something useful. On this end... just groceries, and a bit of shopping for a new clothes dryer (ours has been broken for 2 weeks).

[airshipjones.livejournal.com]

Ah, also not a the con. It was pond cleaning day for me. Installed a UV filter to get rid of the algae.

And yes, wearing the jacket would be a fashion high point at Baycon. In fact, you could probably get on a number of panels without any problem.

[brian1789.livejournal.com]

Panels? I thought those were for writers, specifically professionals. In any case, I doubt that the folks dressed up as comic, Star Trek, etc. characters would be interested in rover planning and scheduling software, Mars drilling, field-deployed wireless exploration communications, impact crater geophysics, or the current mission design reference trades for Project Constellation (the new human exploration initiative to the Moon and eventually Mars). Maybe some historical stuff on SETI would garner interest, given the reaction to the shirt there... hmm.

In any case, hope that the algae disappears... the fish would be easier to see, too :).

[geekchick]

In any case, I doubt that the folks dressed up as comic, Star Trek, etc. characters would be interested in rover planning and scheduling software, Mars drilling, field-deployed wireless exploration communications, impact crater geophysics, or the current mission design reference trades for Project Constellation (the new human exploration initiative to the Moon and eventually Mars).

You'd probably be mistaken on that. Take a look at the Balticon schedule, ferinstance. Just at a glance, there are panels on "Hubble Space Telescope Update", "Today's Case for Mars. The impact of recent observations with MER data","My heroes have always been scientists and engineers", "Limitations and effects of different FTL systems on SF stories?" Programming will obviously be different between cons, but I think you'd in general find a fair amount of interest in those sorts of topics.

[brian1789.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the link. :)

Actually, I could give a panel talk as well as those guys... except for something like the FTL impacts on stories. But how does one get invited to a panel?

[geekchick]

But how does one get invited to a panel?

Er, I haven't done a panel myself, so I don't know. I suspect the answer, as it is so often, is "it depends". =)

[airshipjones.livejournal.com]

I have to second geekchick's opinion. Those are the panels I am most interested in going to. It isn't all about the writers, and the fluff. The real, hard-core science can be just as, if not more, interesting and motivating, than yet another panel on alien sex or zero-gee sex.

[brian1789.livejournal.com]

Besides, if one really wants to discuss the latter, one takes a couple of astronauts out after work for a beer... ;-)

[sebab.livejournal.com]

well, when you know people there, apparently cons are a lot of fun.

not so fun to walk in as an outsider -- I recall getting a lot of hostile looks and refusals to reply to polite conversation... like "this is great dip" (in the con suite) or "wow, that guy over there has a great costume!" after a while my ex and I would just give up after receiving one too many blank stares or hostile looks.

those were some of the most blatant "go away" messages I've ever received. sometimes it's hard to be sure whether that stuff is in my head, but not at cons!

I can't help wondering whether part of it was the "not knowing anyone" and part was the fact that I can pass for normal until I open my mouth. out of self-protection, I now go nowhere near cons, as the rejection hurt a lot at the time.

maybe they thought you were in costume! :)

[brian1789.livejournal.com]

Actually, I'd forgotten about the funny looks and not-so-hidden "go away" body language... at both SF cons I attended, I was in street clothes. I didn't know any better, and would not have felt comfortable in costume anyway, I'm too self-conscious (one reason why I never really got into the SCA, either, although I had many friends who were).

So after those two attempts at cons, a decade apart, the isolation and social rejection memories have been enough to keep me from trying again, even after I actually knew people who attended...

Work shirts... fine, for me space-related clothing articles are mundane, just mission- and project-related stuff. Non-fictional.

[geekchick]

at both SF cons I attended, I was in street clothes. I didn't know any better, and would not have felt comfortable in costume anyway

FWIW, I've never done hall costuming at any of the (non-costuming-specific) cons I've gone to on this coast, and it has never presented a problem.

[brian1789.livejournal.com]

Hmmm... maybe it was not the clothes, but being there completely alone. Have you gone to cons, while knowing no one there?

[geekchick]

Not totally alone, but at the first con I went to, the only person I knew was the person I was with. (He did know other people there though, and we were mostly there to go to a party.)

[brian1789.livejournal.com]

So there was some social connectivity... I wonder if I could persuade you to go with me to one. Preferably in your new boots and a corset... Of course, then I wouldn't notice the con ;-).

[sebab.livejournal.com]

even in costume I would likely get pegged as non-mundane at this point, from body language alone. I suspect that may be part of your problem, as well... not only at cons.

[hopeforyou.livejournal.com]

I'm confused by this comment. I thought it was -good- to get pegged as a non-mundane at a con. Why is being non-mundane a problem?

[sebab.livejournal.com]

I meant "mundane", of course. the problem with meds every 6 hour is that quite often I don't get back to sleep after waking up to take a pill and it's taxing on a body and brain doing their best (which is not that good) to heal.

[mactavish.livejournal.com]

Sometimes I think that not everyone defines that the same way. Some folks consider it a pejorative, many don't. Like "geek," it's partially more a matter of self-identity than a describable label.

I'm not very fannish. I like SF, but fandom isn't something that I can relate well to. That said, Baycon seems to be about more than that -- Brian might enjoy being a panel participant or an observer, just for his Devon Island and other fascinating experience -- and there are many ways to participate. I didn't actually do a lot besides socialize. Baycon (I only attended one evening) seemed to be, for me, more of a way to find so many of my friends in one place than anything else.

I was really glad for my scooter, as I "flitted about" a lot.

I'm concerned that Brian would think he hasn't got a lot of friends in the area or in fandom, but I know for sure that he does, and that many of them were at the Doubletree this weekend. I also think he would have enjoyed a fair bit of the programming.

Incidentally, I didn't go in costume. I've only been to a couple of SF cons, including this one, and didn't even dress up for either one. The masquerade ball excepted, I'd say that most people tended to look either mundane or just garden-variety geeky (you know, like us) this weekend.

[brian1789.livejournal.com]

Yay for the scooter!

I know of a couple friends overtly in fandom... probably more who were at Baycon in a more-casual sense. I might have welcomed the distraction, but given my emotional state at the time I wouldn't have been much fun, I think (and had therefore convinced myself that no one would want me tagging along behind them ;).

And there's just no way I could have actually asked my friends to help cheer me up... maybe someday, but that's IMO a graduate-level seminar in asking...

Mundane... I think of the word as meaning tactically "blends in with the street, unnoticed". And therefore usually a good thing (or safer, at least). In full camouflage, in other words. (grin) In a *personal* sense, I've never thought of it as relevant. ;-)

[brian1789.livejournal.com]

Sure... I have spent my whole life trying to look mundane and low-key, to avoid negative consequences otherwise (like being physically beaten-up, in the distant past)... it would be hard to turn that defensive camouflage off. Work-related NASA mission clothing is OK exactly because it *is* mundane and unremarkable, at least in my environments.

[sebab.livejournal.com]

*nod* makes sense.

same here (though the physical threatening stopped around 9th or 10th grade)

[brian1789.livejournal.com]

Actually, it stopped then for me too... 10th grade was the last incident, after band class.

Occasional threats continued for another year or two, but by age 16 it was over. Thankfully.

[mactavish.livejournal.com]

At the con, it would have been not-mundane, and unremarkable -- but popular. :)

[brian1789.livejournal.com]

Hmmm... in the con-context, would that actually make it.... mundane? (wink)

[mactavish.livejournal.com]

I wonder if the self-consciousness is just because you tend to be so. The primary "uniform" at this con seemed to me to be "t-shirt and jeans," either something mostly black, or mostly tie-dyed, but I saw my share of polo shirts and short-sleeved oxfords. (There were also plenty of people in renfaire garb, costumes, gothy look, etc. The only time I felt distinctly out of place was in the fang-maker's hotel room, which was a decidedly dark and gothy zone, and I just didn't fit. But I was with Emmett and other folks who aren't very gothy, so we joked together. I made a joke about being willing to have sex with Bill Nye, and one of the very dark people looked at me as if I'd said I'd have sex with George Bush.

*gasp*

But later, other folks told me that they'd do Bill Nye just out of fun and gratitude, so I know for sure that there are enough different kinds of people for any open-minded, science-loving geek -- and Brian, you are one of those -- to fit in.

(Note: Many goths would honor wanting to have sex with Bill Nye, would do it themselves, or are at least accepting enough not to worry about who I want to have sex with. This tiny subset seemed to be very much into needing to be a certain kind of dark, and I suspect they also would refuse to listen to music that didn't suit their scene, even if they liked it.)

[brian1789.livejournal.com]

As far as that subset goes, they sounded a bit inflexible or closed-minded... being in a minority oneself doesn't necessarily mean openness to others.

A big part of my self-consciousness comes from childhood in Georgia -- in the 1970s, drawing attention to oneself was likely to draw abuse, even beatings by groups of kids, except for certain socially-approved distinctions (mostly from athletic pursuits). So I learned to always reflexively do a threat-assessment upon entering a room or approaching a group of people, and to constantly scan myself to ensure that I wasn't looking/saying/doing anything that could be turned into a pretext for more abuse. Keeping a low profile...

At cons, full of people I don't know with different customs and unwritten rules, I've been as wary as if I were entering a previously-unvisited foreign country... probably with stressed and tense body language, nonverbally warning people to stay back. And as always, I went stag... one thing I could certainly do to help myself is to recruit friends to go together to events.

(wonder if I should get a full Bill Nye outfit... I already have the lab coat... ;-)