Wise words

[dalekboy]

"...they don’t think they need saving. I mean, they haven’t changed for years, have they? They’re not designed to be wanted because they don’t want to be wanted, not really. They want to be left alone to do their thing, and they don’t want any loud new people in the room. They serve a dwindling audience, and they have to be aware of that — so they have to be in it to simply serve that audience, to provide that presumably cosy experience to their people until the last light goes out. Otherwise they would have done something different years ago."

That's Warren Ellis talking about sf magazines, but he could be talking about the majority of sf fan clubs and conventions in Australia.

Just because your friends turn up, doesn't mean it's good.
Just because it breaks even, doesn't mean it's a success.
Just because something runs, that doesn't mean it's still relevant.

More on this later...

Comments

[strangedave.livejournal.com]

Its even more true of most fan clubs than it is of the magazines.

[dalekboy.livejournal.com]

Sharon and I were a member of a club years ago that had the most dreadful newsletter imaginable. It was full of in-jokes on virtually every page. Given how huge the club was at the time, and that most of their membership was interstate, it was unforgivable.

And while it's an extreme example, that's what you get with a lot of fan-run things - something geared to their friends. Now that's only natural, but people are unwilling to make the extra effort to welcome the newbies, and are quick to criticise them when they don't honour the history.

[vegetus.livejournal.com]

If I recall a previous discussion correctly, I was also a member of that club with the terrible newsletter, a young interstate member. I didn't actually notice the injokes you and Sharon have mentioned, but that could have been because I was like 15 at the time, on the other side of the country and it was somewhere were I could read fanfic and get spoilers *before* the internet was widely available.

[dcrisp.livejournal.com]

This was one of my concernes about the MSFC for a while. It seemed that everybody there, whilst being great friends and getting on with each other, were all old school. There didnt seem to be new people coming along. There were no problems with the people who were there, just that there was no new blood coming in and staying.

Thankfully this has changed in the last 6 months and there is a handfull of NEW NEW members.

Theres exciting times to be had

[dalekboy.livejournal.com]

The MSFC is such a weird beast, its greatest strength is also its key flaw - the fact that it embraces all SF and not single show or facet. Folks who like a single show enough will join clubs or online groups about it, but they are unlikely to join a group that merely celebrates the genre.

Also, the MSFC looks like a place that is book-ish, even though pretty much everyone there loves TV and movies. So the folks that see the club as 90% book related don't feel there's anything for them.

These aren't new problems, they've always been there. I think it really important for clubs and cons to start finding out from the youngest people coming to things what they would like to see, and get them involved in making it happen.

I always love it when I go to the club and don't recognise people :)

[bigevilogre.livejournal.com]

Sounds a lot like how I've been feeling just as a person. Add to that "Hard work, dedication, persistence, and confidence don't amount to a hill a birdpoo"

[dalekboy.livejournal.com]

In what way?

[bigevilogre.livejournal.com]

The first part was not wanting to be saved, and wanting to be left alone to do their thing. I had been working on a project for 19 years and I didn't want to be saved from that obsession. (I just wanted it to ammount to something) Serving a dwindling audience and to only want to serve that audience, which is how I felt. I didn't care if anyone even knew the project was mine, I only wanted it to be out there and to reach some level of recognition. to provide that presumably cozy experience, you know. I didn't want any money. It would have been nice to get a few bucks if the story sold, but if not I still would have been extatic if it even made it out there. And the last light, mine has gone out. It has left me in a very very ugly depression (And I feel guilty for that. My problem as big as it is to me is so little compared to other people and their problems) I should have done something else years ago.
I had faith, dedication, and people don't even believe how hard I worked and it netted me nothing at all. It broke my heart.
Basically I failed at every single thing I have tried to do or be in my life. I have exhausted everything else I ever had even a little interest in. The story was the last love of my life.
So it might not be the context the article meant, but those were the thoughts it gave me.
Really all I have left in life is sleep and going to work. There really isn't anything left for me.
Sorry to dump such depressing garbage on you like that. I know it's petty and selfish.

[angriest.livejournal.com]

I think those magazines are typical of SF fandom in general:

- do not try new things.
- do not progress.
- do not welcome new people, unless they are identical to the old people.
- tradition is more important than a good idea.

Obviously there are many exceptions, but that does seem to be the general rule of the subculture.

[dalekboy.livejournal.com]

They want to embrace the future, but it has to be the one they grew up with, because that's what they are comfortable with.

[angriest.livejournal.com]

I once co-presented a panel on the future of Internet art forms, and the audience wouldn't get past e-books. And we were all like "but look! This page actually changes just by the act of loading it! You help create the art as you view it!!" and they were all like "But now I can read Heinlein on my monitor!"

Great times.

[strangedave.livejournal.com]

You only actually need to be welcoming to new people - the new people will take care of all the rest by themselves. Basically, this is what Swancon did right. The real Swancon old guard continue to (yes, even now, nearly 20 years later) bitch about anime and cyberpunk and such, and still like to play Rail Baron -- but it doesn't matter at all, because there were new people, and then new people after that, and then new people after that.

[angriest.livejournal.com]

Swancon does appear to be less inhospitable to new people than most of fandom, that is true.

[mynxii.livejournal.com]

Being someone that is very much in favour of trying some new things - up to and including of the fact that some of it is sure to be less successful than others, I can see what you mean.

But I also believe that the capacity for change is out there.

The obstacles of getting through the 'but its tradition' and 'you can't do that because it didn't work last time' or 'you'll alienate everyone who currently goes'

I dont' think any of those things is any reason to not try something - and while the result may not work, it may also be a wild success.

I am hopeful of the idea that we are doing when we get dates from someone - heard from them lately?

As far as conventions in Perth go, they need to change to either be the kind of conference that can afford to utilise hotels properly, and the kind of conference that hotels /want/ OR they need to NOT be in a hotel. That's the biggest change I forsee over the next x amount of years - depending on opposition.

There's this myth that things should be cheaper function wise in Perth, and it's just blatently untrue. The hotels have the monopoly on what little function space is available across Perth for everyone to use for all the reasons people want function space. They can run things the way they like, at a price that suits them - and they do. They all almost have come to run the same way wanting a certain amount of guaranteed revenue in the $$ figure that would make you blanch at the very least.

At least in Perth it's got to be Change or Die really.

[dalekboy.livejournal.com]

Sometimes tradition is good and important, sometimes it's staid old wankers holding onto a past or joke that's no longer relevant.

The two traditional misspellings of friend in a particular form for WorldCon. It's cute within the community, but that the joke has to be explained every year kind of makes it pointless. It's that "I know the secret, so I belong here and you don't" attitude that helps keep people away.

Plus the general public and community are going are looking at this traditional mistake and going - They didn't even bother to spell check this! How unprofessional.

General comedy rule-of-thumb = If you have to explain the joke, it's not worth telling.

[sonictail.livejournal.com]

In terms of conventions I have two half words that bucked the trend against the standard conventions.

Wai-Con.

I just love that what WASFF and several people in the SF thought wouldn't succeed has managed to run beyond expectations. If anyone wants to put forward "change or die" they're a prime example.

[mynxii.livejournal.com]

Well said :)

Honestly the amount of history behind something like Swancon does make it more of a massive beast to change, but it's still possible.

I'm currently thinking my way through it on that score, things that I can do that won't take me months to wrangle through wasff and such, things that will give me intelligent information on where change is likely best received... things like that.

Not to mention, Hotels, still a big issue. Has been for ages, and somehow we manage to keep ignoring this, but really - we need to start solving now if it's to make a real difference.

[angriest.livejournal.com]

Wai-Con is a weird beast. It's huge and monolithic, and also bizarrely unwelcoming and standoffish. It was an odd experience going last year. I felt it was how an "average joe" would feel coming to a Swancon, which I'm ridiculously familiar with, and then suddenly I was trying to wrap my head around 97 hour costume parades.

I didn't realise WASFF had said it wouldn't succeed. I always figured a big anime con was always a good bet - although admittedly I didn't predict it would be *that* big. If anyone in Perth was clever enough to do a comics/pop culture con, I suspect you'd get similar numbers.

[strangedave.livejournal.com]

I don't recall anyone saying Wai-Con wouldn't succeed at a WASFF meeting. I think some people thought Wai-Con might run into some issues with committee structure etc, but as far as running a successful event, I think everyone knew the audience was there. Don't confuse something one individual WASFF member might have said. FWIW, I've been on WASFF for ages, and I was well aware of the success of overseas anime conventions before Wai-Con existed.

I can promise you this - if Wai-Con had approached WASFF wanting funding and advice at any point, including prior to the first con when the size of the audience was unknown, it would have got a positive reception. Whether Wai-Con and/or WASFF are better off now that the con is established without WASFF we'll never have an answer to.

And also - WASFFs role isn't to be the *source* of new ideas. Its supposed to be a boring organisation, because its role is largely to ensure that attention is paid to boring things like insurance, budgets, contracts, etc. I think its lost track of how to do that *well* in recent years, but WASFF already has a process to deal with that problem (its called 'annual elections').

[strangedave.livejournal.com]

The problem with being "The sort of conference that hotels want" is what they want is one that pays a lot. And not just for function space, but hotel markup coffee prices, catered meals, etc.

[vegetus.livejournal.com]

ooer, I have one more...

Just because your girlfriend is threatening to leave you because of it, doesn't mean you're putting in enough time.

I don't think the SF scene is any different to other groups though, you'll always find people hanging on to the past and not wanting to change.

[dalekboy.livejournal.com]

The SF scene may not be any different in the basic sense, but given so many fans pride themselves on being broad-minded, forward thinking, and welcoming change, the attitude behind many groups shows that that is mostly bullshit.

I don't mean they don't wish to change, many do, but that the way they approach the potential is tentative to the point of paranoia. I make no bones about the fact that I have no idea how to make cons and clubs relevant to the latest generation, I have some basic ideas, but I'm 40, not 14, and the world is radically different to when I was that age.

What needs doing in a basic sense is to listen to the younger fans with an open mind and a willingness to take a few risks for their benefit - and to include them in the process so they have a first-hand idea of why something did or didn't work, rather than having the freedom to simply claim 'you did it wrong' if you fail.

Swancons can certainly take some punts on trying new things, because they have a solid core audience that will turn up regardless.

WorldCons should have an entire stream of new takes on stuff that can be tested out. But hell, you're flat out getting a video-programme through because many organisers are still against media fans, and don't want them included.

[sonictail.livejournal.com]

I'm finding this discussion on here facinating, i've wrestled with idea to get JAFWA attendence up and things improving. I've done the time on committee, we implemented new ideas, tried new things but I believe it comes back to the one thing.

Apathy.

Today you can download anything, watch it when you want in the comfort of your own home. why socialize in person when the internet can provide. I make a effort to get together with my mates and watch the shows, attend fantastic planet meets {when I can :p} and goto clubs. I just wish that all media ended with "now get up off your arse and go discuss this with people that you may or may not know IN PERSON"

:p

[dalekboy.livejournal.com]

Some is down to apathy, some down to shyness and insecurity. Why put yourself out there where you may be attacked or looked down upon, when you can interact with hundreds of people all over the world from the safety of your home?

The clubs and cons need to be welcoming, interesting, and relevant. Why would you go to these things? - to meet new people who share the same interests. But you have to feel that it's worth going to, and that the people you will meet will want you there. You have to get something that you can't get at home.

When authors complain that there's too much writing related content, you've gone seriously down the wrong path. And what are the newbies to make of it if the authors are complaining? And the people who aren't into books (despite the way some people act, this isn't a capital crime), what's in it for them?

Fun and excitement are key. Fun events that people won't get to see if they sit at home. Humourous and irreverent debates with people who are fun and worth listening to. Entertainment based panels, mad gameshows, fan olympics... Some of these things make people cringe, but at the same time, it gets folks involved either as a part of the audience or as a participant.

And as I heard at a recent con, from people who actively dislike these events, when you don't have the fun silly stuff, the con lacks spark.

And the next fucker who tells me that the 'So this is your first convention' panels aren't worth running, I swear I'll rip their nipples off! That's the chance for newbies to see who else is in the same boat, to meet people, to ask questions without feeling like they might be a nuisance or dumb.

It's a part of welcoming people to the community.

[angriest.livejournal.com]

The biggest hurdle JAFWA faces today is (and I suspect this is blindingly obvious and I'm telling you how to suck eggs) that anime used to be this hard-to-obtain commodity, and now anyone can download it off the net - or just wait a few months and buy the Madman DVD. A club where you passively watch is always going to start losing members when those members start finding more convenient ways to passively watch.

The solution? I'd recommend a smaller but more dedicated club, less screenings, more discussions, a strong push to develop a local doujinshi/amateur manga subculture, maybe a shift away from weekly meetings, stuff like that.