I may look back one day and realise I lived through the final years of LitFandom

[major_clanger]

"You are offering a room full of vintage first-edition hardbacks to a group of people who read books on their phones."

Madeline Ashby: 'Memento mori. (Or, how Worldcon’s youth problem will resolve.)'

If I had more time this would be a long post ranging over:

• how the people I see at conventions in my mid-40s are in large part those I went to cons with in my mid-20s
• the demographics and atmosphere at Nine Worlds as compared with Eastercon/Worldcon
• the lack of progress towards panel parity or meaningful anti-harassment policies at Worldcon

...and sundry related topics. But most of these are issues that are already being discussed, and I'll content myself for now with pointing to Ashby's very insightful post on how, unless these points are addressed, LitFandom's problems are going to end up being of purely historical interest.

Comments

[mishalak]

Are we in the last days of lit-fandom? Yes. But I think the fact is probably beyond anything that Worldcon could fix by having an anti-harassment policy, a Hugo category, or any other minor fix I can think of.

1. I can only think of five living genre authors (Neil Gaiman, Steven King, JK Rowling, Stephenie Meyer, and Anne Rice are my list) who could outdraw even a "C list" celebrity from a minor TV Show like Warehouse 13 or Torchwood. By the very nature of being about literature lit-fandom is doomed. I might add George RR Martin to the list if the convention were to really emphasize "creator of Game of Thrones" endlessly in their promotional stuff. So conventions that have the natural promotion of a celebrity attendee are going to be bigger and younger no matter what.

2. Worldcon moves every single year so it cannot be like Anime North, Dragon*Con, Comic Con, or any other convention that stays put. If Worldcon were willing to give up on the idea of moving every year it might have more of a youthful future than if it keeps moving so only the well healed can keep up. But that, of course, would mean giving up on "the world" part of Worldcon.

3. Young people having terrible jobs is nothing new, though the exact circumstances are objectively worse than for previous generations by many measures. Though on the other hand (pseudopod?) the Third Worldcon (which was all of 91 attendees as I recall) was held by people who hopped a freight train from Denver to Chicago to get to the 1940 Worldcon. But today if young fans get excited enough to cram too many people into a car to go to a convention or start a convention they are going to do with locally rather than going to Worldcon or bidding for a Worldcon. All else being equal local means less expensive and less crazy.

My summery is this: If Worldcon, Eastercon, etc. were to take the plunge of not having the literary works at center stage, but as a adjunct to a larger media oriented convention that paid for actors to attend and possibly gave up on the idea of moving every year and instead picked one location they could get used to running the convention in, yes, they could have a younger demographic. But there are already conventions serving that demographic in many cases so it would be far from easy.

[purplecthulhu.livejournal.com]

I think there may be an interesting national split here.

In the UK at least, and I think Europe more generally (vis the Finland bid), the lit fans are generally more welcoming to new influences. This isn't universal - see the reaction of some to 9Worlds - but the general mood is much more welcoming than in the US - see the reaction to the Orlando bid.

One reason for this, I think, is that there are fewer large commercial cons in Europe like DragonCon & ComiCon, which suck in a lot of the new people because they advertise more strongly, have a larger media presence, and because their livelihood depends on bums on seats. Lit fans can afford to be a bit more complacent.

However, having said that, I've not been to many of the smaller US litcons, like Readercon or Wiscon, and have not been to a regional like Boscone/Arisia or LosCon in the US for a very long time. The demographics there may be different.

What we may be seeing is the death/transformation of Worldcon in the US, and that might be triggered by the potentially large number of non-US Worldcons in the coming decade, if Dublin, Japan, Australia and others can win.

[daveon.livejournal.com]

To be unfair to the Orlando bid. There were a lot of Americans who felt that Orlando is even a bigger shithole than Spokane and actually a royal pain in the arse to get to. There's one direct flight a day from Seattle, otherwise it's about 8 hours of travel.

Also, their bid pitch was very libertarian sounding which left me cold.

OTOH - Spokane? Sheesh.

[fjm.livejournal.com]

I put this post over there:

I went to DragonCon this year instead of Worldcon (I was recruiting artists for London next year). I enjoyed it very much.

However:

I kept wondering why I wasn’t seeing many people my age, and very much not women (I’m in my early 40s). Then I also noticed I was seeing no toddlers: lots of babies, lots of older children but no infants. So I took a look at the child care policy. DragonCon offers no childcare for children aged under 7. In a convention of 55,000.

So DragonCon may indeed be young, but has it ever occurred to you to wonder why it has *stayed* young over thirty years?

[feorag.livejournal.com]

That's interesting to read about. Thanks for sharing your observations.

[autopope.livejournal.com]

O_o

That's ... very bad. Is it just half-assed, or do you think there's a deliberate policy of deterring older con-goers?

(Speculating that older con-goers -- especially with kids -- are less easily parted from disposable income than teens and twenty-somethings with no commitments like mortgages or childraising costs, and cons with permanent employees might prioritize providing revenue streams for large dealer operations or sponsors like games or film or comic companies who will help keep them in business ....)

[major-clanger.livejournal.com]

See my comment. The article I link to suggests that Dragoncon stopped offering child care because it was underused, but of course if you make a convention unfriendly or awkward to people with young children then they won't come, so of course demand for child care will drop off.

I also wonder if there are legal issues. Running child care for 500 young children (my rough guess at the demand if it scaled from what I've seen at other cons) would be a daunting prospect. To all intents and purposes, you'd be setting up a summer camp in its own right.

[akicif.livejournal.com]

Argh. Googling "DragonCon Children" brings up the whole Ed Kramer business....

[daveon.livejournal.com]

Yes, don't go there.

[akicif.livejournal.com]

Wish I hadn't....

[autopope.livejournal.com]

I forgot the Ed Kramer thing. Of course that would deter parents with young children from going to DragonCon!

But he's disentangled, now. So it'll be interesting to see what they do in future years.

[major-clanger.livejournal.com]

Interesting; perhaps US Worldcons might want to emphasize child-friendliness?

I wondered why Dragoncon doesn't offer child care. After all, my experience from Eastercons and UK Worldcons is that if you offer child care then the number of children for whom it will be used will be about 1% of the convention membership. If that scaled to Dragoncon, you would expect 500-600 children.

Yet this article suggests that Dragoncon stopped offering child care because of a lack of use. Edit to add: But of course if you make a convention awkward to attend with children in other ways, child care demand will fall off anyway.)

Mind you, I find the tone of that article rather odd; I get more than a whiff of the author somewhat resenting the presence of toddlers at conventions and/or seeing cons as an opportunity for a fun holiday without them.

Something that occurs to me is that there might be difficult legal complications with running child care in the US (or specific states), but I'd have to bow to local knowledge on this.

[fjm.livejournal.com]

After that, they have to go to the grandparents.

Oh the assumptions buried in that one!

[redbird]

I know that Wiscon uses a professional babysitting/child care service for children ages 6 and under, for on-site child care. That costs money, which is not charged to the parents but subsidized by the convention (there's a nominal $1/child fee for child care for the con, and parents are asked to sign up in advance, so the organizers know how many child care people are needed).

That's a pretty clear message that yes, parents of small children are welcome, with or without the children. I would guess that if it can be done in Wisconsin it can be done in Georgia.

[nojay.livejournal.com]

It's a while since I was at a Dragon*Con but the impression I got it was much like a big music festival in terms of the age spread of attendees it attracted i.e. tuned for folks in their late teens and twenties. I can't remember anything particular about childcare provisions back then and I don't recall many children being present but given the frenetic atmosphere I don't think kids would have had a particularly good time at a D*C.

The monster Comikets in Japan (attendance about 500,000 over three days) don't do childcare and I don't think I ever saw anyone under the age of 14 there at all. Again most attendees are in their late teens and early twenties with a few old fogies (like myself) and professional exhibitors.

[daveon.livejournal.com]

I've been thinking about this article too and while I can't fault the central thesis - yeap, this is a self correcting problem - some of the other conclusions weren't ones I immediately thought would work.

1. I'm still unconvinced by the YA Hugo and as one of the commentators said, it feels very: 1. YA Hugo: 2. ???? 3. Profits!!!!

2. Having a stationary Worldcon feels like a step in the wrong direction. I'm not sure the world needs another 100K person convention. Plus I feel there's little enough 'world' in the Worldcon.

3. Maybe the pure LitFandom convention is going to slowly fade away... I suspect that it will slowly adapt. I'd like to see more media focus myself.

9-Worlds seems to have been a good demonstration of what you can do, although their timing for next year sounds terrible.

[beamjockey.livejournal.com]

the lack of progress towards panel parity

Actually, I'd thought that selecting London as a Worldcon site was an indication of progress. UK conrunners I know (present company very much included) are attentive to such issues and determined to improve things.

Mathematically perfect gender-parity does not interest me so much as becoming wide awake to the possibility of new voices and putting effort into recruiting good program participants we might previously have overlooked.

One might hope that Loncon will set an example from which subsequent Worldcons will learn, but a bit of missionary work won't hurt either.

[emmzzi.livejournal.com]

I wish we could move beyond gender parity and consider all kinds of parity.

[major-clanger.livejournal.com]

That's the next challenge, and it will be a tougher one. Gender parity meant aiming for panels to be representative of the wider convention membership in terms of gender, which was itself nearly at parity already.

But, to take an obvious example, getting wider ethnic diversity on panels will involve getting wider ethnic diversity at conventions. It was good that we had a noticeable number of attendees at 8^2 who were not white, but it was still a very small fraction of the overall membership.

[emmzzi.livejournal.com]

Invite GoHs from the communities you want to attract. Put pictures of them on the web sites.

[beamjockey.livejournal.com]

Hard to disagree. But gender parity definitely needs work, and we can see how to make further progress.

If you have ideas for speakers, let the London or Spokane concoms know. And then follow up a few months later to see if they are doing anything about your ideas.

Care to say more about how to consider all kinds of parity?

[emmzzi.livejournal.com]

Plenty has been written on the subject, I am not sure I add much. The will seems weak, however.

Non white guests of honour would be my starting point. Every event that has GoHs. And committees representative of wider society.

I don't see it as incumbent on me to "follow up" committees however!

[beamjockey.livejournal.com]

It's not incumbent on you, it's just my best advice, based on experience with multiple concoms...

[emmzzi.livejournal.com]

If people truly want an inclusive approach they'll seek out advice and involve people who can help. My experience tells me if they don't seek advice, offering it won't do much good. I have some expereince with concoms who make "ooh yes, do!" noises and then never make contact again. From a variety of cons, with a variety of people, many more expert than me.

9worlds as mentioned above was a very different con-organiser experience. Decent idea, resulted in "yay, let's do it!" I've never worked with a group like them. Very much "how can we" versus "how hard would it be?"

I get that compared to eg fixing the hotel, dealing with memberships, diversity is not top of the list. And therein lies the lack of movement.

(One of my job responsibilities is around diversity. No/low awareness/motivation = rock up a hill. Result - minimal change, frustrated Emmzzi!)

I've been watching this discussion for many years. I am struggling to see a genuine will. And actually it has to come from a wider base - the 18% critical mass - than the 1% organising. I'm not sure SF fandom is going to get there.

[emmzzi.livejournal.com]

NB this is of course anecdata and not fact :-) Just acknowledging that!

[major-clanger.livejournal.com]

I suspect that part of the problem is that a lot of people in fandom (and in the wider set of subcultures I refer to as the 'Three Gs' - Geek/Gamer/Goth) feel themselves to be somewhat alienated minorities, and the problem with alienated minorities is that they are sometimes not very good at recognising their own privilege or empathising with other, different, alienated minorities.

Or, in short, people come to conventions and think "At last! My kind of people!" and are so relieved or happy that they don't pause to think "Shouldn't there be more of my kind of people who, well, don't look quite so much like me?" Or worse, "I have nothing against those people but they probably wouldn't be my kind of people, would they?" - a view I am sorry to say I have heard.

[emmzzi.livejournal.com]

I just wrote a long reply of ohhh so many other things wrong also but it made me cross.

But broadly; my days of attending are winding down as I'd rather spend my time with more open people. Actual author interviews and thoughts and discussion, I can get online, and that has an ignore function and a backbutton.

[robert-jones.livejournal.com]

There is a fairly rich seam of "Why are the people I see at $X event in my mid-40s/50s/60s/70s the same people I saw in my mid 20s."