Quite a list

[womzilla]

I've gone to (and enjoyed) LunaCon many times in the seventeen years that I've lived in the New York area; I've been going less often in the past decade because it frequently conflicts with the vastly more enjoyable International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts. I was at last year's, but not this one.

Sounds like I missed a veritable smorgasbord of clue deprivation and SAN loss. There are things reported here that are typical, if unpleasant, loutish fannish behaviors* which occur in environments where they aren't discouraged, and which need to be discouraged more regularly; and then there are others reported here which I've never seen at any convention and which simply flabbergast me.

*"We are all cripples. First admit that." --Tom Disch, "On SF", 1981

Thanks, rm, for reporting. Let us hope that some of this reporting reaches people who need to see it.

Comments

[sarah-ovenall.livejournal.com]

I've never been to a con, but I'm friends with a fair number of fans, and I think the reputation for poor social skills is largely undeserved. I like thinking that. Why must you crush my illusions?

[supergee.livejournal.com]

The community has gotten significantly worse than the gang of social cripples I cheerfully joined a few years before Disch wrote that.

[supergee.livejournal.com]

Addendum to the Disch quote: And so are they.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

I was at Lunacon. I had a good time, as did some of rm's commenters. I'm not denying that bad behavior as described happens at cons, but I think she also had extraordinary bad luck.

[mneme]

She was also combining bad behavior she witnessed with bad behavior she heard reported from trusted sources -- these were not all within a single person's experience, though a number of them were.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

I did notice that, but I talked with a fair number of people at Lunacon, and they weren't talking about the awful behavior they'd run into. Maybe if I'd been angry about something, other people would have had their stories, too.

[drcpunk.livejournal.com]

I missed most of the behavior reported, which isn't surprising, given that I'm slightly oblivious and tend to go to the parts of the convention where some of it is less likely to happen. David Hartwell said that one reason he skips Lunacon is that the things rm reported are very typical of Lunacon.

What I did notice: The panels weren't awesome, like they were last year. A couple of newer folks not quite clicking to how audience participation works with panels, and, to be fair, this varies a lot from panel to panel. If one doesn't set ground rules clearly, and firmly as needed, from the beginning, it's easy for someone to assume that it's okay to just toss one's two cents in. One incident at a party that made me uncomfortable, but didn't make me think those involved were horrible people, though it did motivate me to move on.

My record is not spotless, of course. I'm often guilty of the falling asleep thing.