Guest Post by Jessica Mason

 

Pros and Cons

Fan conventions are funny things: they look different from inside. It’s actually much easier as an outsider observer to notice trends and take in everything about a con. For instance, I felt like I knew much less about all the panels at SDCC 2014 because I was too busy racing through the San Diego Convention Center and surrounding climes to keep up with Twitter and Tumblr and all the news that was emerging. In a way, that’s what can make a con fun. You are completely enclosed in your little world. There are usually too many people taking up bandwidth to make actually readings tweets and tumblr feasible, and the reception is always crappy, so you get to exist in this nice bubble. You hang out with your fellow fans, make friends, stand in long lines, forget to eat, squee and generally enjoy your time fangirling. And that was to some extent my experience at Geek Girl Con 2014 in Seattle over the 11th and 12th of October, except the real world’s very ugly head kept finding ways to butt in.