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

[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]

Yes, I've had that experience too. And bizarre fanatics for and against ebooks, both resolutely ignoring more interesting possibilities.

I'm a little bit bemused by how much the majority of web comics stick to the newspaper daily three panel strip format, too.

[angriest.livejournal.com]

Three panels works very well for setting up jokes: setup, setup, punchline. Or four panel comics doing: setup, setup, build suspense, punchline.

[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.

[strangedave.livejournal.com]

And I'd argue that that is really all you need. It doesn't really matter if the old people aren't interested in trying new things - the new people will bring new things, and maybe some of the old people will find they like them, maybe they won't, but its all good. Tradition is fine, as long as you can make new traditions. If people don't want to try new things, that will usually break down pretty quick once the people who do try new things start seriously having fun. It doesn't matter if the individual people are somewhat conservative, as long as the institutions are not.

Sadly, though, most fan clubs are deeply conservative institutions.

[angriest.livejournal.com]

coughWestLodgecough

[strangedave.livejournal.com]

Yeah, you've had a lot more to do with it than me, but that's certainly my impression - an incredibly conservative club that wants nothing to change, and wants to remain simply a nostalgia exercise.

I understand JAFWA has managed to get declining attendance at the same time as anime enjoys unprecedented popularity, too.

[purrdence.livejournal.com]

well why bother getting off one's arse and going to a meet if you can download it off the net?

[strangedave.livejournal.com]

Sure. But doesn't Wai-Con show that you can get hundreds of anime fans to attend other sorts of anime events?

[purrdence.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but that's 2 days a year - as opposed to making a weekly commitment. I have students planing on going to Wai-Con. They've been saving for it. But they don't have the time/ resources/ transport to go to something regular like Jafwa (and that's if they even KNOW about it).

[angriest.livejournal.com]

But JAFWA's problem is that they were created as an opportunity for people to see this wonderful exotic thing called anime, and now you can rent all the anime you want from your local Video Ezy.