No time to explain why this is funny. Just get in the car.
Chicago comicon day one
My first day at Chicago Comicon was damn fun, Dianne. Damn fun. My Q&A went well, I got to meet tons of enthusiastic and awesome people, and I was given the gifts of many, many craft beers.
Here’s a couple pictures:
I got to sign a bottle of w00tstout!
The world needs more Sparks McGee, so we can have more Sparks McGee t-shirts.
This made me tear up a little bit. She got excited and made a painting with some of my fundamental rules for life on it.
This is as painfully accurate as it is adorable.
This is one of my very favourite things, ever. This young woman’s boyfriend took the words I spoke to Baby Violet, and put them all down on a poster. Then, he put “it’s not about what you love, it’s about how you love it” over them all. It’s really beautiful and was quite moving to me, and I loved it so much I’m hoping to work with the creator to offer something like this with dftba.
Oh, and the comicon is sharing space with a Beatles con, and a rare coin con. A few hotels away, there’s a horror con. It’s like a heist movie just waiting to happen.
dear people who stake out airports and other places
I am never going to sign the stack of things you have. I am never going to take pictures with you. Waiting in an airport or some other place waiting for me (or someone who isn’t me but does similar work) is profoundly inappropriate. It makes me very uncomfortable, for reasons I’ve written about before, and I will not reward or encourage this kind of behavior.
In Dancing Barefoot, I wrote about signing autographs at conventions:
Over the years, I’ve learned something from this experience: it’s never about the signature. It’s about that brief moment, that brief encounter with a Star Trek cast member, that is so important to the fans. That 30 seconds or so of hopefully undivided attention is what they’re really paying for, and I always do my best to make sure they get their money’s worth. Contrary to popular belief, sitting at a table signing hundreds of autographs for several hours without a break is hard. It’s not just mindlessly scrawling my name; It’s stopping and listening to the always excited, sometimes shaking, always sweating, sometimes scary dude who wants to know exactly why I did “X” on episode “Y” and would I please sign his picture in silver, because Marina signed it in gold and now he wants the men in silver and the women in gold, and I hated your character and here are 25 reasons why and I expect an answer for each one of them and I’m not leaving until I’m satisfied.
The crazy people who camp out don’t care about that brief moment, that brief encounter. The crazy people only care about taking a piece of $Celebrity.person and possibly selling it, or hording it, or … you know, I don’t even want to think about where that path leads.But that’s why they behave the way they do. It isn’t about our work, or about saying “thank you” or “high-five!” or anything about that. It’s about entitlement and being crazy, and I will not validate or condone that kind of behavior ever again.
I realize that a crazy person who thinks it’s entirely normal and not psycho to camp out in front of a hotel for hours and hours so they can trap a person isn’t going to understand why I will not validate that behavior, but I need to make this clear for the future: I’m a person. I am a human being and if you cut me I will bleed. I’m happy to sign things and take pictures with people in appropriate situations, but if some dude violates my personal space or freaks me out, and then gets mad at me when I try to get away from him, I’m not going to do anything beyond telling that person to go fuck himself, and I’m not going to feel bad about it. To paraphrase Neil Gaiman, I am not your bitch.
So, people who stake out airports and other places to try and grab a piece of me (or someone who isn’t me but does similar work), please let the word go forth among your peers: Wil Wheaton is a huge asshole who won’t even sign a single thing for you, even after you’ve waited in an airport for hours, and even followed him into the bathroom to badger him about signing things. Don’t waste your time with Wil Wheaton, because even though he says “don’t be a dick,” he’s the biggest dick of all.
It would be really great if you could get the word out about how much of a shit Wil Wheaton is, and how you’re really just wasting your time with him, because then he wouldn’t have to feel freaked out when he’s just trying to travel like a regular human being.
Thank you.
dftba records and me
I just realized that I didn’t tell the Internet that I recently joined forces with Hank and John Green, and have some cool merch at dftba.com, like Don’t Be A Dick t-shirts and It’s What You Love posters.
So now you know, and if you’re of a certain age, you’ll insert the appropriate GI Joe line here.
When someone says they love a thing that you love, don’t challenge them; embrace them, and love that thing together.
Tomorrow, I’m heading out to Chicago for a weekend at the Wizard World Comicon. As I pack my clothes and pick out my nerd shirts, I’ve been thinking about how much I love going to cons, because I love being surrounded by people who love the same things I love, the way I love them, while also being surrounded by people who love things I don’t even know about. We all get to love our respective things in the same way: enthusiastically, completely, unironically, without fear of judgement.
This has always been my experience at conventions, from the first few horror cons I attended at the Ambassador Hotel when I was a kid, all the way to the shows I’ve spoken at as recently as this year.
But John Scalzi points out that not everyone has had the same inclusive experiences that I’ve had, because of a certain type of self-appointed “gatekeeper” who has taken it upon themselves to decide who is a “real” fan of a thing.
Scalzi writes about this from a creator’s point of view:
Almost no one wants you to be a gatekeeper. Geek dudes: Do you honestly think Marvel comics, owned by Disney, wants you to harass women away from enjoying the X-Men? Do you think DC Comics, owned by Time Warner, appreciates when you demand a woman present you with a list of every Green Lantern in order to be worthy of “true geekdom”? Do you think Paramount Pictures, owned by Viacom, is grateful that some dude has appointed himself Arbiter of Star Trek Fandom? Do you believe that Tor Books, owned by Macmillan, one of the world’s largest publishers, will pat you on the head for judging any potential customers of their books, including mine? Do you actually understand what it is these corporations do? They produce commercial art. To be widely enjoyed. By as many people as possible.
Moving away from corporations, do you think individual writers and creators really want you to wave away potential fans from their work? Almost all of them are in the same boat as I am, either directly or indirectly dependent on volume of sales for income. They are happy you like their stuff. They would be even happier if not only you liked their stuff. When you attack other people who like their stuff, you’re potentially cutting into their livelihood. You’re not making friends with the people whose work you’re making a centerpiece of your life. You’re hurting them.
Do you think the staff of the conventions you attend are in any way happy when you troll the other attendees? Those attendees go on Twitter and Facebook and blogs and talk about how unfriendly or even dangerous that convention is. Others pick up on that and amplify the complaints. The people who are trying to run the convention have to deal with it and have to apologize for the fact thatyou are being an asshole, because they are getting some of the blame for it. Who do you think the convention staff would prefer to have as an attendee? The cosplaying woman who is excited to be there and is enthusiastic about the convention, or the geek dude who spends his time shitting all over other people’s enjoyment of a convention, which the staff has invested so much time in to make work?
Nearly every creator wants you to enjoy what they create. Almost none of them want you to police it.
I’m a little baffled that we need to keep having this conversation, but that’s probably because I’m 41 years-old and I don’t have the reflexive need to establish my “geek cred” at all, much less at the expense of another person (I suppose it also helps that, when someone hassles me about my “geek cred” I can reply, “I drove the fucking Enterprise and worked at Global Dynamics,” before I drop the mic on their head.)
So please consider this, potential gatekeepers: being a nerd isn’t about what you love, it’s about how you love it. So when someone says they love a thing that you love, don’t challenge them; embrace them, and love that thing together.
