Oh god, what hath we wrought?

In honor of the passing of another of the largest Anime Conventions in the northeast, I thought it would be a great time to address that thing that everyone loves to hate; the convention. Ah yes the convention, an event where fans of a specific entertainment medium or genre come from all over the place to celebrate the existence of their fine art. Where for a short amount of time people can forget about the world, and just enjoy the presence of people who share a common interest. And if the situation should call for it, a time to party hard. Yes, the convention is all of these things that come together to form one joyous and gleeful weekend… Then the fucktards showed up.

My first convention experience was Anime Boston ‘05, I remember that weekend very well because the only time I’ve ever had as much fun at a convention was Another Anime Convention ‘08. I remember walking into registration Friday afternoon not knowing really what to expect. With no line I picked up a badge and started to wonder. For the first time I experience first hand the informative panels with interesting guest speakers. The high energy game room with games that I had never seen or experienced before. The overwhelming size of the dealers room with so many goods from far away. The huge variety of cosplayers representing a huge variety of titles. I generally had a ton of fun.

I look back on that experience now and I have to wonder, what  happened? Am I not having as much fun because that first time bewilderment is gone? Possibly. Is it because my interest in anime has decreased over time? Well, I certainly don’t watch as many series as before, but if you read my intro rant it’s not because my interest has decreased, it’s because my tastes have been refined. Is it because the subject matter of convention panels have remained stagnant and hasn’t changed in 5 years? Actually, yes, but the entertainment panels are still enjoyable, and the increase in musical acts is a great thing. Yes, all these things are true to some extent, but I have to say one of the largest reasons why con’s are becoming less and less enjoyable is the dilution of the attendees.

Anime Boston ‘05 had some 5,000 odd attendees, which was roughly the year that anime started seeing a huge boost in popularity. So the attendees you had there were the true fans, a mix of  people who were fans of all sorts of lesser known newer series, and representatives of the Macross and Robotech days. Then in AB’06 something peculiar happened. The attendance shot up, but the variation of costumes drastically dropped. This was the beginning of an invasion of a little series called Naruto stateside. Now, I’m not going to go and blame these fans of Naruto for dumbing down the conventions, because it would be hypocritical considering friends and myself  who have moved on to appreciate a higher form of art were once in that group. However, this marked the beginning of the homogenizing of the fandom.

Although we started to see the signs as early as 2006, the true dilution of the fans did not truly show itself until Anime Boston ‘07. While this year marks the time of an important event, the official foundation of the Nerdfit Network, it also marks the shift from fandom to fanfucktardary. This was the year we saw a true explosion of idiocracy, and while the movie was a fantastic satire, watching it set in motion was terrifying. This was the year that we saw a shift from a well mixed demographic of all ages attending the convention, the people who will be familiar with Toonami/Toonami Midnight Run in its prime, to the 15 year old weaboo demographic who get their anime from Adult Swim. Gone was the days when you could have an intelligent conversation about philosophy in SEL or NGE, and instead you were exposed to the one tracked minds of squealing FF7 fangirls who demanded only slash discussion.

Then in Linecon ‘08 things truly fell apart, for both the old guard and people like me who fall between generations of fans. Linecon saw an explosion of memetastic fucktards who recently discovered 4chan or SA and decided it would be cool to go around bothering people with their mob-mentality driven exclaimants of losing a game, or about the nonexistence of certain baked goods. (For a truly excellent elaboration on this particular subject refer to Glenn’s Rage Corner.) 90% of the cosplaying demographic was now made up of entirely Naruto, Bleach, FF/Kingdom Hearts, and Death Note. The only thing that kept me going through Linecon was the promise of The Pillows, and I’m sure that a good 50% of the population there at this point did not know who they were or why they were significant prior to their addition to Linecon.

Which brings us to the present day (and present time.) I firmly believe that Anime Boston ’09 was truly an improvement over Linecon in almost every way, with the exception of the lack of The Pillows. There was a significant decrease in the shouting of memes (however the hardcore of the lowest echelon still persisted in great numbers, much to my dismay), an increase in variety in cosplay, indicating that perhaps the younger demographic are starting to branch out into newer and better things. As an added bonus the Artist Alley and Game Room were not disasters. However it was not a return to the good old days of AB ’05, those days are dead and gone because nothing can reverse what has happened to the fan demographic. The only thing one can do in my situation is find people who see the current situation for what it is, a clusterfuck, and seek refuge with them. There is only one way this train of a fandom is headed, and towards a bridge that’s out.

To be continued in Part 2