Readdressing the Balance

[dalekboy]

So, after my post on how Media and Lit Natcons were joined, and how media fandom as a whole got thoroughly screwed, general consensus was that the whole situation sucked.

So what are we going to do about it?

Well, as it happens, there is a Natcon in Adelaide this weekend. With a business meeting. That would be a great place to start. I can't afford to go, but I know a fair chunk of you will be there. Do you want to set things in motion, and back each other up?

The fact that the original business meeting notes vanished may be down to accident, incompetence, or deliberate mishandling is neither here nor there. What matters is that it's well past time the situation was fixed. The deal was that in exchange for merging their Natcon with the Lit one, media fandom would get fair representation, in the awards and by extension, the programming. That's not happening.

There's no doubt that there will be resistance. But you know what, fuck it, a deal was made. And it was broken. There's no doubt that it will take years to rebuild things, to get that side of fandom even caring that there's a Natcon, let alone coming to it. And some would argue there's no point. But there is a point.

It could have gone the other way.

The Ditmars could have been lost, the Lit Natcon no more. They easily had the numbers to do this at a time when the Lit Natcon was not doing well, and they still gave up their awards, and their Natcon, with expectation of a fair deal they never received.

I didn't set out to try and get this thing fixed, I just wanted to make the point that we used to have more awards. But fuck it, now I'm angry. Because you know, I read and love books, but if I had to choose which box I fit in, I've always thought of myself as a media fan. Most of us watch films and TV shows, and love them. In our everyday lives, the Lit/Media divide doesn't exist, but our Natcon is skewed ridiculously heavily towards Lit.

Media fandom believed in community, and for over a decade that community has let them down.

And I think that's long enough.

Comments

The Ditmars are not the fan drawcard they should be

[jocko55.livejournal.com]

I am going and I find the awards situation annoying. the Asfmas had best fanzine, best fanwriter, best fan artist, best fan production--dammit they were fan orientated, where the Ditmars are being pulled to being professional writing awards, because I suspect having "Ditmar award winning title" on the cover sells books. They also have this stupid rule about how many awards are presented, so that things are not consistant year to year.

[crankynick.livejournal.com]

There is, to be fair, nothing that prevents the awarding of more than one set of awards at the NatCon - only a rule that mandates the presentation of the Ditmars.

Rather than fucking about with the NatCon rules and starting yet another round of media fan/lit fan arguments, why not just form a committee to organise categories, voting rules, nominations, etc for the presentation for a set of media awards for next year.

If that coincidentally happens at the NatCon, well so much the better.

Given the existence of awards (particularly ones that they don't have to administer), I'm sure the NatCon committee will find space and time for them to be presented. And maybe even a budget to have a statuette made in your own image to give to the deserving winners.

[stephen-dedman.livejournal.com]

Maybe this is another way that Perth differs from anywhere else, but with the possible exception of Neutral Zone (which I wasn't involved with), I don't know that there's ever been a coherent "media fandom" in Perth. There's an anime fan club, a Doctor Who fan club, and may still be a Star Trek fan club... but with the possible exception of SwanCon 19, I don't remember a time when they ever joined up to organize a multi-media con or any similar event.