Fandom Culture Clash in Israel

[kevin_standlee]

cogitationitis reports about her experience at Israel's Icon SF-type-event (calling it a convention may not be the right term), with a huge follow-on discussion -- sometimes a bit snippy -- between organizers of the event and critics of it.

For my money, the best comment was this one:

Icon doesn't really want to be Worldcon when it grows up -- it wants to be Dragoncon.

I think that sums up one of the biggest modern fannish culture clashes in a single sentence. Personally, I take Worldcon and the smaller events organized on the same model (including conventions such as Westercon, OryCon, BayCon, Boskone, and suchlike, just to name a few) as what I personally like and what I'm willing spend my time, effort, and money helping organize. But to a lot of people, DragonCon (or possibly ComicCon) is the pinnacle of SF convention success, and the "conventions" they organize emulate what they see as best about those events.

There's nothing inherently wrong with a 40K or 250K pop-culture event like DC or CC. They're just not really something that interests me personally. This, incidentally, is why I'm not critical of people who complain that a 5K Worldcon is "too big." But it is interesting to me that Worldcon is "too big" to people whose tastes tend to run to the 100-person event, and "irrelevantly small" to people who think you'd better be turning over people in the low five figures before you deserve the time of day.

I do, however, object to people saying, "You can't really be the World Science Fiction Convention unless you're the biggest in the world." I think that is -- possibly unconsciously -- trying to equate size with quality, and that's a false analogy -- otherwise, cheap jug wines would be the "best," and even a non-drinker like me knows that's not true.

Comments

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

An amazing amount of rot has been written over the requirements of living up to the name "World Science Fiction Convention." Sam Moskowitz originally named it that because the first one was held in conjunction with the New York World's Fair. That's all.

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

Yes, I know, but the creation grew beyond its creators, and I'm not especially bothered by that. I like the fact that the convention is becoming more worldly, although an almost inevitable consequence has been a slight shrinkage. It's not nearly as dramatic as what happened to Westercon, which shrunk to about one-third of its peak size, partially due to it traveling away from its home territory more often, becoming increasingly less relevant to newer generations of fans whose "needs," so to speak, were being met by events that didn't require them to travel much.

As we've discussed here many times, Worldcon will never grow past the size of the mega-events unless it does what those events do. Now to a great extent Worldcon ended up driving away most of the people who were attracted to what it once was -- witness the "core fandom" phenomena -- so it's not impossible that it could happen again. If Worldcon settled down, put down permanent roots, and started growing, it would probably lose most of the attendees and organizers that have been heretofore attracted to it.

[redneckotaku.livejournal.com]

I think Worldcon is the most different experience in a con I could have. I know what the experience is (for me) at the anime and science fictions cons are in Metro Baltimore/DC. Part of the fun of a Worldcon is not knowing what the experience will be like due to so many factors. That is what makes Worldcon the most exciting and scary can a fan can attend.

[bovil.livejournal.com]

Quite a few folks involved in mid-Atlantic fandom are pretty active in Worldcon fandom. Marty Gear from Balticon is just the first who comes to mind.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

Oh, sure, a Worldcon can do more than the first Worldcons did. I've no objection on principle to that.

But the argument that it has to do such-and-such (like be the biggest) because its name is "The World Science Fiction Convention" - that's what's ridiculous.

[bovil.livejournal.com]

At this point, it's the only convention that's been held on 4 different continents, with members having come from all 6 populated continents.

That's "world" enough for me.

[tkunsman.livejournal.com]

Well said! DC and CC probably can not "grow" much more, while the Worldcon can adapt to the city and country it is being held in, and to me that is what makes the Worldcon "special".

[bovil.livejournal.com]

...and here I thought the vitriol surrounding post-Ani-Magic discussions was harsh.

[cogitationitis.livejournal.com]

You obviously don't know many Israelis! Though most of it is snippiness between two people, and they've already agreed to stop.

I confess I have never been to Dragoncon or Comicon, though I have been to media & comic book (and anime and literary) cons. The history of Boskone taught me bigger /= better.

[bovil.livejournal.com]

It's kind of hard to follow who is whom with all the anonymous commenting.

I won't go to Dragon*Con, and if you want to dish over the reasons it's not going to happen on LJ, but in a hotel bar or convention party.

Comic-Con International (yes, that's their legal name) is just too much of a mob scene, and they're in a precarious position with their facility (their needs built the San Diego Convention Center, but their needs and volume trigger a greed-frenzy and the convention center and the hotels keep trying to screw with them to get even more money out of the deal, and they're so big that there are maybe two other places they could go in the US). I've got no interest, and if I want my Comic-Con fix I'll get it at SF at Wondercon (their northern show) or APE (their Alternative Press Expo, which is much more to my taste).

Boskone is a great example of how not to manage a scale problem. When Minicon decided to narrow their focus and shrink their convention and did it in a way that pissed off a bunch of their core membership, we referred to it as "pulling a Boskone."

[cogitationitis.livejournal.com]

Most of the anonymous commenting is Uri, the chair of Icon. A bit of it--usually terse responses--is me, posting from work. I think you can probably tell who's who by the context. (I usually don't do LJ from work, and hence am not logged in from there.)

While I may, one day, go to DragonCon or Comicon, I probably won't enjoy it as much as my usual con circuit. The biggest reason I go to cons is to see people--it always has been--and there's no way I can see people in such crowds. Even if I do have friends at both.

[bovil.livejournal.com]

D*C is big, but it isn't so big that one can't find one's friends. Comic-Con requires massive planning to make finding your friends possible. A friend of mine described it as "being adrift in a sea of humanity."

[paradoox.livejournal.com]

Having been to D*C this year, I'm glad I went, but will probably never go again. It is too big and hard to find one's friends or anyone you are looking for. They have massive growth pains. Etc. But, at least now I can pontificate from a position of having been.

[jbriggs.livejournal.com]

Ask me about Comic Con someday. "Sea of Humanity?" Sea of "Something," thats for sure.

[highlydubious.livejournal.com]

(sorry for barging in, just a short remark)

I think that Icon simply have different objective than cons in the States. Icon does not want to become WorldCon or DragonCon - this is not what motivates us - and it's important to understand that.