GEEKS behaving badly (YOUR Comic/Sci-fi con horror stories?)

[lucapearce]

Hi Folks. Most fans I've seen have been pretty well behaved. But I have seen some unfortunate stuff ...

There was an large Anime-con I went to in Melbourne, Australia back in 2013 that had to be evacuated. Some one let off a stink-bomb near the smoke detectors and the fire brigade had to be called in. They soon stopped hosting these cons after that..

The other cons I go to have signs warning that "cosplay is not consent". I'd hate to think what caused the need for these warnings.

At a comic/sci-fi market I was selling used books at I had a big box of old Doctor Who books I was gonna sell. I had one potential buyer in mind, a fella with autism who seemed nice enough the last couple of times I met him. I had nearly $200 worth of Who-stuff and this guy wanted me the whole lot for a dollar! He then acted a bit weird asking if the other books and videos I was selling were Doctor Who as well. I won't be selling any Who-stuff again while this guys around!

Can anyone top this?

[kjn]

I can give some horror stories, and even more if I limit myself to those I know about from reliable sources.

But at the same time, I view cons and other aspects of fan culture as a positive good in general, and a positive good that is often viewed with suspicion or derision. Just looking at a list of bad behaviours without any corresponding idea on what should be improved just serves as a way to denigrate fan cultures, without understanding that the same behaviours can be found literally anywhere.

Note that the message "cosplay is not consent" came out after a long discussion about harassment within cosplay culture, and was largely driven by the cosplayers themselves. In many ways, fan cultures are at the cutting edge here: the MeToo movement was preceded by a running discussion within fandoms, expressed by names like RaceFail, Cosplay Is Not Consent, or the number of harassment cases that came to light in sf fandom in 2012 to 2014.

Right now, fandom isn't really smelling worse than anyone else. But at least fannish cultures have a headstart in cleaning it up.