Author Jon del Arroz shows that what I've said since 2016 is proving to be true: conventions are obsolete and no longer fit for purpose.
One thing we can thank the Wu Flu for is breaking the glamour over long-running practices, one of which is fan conventions.
The typical convention is nothing more than a programming track married to a suite of parties with a vendor lobby so merchants can hawk their wares and services. This is as true of the big professionally-run Public Relations events like the San Diego Comic Con as it is with local fan conventions like Minneapolis's CONvergence.
Two of these features are now readily accesible at home 24 hours a day, seven days a week, with international scope and scale as well as in multiple languages.
Programming is replaced with on-demand video and livestreaming, be it as YouTube, Twitch or any of their competitors. Chat rooms and Comments sections are plenty social for most people, be it embeeded in the video or audio posting or as a stand-alone thing such as with Discord and its alternatives.
Amazon alone replaces any need for a Dealer's Room. Add on both alternatives such as a company-specific store (e.g. Bandai's) as well as alternatives for services (Patreon, Subscribestar, Pixiv, DeviantArt, etc. depending on specifics) and that's now pointless.
As for the party rooms, well if you really wanted to see people in person you'd get off your ass and hustle to do that without needing the excuse of a convention to do it. If "But that's when I see my friends!" is your excuse, and you never seen them outside of this or that convention, they are not your friends and you are not theirs; real friends make time for each other, not use them as lubrication to grease the wheels of desired interactions. You don't need conventions for this, so it's not a valid defense.
Shut them down. Shut ALL of them down. Those that are not merely obsolete should be shut down for facilitating far more pernicious predatory activity, such preying upon children, and we would be better off in the long run without such things disrupting our ordinary lives with needless things.
Ever since they started labelling some businesses "essential" (including Hollywood OF COURSE) it has become impossible for me to entertain their apocalyptic narratives. Just how much manpower and natural resources are used on entertainment, an entirely unessentially luxury product? It would be interesting to total up the carbon footprint of the entire pop culture industry, movies, tv, streaming, comics, print, online media, advertising, press tours, conventions, all of it. Just to see the cost to the environment versus, say, agriculture or textiles. Since these same cultists bang on endlessly about precious Mother Gaia, it would be nice to have an accurate account of just how much their inconsequential self glorifying crap and all the attendant leeches are costing all of us.
ReplyDeleteConventions are, if not a Boomer invention, one more thing taken over by Boomers and thus corrupted to Boomer depravities.
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