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Behavior of Fandoms, and attending my first Anime convention
12 years ago
General
It’s been awhile since I’ve posted anything here, but I’ve been seeing this pop up in more than one place lately, so I’ll put my long and rambling 2 cents into it.
You might have already seen it, a Tumblr post from a fan who is also a hotel worker, who rips into his fandom about the recent trend poor behavior at conventions, and how it’s negatively affecting relations with the host hotels.
Cue a dozen readers rolling their eyes, and whispering under their breath: “Furries”.
….And you’d be wrong; this fanboy/hotel worker wasn’t speaking about Furry, but about the Anime fandom.
I found out about this from the page of
Louiefurrywolfy , you can view that here:
http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/4621566/
In there
Tobias27 made a point I recall reading way back about the Westin and how they banned Tekkoshocon (Pittsburgh’s local Anime convention) from their hotel and gave them a list of reasons why. I added my own comment about it which is pretty much what is shown below:
Supposedly Tekko went back to the DLCC this year, but not The Westin on an official basis (apparently their official hotel for 2013 was the Doubletree).
And about that list on why they were not invited back, it just so happened, while doing some browsing on Tekkoshocon forums, one poster pasted again the entire list, shown here (scroll down to post #147):
http://www.tekkoshocon.com/forums/i...../page__st__140
Some grievances were just like stated, excessive use of Debit Cards, underage drinking, destructive and loutish behavior. Also, the lack of con-supplied security was specifically pointed out by the hotel as a problem.
Slightly connected to this, it just so happened, out of pure curiosity, that I attended my first ever Anime convention last weekend. It was Anime Boston, and although I was only there for about 8 hours, some things I saw there did make me appreciate what we have, or take for granted, in the Furry fandom.
The key difference when I was at Anime Boston, besides the size of the convention, was how out of place I felt there age-wise. I kind of knew this going into the convention that I’d be a bit older than most attendees there, but damn, I hit my 30s not too long ago and it seemed like every person there was a teenager. Maybe I’m bad at reading ages and there really were many more older people than I thought, but it seemed like you really had to search to find anyone that even resembled your age group.
I have to say, despite the dim view this fandom gets from other communities in the geek universe, we seem to have a generally better reputation when it comes to hotels and convention areas. And I believe part of the reason for this is that we have a slightly older demographic in our fandom compared to the Anime community. Which bothers me some, that more and more younger people seem to be migrating over to the furry fandom, many of them coming directly over from Anime itself.
OK, so I shouldn't assume they are all going to be hell-raisers, and I know that doesn't automatically mean that this community will descend into chaos like other fandoms at certain geek cons, but their previous reputation in places doesn't cast them in a very favorable light.
For example, this year at Anime Boston their popular Informal Dance, equivalent to our dances, was cancelled. It was nixed because the con encountered so much trouble with unruly and illegal behavior at last year’s dance that was so bad, word of it actually reached the Mayor of Boston’s office. Some of the problems involved minors, and with negative publicity that bad, it was obvious that any chance of having a dance this year, despite their efforts to have one, were almost nil.
Then there was the size of the con. The anime fandom in general is much, much larger than furry as we know. I don’t know the exact attendance figure, but AB is still several times larger than the biggest furry con. It showed in the lines waiting to get into the various panels and events. Of the furry conventions I’ve attended, I’ve yet to have a case where I was denied entry to an event because they were filled to capacity. I couldn’t imagine waiting for an event/panel at AB for hours, only to be denied getting in because the room is full, but it happens all the time at cons like these. And to think some people here actually would like to see this fandom grow to the size seen in some Comic and Anime conventions.
So despite the constant complaining and snide remarks we hear in reference to the furry fandom, in some cases we may be a lot better off compared to other communities that we never seem to appreciate. And to anyone who actually dream of furry conventions growing to the size of say, San Diego Comic-Con, or ACEN, or Otakon, or those who would like to see a conglomeration of people similar to what you find in other geek circles, all I can say is be careful what you wish for, what positives we have now may be wiped out with the changing of the fandom.
You might have already seen it, a Tumblr post from a fan who is also a hotel worker, who rips into his fandom about the recent trend poor behavior at conventions, and how it’s negatively affecting relations with the host hotels.
Cue a dozen readers rolling their eyes, and whispering under their breath: “Furries”.
….And you’d be wrong; this fanboy/hotel worker wasn’t speaking about Furry, but about the Anime fandom.
I found out about this from the page of
Louiefurrywolfy , you can view that here:http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/4621566/
In there
Tobias27 made a point I recall reading way back about the Westin and how they banned Tekkoshocon (Pittsburgh’s local Anime convention) from their hotel and gave them a list of reasons why. I added my own comment about it which is pretty much what is shown below:Supposedly Tekko went back to the DLCC this year, but not The Westin on an official basis (apparently their official hotel for 2013 was the Doubletree).
And about that list on why they were not invited back, it just so happened, while doing some browsing on Tekkoshocon forums, one poster pasted again the entire list, shown here (scroll down to post #147):
http://www.tekkoshocon.com/forums/i...../page__st__140
Some grievances were just like stated, excessive use of Debit Cards, underage drinking, destructive and loutish behavior. Also, the lack of con-supplied security was specifically pointed out by the hotel as a problem.
Slightly connected to this, it just so happened, out of pure curiosity, that I attended my first ever Anime convention last weekend. It was Anime Boston, and although I was only there for about 8 hours, some things I saw there did make me appreciate what we have, or take for granted, in the Furry fandom.
The key difference when I was at Anime Boston, besides the size of the convention, was how out of place I felt there age-wise. I kind of knew this going into the convention that I’d be a bit older than most attendees there, but damn, I hit my 30s not too long ago and it seemed like every person there was a teenager. Maybe I’m bad at reading ages and there really were many more older people than I thought, but it seemed like you really had to search to find anyone that even resembled your age group.
I have to say, despite the dim view this fandom gets from other communities in the geek universe, we seem to have a generally better reputation when it comes to hotels and convention areas. And I believe part of the reason for this is that we have a slightly older demographic in our fandom compared to the Anime community. Which bothers me some, that more and more younger people seem to be migrating over to the furry fandom, many of them coming directly over from Anime itself.
OK, so I shouldn't assume they are all going to be hell-raisers, and I know that doesn't automatically mean that this community will descend into chaos like other fandoms at certain geek cons, but their previous reputation in places doesn't cast them in a very favorable light.
For example, this year at Anime Boston their popular Informal Dance, equivalent to our dances, was cancelled. It was nixed because the con encountered so much trouble with unruly and illegal behavior at last year’s dance that was so bad, word of it actually reached the Mayor of Boston’s office. Some of the problems involved minors, and with negative publicity that bad, it was obvious that any chance of having a dance this year, despite their efforts to have one, were almost nil.
Then there was the size of the con. The anime fandom in general is much, much larger than furry as we know. I don’t know the exact attendance figure, but AB is still several times larger than the biggest furry con. It showed in the lines waiting to get into the various panels and events. Of the furry conventions I’ve attended, I’ve yet to have a case where I was denied entry to an event because they were filled to capacity. I couldn’t imagine waiting for an event/panel at AB for hours, only to be denied getting in because the room is full, but it happens all the time at cons like these. And to think some people here actually would like to see this fandom grow to the size seen in some Comic and Anime conventions.
So despite the constant complaining and snide remarks we hear in reference to the furry fandom, in some cases we may be a lot better off compared to other communities that we never seem to appreciate. And to anyone who actually dream of furry conventions growing to the size of say, San Diego Comic-Con, or ACEN, or Otakon, or those who would like to see a conglomeration of people similar to what you find in other geek circles, all I can say is be careful what you wish for, what positives we have now may be wiped out with the changing of the fandom.
