Irrelevance to the new fen

[dalekboy]

This post is taken from a bunch of replies on a friend's journal, that it was decided we should stop hijacking and move the discussion somewhere else.

The problem is that a lot of fans want to get along, and many longer term fans don't like change, so the old fans don't change and the new fans try to fit in. The newer folks aren't encouraged to exptress their ideas, and fans have always been good at shouting down those they see as wrong.

I tend to think that when one is well-known and respected in the scene, they have a responsibilty to the newer folks to keep an open mind and to give them the chance to express themselves.

For instance, I have the newer people in Melbourne saying they don't see the point of having fan guests. I disagree with their opinion, but respect and understand that if they feel that way, then many more new folks will as well. So I either need to justify why we do it well enough that they can see my point-of-view, or rethink having fan guests in order to be relevant to the newer folks.

Though that said, I think the fan guest issue is a tiny one compared to how magnificently irrelevant our style of cons currently are to the new crop of fans.

New fans aren't coming to cons. They see them as over-priced, they don't see that they will get any value for money, and when they do come along, they have a hard time making friends because they're shy and because many of us are shy, we're more comfy talking to people we already know.

And then they hear us slagging off 'mundanes' and similarly showing fandom's intolerance for those not like themselves. So to new folks we come across as more exclusive than inclusive.

So discuss... and especially if you're one of the newer fans, please, please, please speak up and tell us what you'd like to see at cons, and what you think needs to be changed.

Comments

[drjon.livejournal.com]

I think you're going to need the equivalent of a Marketing Campaign, complete with Loss Leaders (which you yourself did with cheapy first-timer memberships at Continuum) and a very proactive recruiting campaign. I think that Fancons, and Fandom in general, really have to be "Sold" to the neofans, if you're going to get their interest.

Something I never managed to get going when I was MSFC President, but which I think is an idea with merit, was an Outreach team, which I envisaged as proactively visiting various different meetings, groups and organisations, getting involved with them on their turf, and generally spreading the word. I don't know how adaptable that idea might be to the Conventioneering side of things, however.

[drjon.livejournal.com]

(Of course, on the other side of the coin, Fandom's always existed on a net of friendship, and I think it's also worth not losing sight of that, even if you're using a Commercial Marketing paradigm as a model for recruitment. Affinity groups and personal connection are what give existence to the idea of Fandom. Extending the net into neofandom is going to create a gradient, if you catch my metaphor.)

from one ex pres to another

[magnapops.livejournal.com]

It was done leading up to Constantinople '94, worked reasonably well although in hindsight it tended to bring their politics to the MSFC which wasn't always welcome.

The reason it was done was that the MSFC was running Constantinople and was bidding for both the media and Lit natcon for 1994. So we had some driver causing the intermixing.