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There's two kinds of conventions...
Iain Coleman ponders the split between "media" and "literary" cons:
[I suspect that most of my readers will view this as preaching to the choir, but here goes...]
I'm more than a little fed up of hearing certain sectors of fandom simultaneously lamenting the apparent lack of young fans at conventions, while pledging to fight to keep the meeja fans out, without noticing the contradiction.
Most fans under the age of 30* first encountered SF via the "media", probably mainly TV. I know I did - Battle of the Planets, Star Wars, Flash Gordon (the 1930s one) and Buck Rogers (the 1970s one) were what got me hooked in the first place. The books come later, given a chance.
We shouldn't be fighting the influence and inclusion of these fans, we should be recruiting them, dammit.
[end rant, since I'm trying to keep this brief, and my peripheral points aren't even semi-coherent]
*Actually, it would probably be rather easy to extend this age boundary up to about 45, thanks to Doctor Who, and no doubt a bunch of other things I'm too young to remember.
It's a pretty idealised picture, but you know what? They're half right. There is a genuine schism in SF cons, but it's not between lit and media, it's between participatory cons and adulatory cons.I've been meaning to write about a semi-related issue for ages, but never bothered to whup my thoughts into shape. After this long, I'm probably never going to construct a decent essay, so here comes a semi-coherent free-form rant, instead:
[I suspect that most of my readers will view this as preaching to the choir, but here goes...]
I'm more than a little fed up of hearing certain sectors of fandom simultaneously lamenting the apparent lack of young fans at conventions, while pledging to fight to keep the meeja fans out, without noticing the contradiction.
Most fans under the age of 30* first encountered SF via the "media", probably mainly TV. I know I did - Battle of the Planets, Star Wars, Flash Gordon (the 1930s one) and Buck Rogers (the 1970s one) were what got me hooked in the first place. The books come later, given a chance.
We shouldn't be fighting the influence and inclusion of these fans, we should be recruiting them, dammit.
[end rant, since I'm trying to keep this brief, and my peripheral points aren't even semi-coherent]
*Actually, it would probably be rather easy to extend this age boundary up to about 45, thanks to Doctor Who, and no doubt a bunch of other things I'm too young to remember.
no subject
You know, that's an interesting point, and one that hadn't occurred to me. Hmmm... Certainly I got into fandom at age 16 via Dr Who (and then Blake's 7) but was very annoyed when someone referred to me as having "crossed over" from media fandom. I am still an active and participatory member of media fandom. I just sometimes like to hang out at other cons and with other fans, too.