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

[stephbg.livejournal.com]

I think the current obsession with "fan culture" is by definition exclusive. The more we insist we are some kind of coherent and different-from-the-norm group, the greater the barriers we place to entry. I'm getting a little tired of the current emphasis on sociology myself, and would like to see a few more spaceships and bacteria. More Science. More Fiction.

We're an interesting bunch, statistically, but I don't think we're quite as different as we like to make out. We need a way to reassure the curious that they will *not* be instantly labelled and permanently branded if they so much as dip their toe in the water. There needs to be a light, non-threatening low (emotional and financial) cost "Intro to Swancon: Welcome to the safe shallow end" phase before we require newbies to cough up lots of dough for the dubious pleasure of being branded One Of Us.

Stopping now.

[vegetus.livejournal.com]

These are really good points- I think fans are very much into the whole "oh look we're special and different" because many of us have been social outcasts in the past.

But I look at the veg*an communities I am involved with and also at the carnie/folk scene and find that the sociology is similar, except that these groups don't go on and on about it like fans do.

[stephbg.livejournal.com]

The shared history of being social outcasts *is* very important... up to a point. Consider the contrast for a new person perhaps still in the outcast phase, faced with a very coherent and tightly bonded group like the over 30s. I'd certainly run screaming.

Softly softly I say. Appeal to curiosity and intelligence, not family feeling. Remember the fear, angst, uncertainty, youth, desire, repulsion.

Wow, I sure am talking out of my arse today.

[dalekboy.livejournal.com]

While we run cons, we're no different to any other sub-culture, be it goths, train-spotters, or football fans. A lot of fans tend to forget that and think of ourselves as better than other groups. We're not, we're the same.

What I always find both funny and sad is that fans, who see themselves as broad-minded and non-racist/intolerant, label non-fans as 'mundanes.' It's still prejudice people!

[stephbg.livejournal.com]

I'm simply applying exactly the same basic anthropology and group dynamics stuff I use to keep IT/Sales/Marketing/Business/Accounting/R&D etc groups from killing each other.