Just as I told you in text, the OG is falling by the wayside. People forget people over time and how we all did our little parts to thrust furries into a little limelight. Our parts include the traditional arts, doshing out cash everywhere from Con admissions, to registering tables, panels, etc.

I got out of it mainly because of the politics involved especially those based solely on popularity or being the hottest thing since sliced bread. Or at least being adjacent to it. No, thanks.

You aren't alone in this. I still need to write up the journal about it, and this gives me the catalyst to do so, because at Las Vegas Fur Con the Dealers Room there left me pretty damn disappointed as well.
For all the spectacle there is of all the vendors now, traditional media isn't on anyones mind anymore. I saw Brian Reynolds and Recurrent who were about the only two artists standing around taking sketchbooks, but every other booth was just selling useless shit.
Keychains, bracelets, collars, leashes, harnesses, fursuits, fursuit props, fursuit pieces, rugs, acrylic charms, books, posters, prints, wearable merchandise clothing, and PINS. My fucking god this fandom is just nuts for pins anymore, or fucking disposable STICKERS of everyone elses fucking fursona. I don't want your trash stickers.
Or you'd run into artists that still did traditional media but their whole concept of going to a con is completely backwards; they're not present to actively take sketchbooks, but to build a waiting list to take home and work on traditional media to mail out to people. That just defeats the purpose of bringing sketchbooks to cons to me. To me a sketchbook is a memory; a thrilling frantic piece of art created in that moment, in that weekend, by someones actual hand.

There was more sketchbook action going on with people sitting around in the hotel lobby or the Apollo hangout rooms than there was in the actual Dealers Room. :/

I still got some Titty Smasher Kangarootaurs drawn by Recurrent, and a Centaurpede drawn by Brian Reynolds, but still, the con experience anymore is hollow and empty like people have forgotten all about sketchbooks. It really disappoints me.

--Mozdoc

The Steven King "Dark Tower" series has a grave insult that applies. "You have forgotten the faces of your father." And it's true. The fandom has forgotten its origins. It feels lost, and lonely.

I wish I could scream every bit of this to the fans. I find it disheartening when I hear a friend of mine talk about how people dish out stupid money for computer art con badges when they can do one traditional, color, and laminated in under an hour...and their prices are too high at under $50.

Don't take me seriously on this, but it just makes you want to climb a watch tower with a .50 beret sniper rifle and go postal, it's infuriating. Even my 3d renders that I do on daz are being pushed to the side by A.I. who can do thousands to my one render photo. If me and Gentle were there with you we would be sharing a still of moon shine that may or may not get us buzzed, sometimes being with old friends is the best remedy.

I'll drag my Tavor TS-12 with me and a few cracker tins of buckshot. We can salute and drink out of the empty tins and get loopy on residual lead. ;> j/k

Hiya Milky, long time no see!

I may not be on sl anymore, but I have never left your too sides

I think it does depend to some extent on the con... I got several traditional pieces at MFF last year, and could have got more if I'd hit certain artists earlier in the weekend. Some of it may also be that I usually go to smaller Canadian cons and you don't get as many of the big 'set up a booth to sell hundreds of T-shirts' sorts of vendors showing up there.

And, of course, MFF's Artist Alley last year was a confusing and unnavigable mess, which didn't help anyone do any business in it. Half of it was fixed layout like an auxiliary Dealer's Room, but the screen that was supposed to show the layout didn't work half the time and even when it did matching it against the physical room was impossible.

Certainly I've also heard from people about some other cons even here in Canada where the 'new blood' basically went 'don't trust anybody over 30' and fan off in their own direction ignoring everybody else, so while I haven't seen it as bad as you have, I have little doubt it is that bad at many cons.

Sadly part of the problem is that convention priorities are set by the people running them, and those tend to be the people who have the time to run them, as well as the drive. So, related to the reason why HMOs and condo boards end up being run by overbearing busybodies: groups can end up selecting for those obsessive enough to insist on doing it.

(ConFurence East was an early example of how that can go haywire. Pissing off your volunteers and micromanaging the convention is never a good idea.)

Unfortunately that means your best chance at changing things may involve getting someone you know onto the con-com to act as an advocate. Either that or focus on the smaller cons that are ignored by the big commercial vendors.