Post by Basse on Jul 27, 2015 23:21:46 GMT
Reposting this here because I haven't written a thread in a good while, and because I want to share my thoughts on this rather... weird experience.
I would like to preface this thread by saying that I had never entertained the idea of going to an anime/cosplay convention until a few months ago. I have no interest or experience in cosplay: I only barely know what it is by its definition. Neither do I have any huge interest in anime: beyond the movies by Studio Ghibli and Makoto Shinkai, as well as the anime shows that were on TV when I was a kid (Pokémon, Yu-Gi-OH and Sailor Moon. Yes, Sailor Moon; I was 8 and it was the weirdest and most fascinating show on TV. ), I've hardly watched anything. And I've heard Avatar doesn't count.
None of these things have really changed over the last few days, but I can definitely say that I've gained a ton of experiences from this to me rather exotic subculture.
Together with a few friends of mine I run a Swedish YouTube channel, and we have roughly 70,000 subscribers, which is enough to put us in the top ~100 (non-gaming) most viewed channels in the country. Our most popular show, which literally translates as "Felix Reviews", is a show where one of my friends reviews and rants about bad Swedish movies (imagine, if you will, the Nostalgia Critic/Cinema Snob, but more ironic and hipstery ). As it happens, some of our most dedicated viewers also happen to be into anime and cosplay.
We were invited by the hosts of the biggest convention in Scandinavia, NärCon (which roughly translates as Close-By Con. Yes, really ), who apparently were fans of our videos, and they told us we could pretty much do whatever we liked. We ended up getting a spot on stage and previewing a so-far unreleased episode of our most popular show, and it went over very well. Seeing and hearing a packed lecture hall laughing at our bad jokes for 20 minutes was a very strange, very awesome experience. It's a very different experience to show nearly two hundred real people something you've made, rather than uploading a video to YouTube and having seventy thousand people watch it.
The most interesting thing here wasn't us, though, although I've may have made it sound that way so far. To me, the most interesting thing was just walking around and enjoying, sometimes staring in amazement, at all the people. Bright colours. Fantastical costumes. Gratuitous amounts of cleavage. I didn't recognise half of the costumes, but even then you could see the huge amount of work that went into most of them. Some of them were truly works of art, like one guy (I'm presuming as I couldn't see his face) who had built a full robot body-armour which he was walking around in. I've seen a couple videos from Comic Con before, but seeing these kinds of costumes up close is a very different experience. I don't think I'll ever begin to grasp the fun in actually designing and dressing up in these costumes, but I've definitely gained a lot of respect for the work people put into them. I also ended up watching the final of the Nordic Coosplay Championship along with some of the hosts of the con, and I find it rather amusing that the whole show seems to have been modelled around the Eurovision formula, sans the unbearably dull hosts.
Another thing I've learned, or rather just now experienced first hand, is that many con-goers have rather odd social boundaries. Obviously I had my prejudices beforehand, and I'm glad to say that most of them turned out to be exaggerated, but it's no exaggeration to say that social codes and boundaries are rather different at cons. Out of eight thousand visitors, at least a hundred had to have had "Free hugs" signs. Many of the people who walked up to us wanted to hug us straight away. Now, in Sweden, at least in younger age groups, it's pretty much the norm to hug anyone you've met a couple times after a dinner out or a similar occasion, and even those of us who prefer a firm handshake learn to adapt. At a con, though, people go around hugging strangers they've never met, which to me is just mind-boggling. After the first dozen hugs you receive, you learn to roll with it, but it's a very strange experience... and one I'm sure not to continue.
One of my friends had a rather much worse experience than me, though, when some random guy crept up on him and tickled his beard stubble. (Also, it's quite telling that the con had an official "no touching without consent" policy at all.)
All in all it was still an overwhelmingly positive, if rather exotic, experience to be a guest at a con. I probably wouldn't have enjoyed it nearly as much, if at all, if I'd had to pay my entry and had no access to the quiet staff areas, but if we're invited back next year we will surely go there again. Lastly, my favourite cosplay costume has to be the one guy who had dressed up as the Black Knight from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. The former Swedish Labour Party leader in a Mario hat is a close second, though.
Does anyone else here have any experience with these kinds of events? It feels like there's very little middle ground between people who've never been, let alone had any interest in going to a convention, and those whose lives revolve around them, and it's lonely here in the middle.
I would like to preface this thread by saying that I had never entertained the idea of going to an anime/cosplay convention until a few months ago. I have no interest or experience in cosplay: I only barely know what it is by its definition. Neither do I have any huge interest in anime: beyond the movies by Studio Ghibli and Makoto Shinkai, as well as the anime shows that were on TV when I was a kid (Pokémon, Yu-Gi-OH and Sailor Moon. Yes, Sailor Moon; I was 8 and it was the weirdest and most fascinating show on TV. ), I've hardly watched anything. And I've heard Avatar doesn't count.
None of these things have really changed over the last few days, but I can definitely say that I've gained a ton of experiences from this to me rather exotic subculture.
Together with a few friends of mine I run a Swedish YouTube channel, and we have roughly 70,000 subscribers, which is enough to put us in the top ~100 (non-gaming) most viewed channels in the country. Our most popular show, which literally translates as "Felix Reviews", is a show where one of my friends reviews and rants about bad Swedish movies (imagine, if you will, the Nostalgia Critic/Cinema Snob, but more ironic and hipstery ). As it happens, some of our most dedicated viewers also happen to be into anime and cosplay.
We were invited by the hosts of the biggest convention in Scandinavia, NärCon (which roughly translates as Close-By Con. Yes, really ), who apparently were fans of our videos, and they told us we could pretty much do whatever we liked. We ended up getting a spot on stage and previewing a so-far unreleased episode of our most popular show, and it went over very well. Seeing and hearing a packed lecture hall laughing at our bad jokes for 20 minutes was a very strange, very awesome experience. It's a very different experience to show nearly two hundred real people something you've made, rather than uploading a video to YouTube and having seventy thousand people watch it.
The most interesting thing here wasn't us, though, although I've may have made it sound that way so far. To me, the most interesting thing was just walking around and enjoying, sometimes staring in amazement, at all the people. Bright colours. Fantastical costumes. Gratuitous amounts of cleavage. I didn't recognise half of the costumes, but even then you could see the huge amount of work that went into most of them. Some of them were truly works of art, like one guy (I'm presuming as I couldn't see his face) who had built a full robot body-armour which he was walking around in. I've seen a couple videos from Comic Con before, but seeing these kinds of costumes up close is a very different experience. I don't think I'll ever begin to grasp the fun in actually designing and dressing up in these costumes, but I've definitely gained a lot of respect for the work people put into them. I also ended up watching the final of the Nordic Coosplay Championship along with some of the hosts of the con, and I find it rather amusing that the whole show seems to have been modelled around the Eurovision formula, sans the unbearably dull hosts.
Another thing I've learned, or rather just now experienced first hand, is that many con-goers have rather odd social boundaries. Obviously I had my prejudices beforehand, and I'm glad to say that most of them turned out to be exaggerated, but it's no exaggeration to say that social codes and boundaries are rather different at cons. Out of eight thousand visitors, at least a hundred had to have had "Free hugs" signs. Many of the people who walked up to us wanted to hug us straight away. Now, in Sweden, at least in younger age groups, it's pretty much the norm to hug anyone you've met a couple times after a dinner out or a similar occasion, and even those of us who prefer a firm handshake learn to adapt. At a con, though, people go around hugging strangers they've never met, which to me is just mind-boggling. After the first dozen hugs you receive, you learn to roll with it, but it's a very strange experience... and one I'm sure not to continue.
One of my friends had a rather much worse experience than me, though, when some random guy crept up on him and tickled his beard stubble. (Also, it's quite telling that the con had an official "no touching without consent" policy at all.)
All in all it was still an overwhelmingly positive, if rather exotic, experience to be a guest at a con. I probably wouldn't have enjoyed it nearly as much, if at all, if I'd had to pay my entry and had no access to the quiet staff areas, but if we're invited back next year we will surely go there again. Lastly, my favourite cosplay costume has to be the one guy who had dressed up as the Black Knight from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. The former Swedish Labour Party leader in a Mario hat is a close second, though.
Does anyone else here have any experience with these kinds of events? It feels like there's very little middle ground between people who've never been, let alone had any interest in going to a convention, and those whose lives revolve around them, and it's lonely here in the middle.