If you’re interested in seeing some of the single most condescending coverage of the Hugos in…well, ever, I guess…check this out.
PAD
If you’re interested in seeing some of the single most condescending coverage of the Hugos in…well, ever, I guess…check this out.
PAD
• 
I’ve met good and bad fans. At a funeral for a friend, the minister made reference to the love for Star Trek the deceased had – and poked some minor fun at it. One family was offended (their Trek personas were Klingon). They made some mention afterwards that “the minister should know better than to insult Klingon warriors!” – and they were serious! I don’t think I was ever more embarassed to be a Star Trek fan. It’s one of the few times I’ve actually wanted to tell someone to “Get a Life!”
OTOH, my wife has worked security at conventions. I’ve played host for guests at cons (including PAD once many, many moons ago). Mostly, the con-goers are nice, relaxed and having a good time. I certainly feel safer at cons than I do at the college football games we go to (well, most of the time). People are wacky, but almost never out-of-control.
Bottom line, there’s wierdos everywhere: in cons, sports and political parties. Most people just don’t take it QUITE so seriously.
As someone who works in Toronto media circles, I can tell you that Rebecca Eckler is rarely taken seriously regardless of what she writes. She’s a talentless hack and not even worthy of the National Paste.
Someone fished up a story about Eckler herself. Let’s just say it confirms my impression of her from the Hugos article; a narsissic (sp?) snob with no substance, who doesn’t care about her work or subjects.
http://www.ryerson.ca/rrj/content/print/2000/spring/2000_spr_eckler.html
For some truly scary fan and convention stories, check out the Harlan Ellison account “Xenogenesis.” It’s a collection of fan horror stories by numerous sf authors. (It also sorta inspired the PAD essay “Hotel Hëll.”)
I think fans should have a sense of humor about themselves — I love the Shatner “Get A Life” sketch and the Arrogant Worms song “Great To Be A Nerd.”
re: Joe Gorforth’s comments on that article telling chicks to go pick up a geek at a sf convention.
what you talking bout? there are a number of sf geek chicks out there, you just have to find them. they just happen to hide behind nicks like batmansero 😛
And in late news, it seems we’ve tracked down just how Ms. “I can crash any event I want” (yeah, yeah, talk to me once you’ve done something on the scale of getting 60 or so MIT students into the Harvard-Yale game via disguising them as the Yale band. Amateur. :-)) got in. It appears she managed to attach herself to the nominees as they moved from the reception to the event. However, “security” (not sure if that was an escort, ranger, or usher) spotted her all along. Only because they were hesitant to hassle a pregnant woman in spandex (i.e. it was apparently obvious) did she even make it through the door. Ms. Eckler then neglected to mention that she was then asked by said security twice either about finding the Torcon press office head or seating her in the Press section without a pass, both of which she refused both times.
Simon says: “My guess is that the Nebula and the World Fantasy Award are given a slightly higher regard [than the Hugos].”
You guess incorrectly. Publishers have paid close attention to this stuff, and putting “Hugo winner” on a book will provide a bump in sales. Putting “Nebula winner” or “World Fantasy Award winner” makes no difference that matters.
Also, speaking as a SFWA member, I can assure you that the Hugo comes a lot closer to going to winners based on actual merit than the Nebulas ever will.
—KRAD
Response to Joe Goforth about female SF fans being rare…
You should try the various fanficcer communities (comics, Buffy, Star Trek, Star Wars, etc) – they’re usually 70% female. And a lot of them are single, and wishing they could find someone who appreciates their hobbies.
what Rossi said. in the past i was with guys that would put up with my great like of star trek (TOS mostly which i’m told is odd considering i’m a youngin).
now though my guy is not only into trek but also all things PAD, batman (and beyond/of the future), and bruce campbell – i really struck gold here. actually he didn’t believe me when i said i was a batman fan – he was like ‘a girl that likes batman?!’ hehe. downside is i found him in another country and he’s still there and i’m back here. thank god for the internet and sometimes cheap airfares 😛
My question to PAD is this:
You’ve expressed a great deal of appreciation for The Daily Show. (I like the show too.) But how do you think this article is *any* different than the way they would have covered the Hugos?
I mean the specifics might change, they wouldn’t be able to sneak anybody in with the need for a camera crew to tag along, but the tone would have been the same. Worse, actually, as they would be showing people in costume.
I don’t know this person, don’t know their column, but the fact is that a reporter and a columnist are not really bound by the same rules. It’s the the same line that separates the reporter from the sports reporter. When I was a reporter, I couldn’t write a story condemning the mayor under my byline. But if I was the sports guy and I didn’t write a column ripping some coach of some sport for some team, I wouldn’t be doing my job.
My point is that if this woman is supposed to write a “funny” light column and she brought back a respectful, factual piece on these awards, she wouldn’t be doing her job. Her readers would be disappointed that they didn’t get their condescending snigger and science fiction fans don’t read her column because she has long since established it’s not for them.
I’m not really defending this attitude. As I said, I’m a fan of The Daily Show but more than a few times I’ve been disturbed by the savage way they’ll tear into someone often for the simple reason that the person is off-beat and almost always because they’re not hip enough to be in on the joke. But the reality is that a columnist often has an obligation to give the people what they expect.
Case in point, that may actually be members-of-this-board-friendly: I bought a book of reviews by Mike Nelson of MST3K fame and I was really looking forward to it because I’m a fan of the show. But as someone who’s known for sitting in a theater and mocking movies, Nelson’s book mostly, well, mocked movies. Some really deserved it but a lot of them, in my opinion, didn’t. After a while, the unrelenting negativism really made reading the book a chore. But what could I expect from the MST3K?
(And BTW, he reviewed the Batman films and, whether you liked or hated the Batman films, it was hard not to disturbed by the review which basically said, “I hate comic book movies so I hated this.”)
“But how do you think this article is *any* different than the way they would have covered the Hugos?”
Well, The Daily Show is a comedy program, dedicated to humor (except for the occasional serious guest), while the National Post is (supposedly) a news publication. Covering an awards show for comedy is standard for a comedy show; covering an awards show for comedy is a disservice by a news publication.
BTW, The Daily Show did a funny piece, following a bunch of fans who went to a Renaissance Fair in full STAR TREK garb. Very funny! (My favorite line: “The pretend Klingon battled the mock dragon to a draw, gaining some faux dignity.”)
Thank you to James Lynch, for directing people to Harlan Ellison’s Xenogenesis, one of the most bone-chilling pieces ever written about the dark side of fandom. When it was reprinted in the first volume of Edgeworks back in ’96 I think, I remember reading passages of it aloud to my wife (a veteran of numerous conventions) who sat there in disbelief. For those who haven’t read it, the essay is based on letters that Ellison sent to his contemporaries, asking them to relate some of their unfortunate experiences with fan behavior. The result was a torrent of letters from authors, all of whom hastened to point out that 95% of fans were nice, decent people, but go on to say, ‘However, there was this one fan who…’ My personal favorite was from Terry Carr, who was at a convention in 1963, not long after his first book came out. The wife of a well-known fan came sauntering up and said, ‘I’ve just read your novel; I wanted to introduce myself.’ Carr smiled, thinking maybe he’d get a few nice words, and she said, ‘What did you write that miserable piece of šhìŧ for?’ Carr’s response: ‘I wrote it for seven hundred and fifty dollars,’ and walked away.
I would also recommend that fans track down Crusise of the Gods, a delightfully lethal bit of satire, which aired on the BBC several months back. It’s about a washed-up actor (played by Rob Brydon) who starred in a 70s SF show called Children of Castor. Now working as a hotel porter, he gets invited on a fan cruise. It’s beautifully written and savagely well observed, from the organizer who gets into your personal space, to the fan who writes up dozens of spec scripts for the show and asks the actor to sign them. And then there’s the guest who had two lines in the TV show’s opening credits, who now milks them for everything they’re worth. I’m not doing it justice, but by all means, try and track it down. I think it was just released on DVD in the UK, so it should be coming out here in the States before too long.
Nerds don
And if there’s a lesson to be learned, it’s this: if you see a pregnant Canadian pseudo-journalist with a chip on her shoulder, steer clear. Or better yet, shoot to kill.
While I can understand the sentiment in the first section of this quote, the last bit is simply in poor taste.
This seemed both relevant and amusing… it’s a little flowchart called “The Geek Hierarchy” that might explain some of this discussion…
http://www.brunching.com/images/geekchartbig.gif
Doug
**”But how do you think this article is *any* different than the way they would have covered the Hugos?”
Well, The Daily Show is a comedy program, dedicated to humor (except for the occasional serious guest), while the National Post is (supposedly) a news publication. Covering an awards show for comedy is standard for a comedy show; covering an awards show for comedy is a disservice by a news publication.**
Hmmmmmmm….
I don’t want to argue – I thought the article was a cheap shot too- but I think think this argument comes dangerously close to the argument used against Jesus Castillo that had everyone here fuming a few weeks ago. It was in a newspaper which is being defined by a pretty narrow parameter so it’s being held to a different standard? Sure it’s a newspaper which has a news stories and stock quotes… but don’t newspapers also print “Doonesbury” and Dave Barry?
BTW, when I was a reporter, I did a story about a couple who were confined to wheelchairs which didn’t turn out to be the cheerful, Polyanna-like story where the handicapped teach “us” warm and witty stories about life that the the editor wanted. I refused to change it, so she re-wrote it… and she got even madder when I insisted my name be taken off of it. So unless you’re in that news room, be careful where you (Not “you”=Mr. Lynch, you=everybody) toss blame… Although the behavior this woman exhibited according to the people who were there makes that awfully tempting.
The comments about falling asleep during LOTR brought to mind my own experience. It’s become a tradition in my family to go and see a movie on the IMAX screen in the West Edmonton Mall every Christmas, and last year, we went to see The Two Towers. I fell asleep during the battle (of Helm’s Deep) scene, and it was at least 5, 10 minutes before one of my brothers nudged me awake. Since it was a small portion of the whole thing, I didn’t miss much, but it’ll be at least until Return of the King comes out before the rest of my family will let me forget it. That said, the article struck me as someone trying to be humorous, but without any real degree of understanding, coming off kind of rude.
Re: Ellison’s “Xenogenesis”, there wasn’t the unanimity of responses that Joe Nazzaro (possibly citing Ellison) suggests. A few years ago, I heard Donald Kingsbury describing his response to Ellison’s request. He’d sent back a polite letter apologizing for his inability to contribute, because he had had no bad experiences with fans. On the contrary, they’d always been very kind to him. He cited one case where he’d agreed to be interviewed by a small group of fans. But when they came to his home to do the interview, they found him tired and fretting about a looming deadline on a manuscript that he was behind on. So they told him to get on with his writing, while they cleaned up his house and made sure that he got a couple of good meals.
Sure, fandom has its share of people who are hopelessly asocial. But we’ve also got many, many people who go out of their way to be pleasant and helpful. I’ve had many much more unpleasant dealings with people outside fandom than inside. Yeah, Ellison was able to solicit an essay’s worth of horror stories about fans from authors. So what? If he’d collected horror stories about non-fans, he’d have been able to fill a bloody D\V\ book.
Joel, in the interest of fairness, I did point out (as did Ellison in his essay) that most of the authors in question predicated their responses by saying that 95% of the fans were nice, decent people. In a previous post, I also mentioned some of the nicer stories that I had experienced myself at conventions. And as I said earlier, the good outweigh the bad, by a wide margin. Just trying to keep the record straight and all that.
Having said that, I did pull Ellison’s essay back off the shelf to double-check that my memory was indeed correct. From the number of authors who were asked to share their experiences with fans, about half a dozen (I’ll leave their names off) said they had nothing but pleasant relations with their fans and simply had nothing to pass along. Since then, four of the six subsequently admitted to Ellison that they had in fact suffered ‘a number of wretched experiences- which they recounted with detail and anger- and they simplydidn’t want to cause any trouble.’ In case anybody believes I’m quoting out of context, I suggest they dig up the article themselves. As Ellison himself said in the introduction to Edgeworks #1, it may be the most controversial essay he’s ever written that deals with the relationship of the reader to the writer.
I’m sorry, I didn’t see anything condescending at all about her report. The gist of it seemed to be that fandom has a language and habits all its own, incomprehensible (on purpose) to those who aren’t in the know. If you want to talk about “condescending,” explain to me why hardcore sf “fen” refer to non-“fen” as “mundanes.”
That’s not really the question, Elayne. The question is why someone with an obvious already existing contempt for SF would be assigned to cover the Hugos. Furthermore, a print reporter should be held to a different standard than the average fan spouting off.
Let me put it to you this way: If a report was a White Supremacist, was assigned to cover a meeting of the NAACP, and his entire article consisted of nothing but slams against the membership, I tend to think the membership would have grounds for–at the very least–a belief that someone else should have been assigned to the gig.
Or to put it another way: The moment someone can produce coverage of the Oscars written by an SF fan who dismisses the whole thing as a soporific exercise of mundanity, then there might be some basis for comparison.
PAD
“But how do you think this article is *any* different than the way they would have covered the Hugos?”
Because the Daily Show approaches their items in two ways:
You laugh at the correspondents because their questions are so ludicrous, but delivered with mock seriousness that sends up bad news reporting.
You laugh at the interviewees because they’re desperately trying to respond seriously to the questions, oblivious to both the absurdity of the reporter and–oftentimes–the absurdity of themselves.
Plus the entire show is dedicated to comedy…as opposed to a newspaper in which contributors should at least be making a semblance of evenhandedness.
The Daily Show doesn’t just go around saying, “This is stupid, this is dumb, these people are morons.” They don’t act in a superior manner; indeed, they’re at their funniest when they seem as clueless in their own way as their subjects on in theirs.
In short: The Daily Show has style. This was just a hatchet job.
PAD
I’m not sure it was really a hatchet job (now that I’ve finally had a chance to catch up over here and read it). Being a hatchet job implies malice on her part.
Frankly, I didn’t get the impression that she was bright enough to write that article maliciously. I think she’s just a bad writer.
The sense I have is that this was meant to be a winking, tongue-in-cheek article — given how much self-deprecating humor a lot of fandom uses, maybe she got the impression that’s how to communicate with anyone.
So I don’t think it was especially malicious (though I haven’t followed Tom’s link to the article about the reporter). Incompetently done, yes. Having a nightmarish grasp of the facts, yes (especially her glitches in terms of confusing Tom with Spider R.). Worthy of correction, yes. Malicious, no.
Here’s hoping that once her kid is born she stays comfortably out of circulation until she picks up a bit more of a clue.
On a different note, I tend to agree somewhat with the people who’re uncomfortable with “mundanes” as a fannish term. I think it depends on how it’s used (i.e. lightheartedly or with contempt), but it’s a term that can cause trouble a little too easily.
I don’t know that this is any better, but on those rare occasions I’d use any term at all like that I use “normals.” It’s usually part of a self-descriptor, i.e. “Lisa and I are both geeks, but we’re geeks who can pass safely among normals” [as opposed to the “haven’t bathed since the Nixon administration and make Dork Tower’s Igor look thoughtful and well socialized” group]. Why is “normals” any better? Because “mundane” carries with it a stigma of “not interesting” — “normal” doesn’t generally provoke that reaction.
And agreed with PAD that there’s not a lot of use in activities which shut out future fans. Not only is it somewhat opposed to the sort of forward-thinking stuff we’re all allegedly embracing, but for someone in his line of work it’s just appallingly bad business sense.
TWL
Why is “normals” any better? Because “mundane” carries with it a stigma of “not interesting” — “normal” doesn’t generally provoke that reaction.
True, but then you’re left with the implication that SF fans are “abnormal,” since they would presumably be the opposite of the non-SF fans.
PAD
The article makes a good contrast to an article that appeared in the far more sober GLOBE AND MAIL, which criticized the congoers for being too conservative, noting that most of them were well-dressed middle-aged folks, and that there were dámņ few folks in costume. That article called the con downright sedate, and was, if anything, more disturbing in what it had to say about the changing demographics of fandom.
I’ve seen both fair and unfair coverage, over the years; at least now, SF gets fair coverage sometimes. But I fondly remember the local paper that, covering a con in Long Island, ignored the presence of Ellison, Simmons, Stan Lee, and many other luminaries, to perform a complete hatchet job on a newbie horror writer with, at that point, one published story*. Sometimes these folks go, already knowing what they intend to write.
The article is complete and insulting garbage, but I somehow don’t think letters of protest would make us look any better…ATC
As a journalist I tend to see the good, the bad and the buggly at Conventions.
It’s true, you CAN see the obnoxious fan, the stereotypical geek, the proud-to-be-an-outcast and the guy who not only dresses as Tom Baker but actually believes he IS him. Or maybe Michael Sheard if this is a UK event.
Stereotypes don’t appear from nowhere and there will always be examples of such fans if you care to look. The reason that TV crews/news reporters fixate on them is that they make good images/copy and because they stand out…..well….HELLO…if they stand out, it’s often because most people AREN’T that extreme.
But when I cover a convention for a magazine, I do research. If I’m going to interview someone I (at very least) start with the IMDB or their back-catalogue. I get to know the organisers and if it’s a general report on an event, I tend to judge whether it was a success for the ATTENDEES rather than all mankind.
I may be a journalist, but I’m at least 50% fan too. I rolled my eyes when I recently saw a resiliant (but rapidly withering) Borders employee cornered by a guy who wanted to continuously tell her why Commander Riker would never be as good a Captain as Jean-Luc Picard…but I despaired when no-one would take me seriously when I mentioned to a fellow journo that Buffy the Vampire’s *The Body* is one of the best televisual examples of grief I could ever remember seeing.
Sci-Fi is a genre. Just as I never got fixated on Melrose Place or Coronation Street, I don’t expect or worry that someone doesn’t *get* sci-fi.
I’ll go to conventions to conduct interviews, meet new people (to interview or just hang out with) and I’ll celebrate that whether it be the time-paradoxes of space travel or what the next year of Seventh Heaven will bring…. that it’s a wonderful thing when a group of people from diverse backgrounds, outlooks, opinions, countries and ages can get together, have fun and not kill each other
Because that’s so much more life-affirming that watching Fox News.
On behalf of real journalists everywhere, let me just say: the Canadian article is an example of bad reviewing, bad sentence structure, bad choice for assigning a reviewer and – the ultimate sin – a *triumph* of someone making an article more about them than their subject.
John
Me:
Why is “normals” any better? Because “mundane” carries with it a stigma of “not interesting” — “normal” doesn’t generally provoke that reaction.
PAD:
True, but then you’re left with the implication that SF fans are “abnormal,” since they would presumably be the opposite of the non-SF fans.
Perfectly agreed. That’s not considered a negative in the groups of people where I’d use the phrase. 🙂 Basically, it’s a gentle reminder that “yep, we know that to some eyes we’re weird — but the reverse applies just as well, so how ’bout we all just live with it?”
For the last two years, I’ve had my physics students write letters of advice to the next year’s students. One of my favorite responses was someone who wrote that I was “willing to talk about anything provided it’s a little less than sane.” I’d never have used the phrase myself, but I think it summed things up pretty well.
TWL
Tim, you’ll probably be amused by this. The first time I ever heard Harlan Ellison speak was at MIT in the early 80s. One line that’s stuck in my head all these years was his description of MIT students;
“You people veer dangerously close to sanity…but fortunately, you never quite make it all the way there.”
Long time listener, first time caller… ^.^
It should be noted that there are events that take place regularly, at which a number of its fandom puts on strange clothing and wigs, or little clothing and lots of face/bodypaint. They carry signs and use a language even *they* barely understand. Outside of these events, they still eat, sleep, and breathe their hobby, obsessing about it with friends and co-workers (who aren’t always so understanding), and with others online (who tend to be a little more so).
But since their obsession is *football*, and not sci-fi (or comic books or anime), this behaviour is deemed normal and socially acceptable, even by most of those who don’t bother to understand.
But then, what would society be without double-standards and hypocrisy? ^.^;
Thanks, Tom. I think I’ve heard the quote before (didn’t you have it in your .sig several years back?), but Harlan, as usual, cuts to the heart of the matter.
And amusingly enough, the student who wrote that particular note is now beginning her sophomore year … yep, you guessed it, AT MIT.
Clearly a good match. 🙂
TWL
Normally I let stuff like this roll off my back, but this is my e-mail reply to her:
Ms. Eckler:
(did you know spell check alternatives for your name brought up “Heckler”?)
Read your VERY condescending report on your attendance of the Hugo awards. Nice to see someone out there still thinks it’s great fun to make fun of “geeks.” Yep, we call each other that. I, without shame, refer to myself as still a “12 year old geek at heart” (I’m 42). But you know what? You really shouldn’t refer to us as such because you can only do it with sarcasm, not irony, and thus you don’t have the right.
Seriously, we’ve had to put up with your kind flippant I’m-too-hip-for-this attitude since we first knew we were geeks. And don’t mistake this reply for hurt feelings or anger. Not even righteous indignation really, but maybe just a chance to shoot back for once, and I have some free time at the moment — no doubt, in between viewings of all 7 seasons of “Star Trek: The Next Generation” you’re probably thinking.
(No wait, you’re too cool and hip to know there was more than one Star Trek show. Sorry.)
Seriously, did you really sleep through “Lord of the Rings”? Or did that just sound too good to pass up writing down? Listen, I could give a flying wojo if you don’t like SF or fantasy or any genre of the kind. If a movie about self-absorbed whiners like “The Hours” floats your canoe, fine and dandy. Pat yourself on the back and sleep like a baby over your good taste. But to go along with that impeccable taste, try learning some manners, such as not making fun of people or things you don’t understand, or are beyond your comprehension. Imagination is more than a clever put down or smarmy remark.
Good luck with the kid. Hope he or she has a broader mind then you do at your age.
Regards,
Robert Jenson
RE: “Not all journalist speak of us Sci-fi fans so harshly. I once read a msnbc article about dating today and the female writer suggested to her (female) readers that one of the best places to meet a man is at a Sci-fi convention.”
Joe … do you have a copy of this article, or a link to it? I would like to forward it to every female I know.
Jason
Posted by Ocean Doot @ 09/05/2003 02:25 PM ET
— Sorry, it was just one of those articles that is on the page where you sign into hotmail — and it was quite a while back …
[Please forgive. I want to read all of the comments before posting this and make it more relevant to the discussion, but I have to get back to practicing my Japanese penmanship for class. Hey. Does studying Japanese make me a geek? Will she write about the geeks studying East Asian languages next? I’m sure she knows just as much about that.]
. . . . .
I didn’t want to tell her that I’ve snuck into parties at famous rock stars hotel suites and didn’t think that sneaking into a sci-fi convention on a Saturday night at the convention centre would be a problem.
Yeah, you’re cool. You’re hip. We should worship the ground you walk on, you stalking groupie.
A lazer eye surgeon should set up shop at one of these events — they’d make a killing: 75% of those in attendance were wearing glasses
Oh, right. I forgot. It’s an absolute sin amongst the Cool to wear glasses. Unless you’re trying to look like you know how to read, then you have your picture taken for the cover of Premiere wearing a pair of titanium frames with plain glass/plastic lenses to prove you’re ready for the Oscar-winning roles. Yeah, that’s cool. Not dorky in the least. Wearing glasses is geeky, not cool, and the donning of glasses has nothing to do with myopia or astigmatism or other eye problems I have trouble spelling but with which I am plagued.
This woman can be considered an adult worthy of publication? This read more like the ramblings of a girl trying to get in with the popular crowd in high school by making fun of the school nerds. I think perhaps she still is trying to get into that “cool” cheerleader/football player crowd. I can’t imagine someone writing like this otherwise.
Please note she felt compelled to mention she wore all black and said she was the most fashionable. Excuse me, chica, but no one wears leggings in public anymore. That is exceedingly 1993. I can pull fashionista with the best of them, and, whoops! she fails the cool-person’s fashion test.
Poor woman. Someday she’ll have cool friends who think she’s cool, too.
It should be noted that there are events that take place regularly, at which a number of its fandom puts on strange clothing and wigs, or little clothing and lots of face/bodypaint. They carry signs and use a language even *they* barely understand. Outside of these events, they still eat, sleep, and breathe their hobby, obsessing about it with friends and co-workers (who aren’t always so understanding), and with others online (who tend to be a little more so). But since their obsession is *football*, and not sci-fi (or comic books or anime), this behaviour is deemed normal and socially acceptable, even by most of those who don’t bother to understand. But then, what would society be without double-standards and hypocrisy?
Man, I still remember when a Philadelphia hotel double booked in Philcon with the Shriners Convention. Putting aside that the hotel endeavored to screw us out of our rooms and programming space at every opportunity, I’ll never forget these guys, most of them in their sixties and over, commenting on the “weirdly dressed freaks.” This from men wearing red jackets and fezzes.
PAD
A lazer eye surgeon should set up shop at one of these events — they’d make a killing: 75% of those in attendance were wearing glasses
Yeah, and I’d wager 100% of them could have spelled the word “laser.”
PAD
To add a slightly different spin on this, I actually had a couple of good experiences with the press this past week for our local Phoenix convention, CopperCon 23. Reference this article (although I never did mention the geek of fanboy words …) for the local newspaper coverage: http://www.azcentral.com/ent/calendar/articles/0904coppercon04.html
Then we had the local NBC station do the weather during their two-hour Saturday morning newscast, doing a nice interview with our Artist GoH, David Mattingly (deftly avoiding showing the one piece of art with a naked woman in it). We did arrange for a stormtrooper to talk with too. Unfortunately, there wasn’t time to fit Connie Willis in, but she was more than willing to talk with them. I will admit that we did have the weatherman wear an elvish robe during one segment….
Lee Whiteside
CopperCon 23 Chair
Someone said: “Journalists of all stripes are guilty of going into stories with pre-concieved notions that they will not change. I’ve seen it too often in my own job in museum public relations. If people perceive us as being stodgy, or insensitive, or what have you, that comes with them, no matter what is true. Objective journalism is rare, and moreso when the topic is the least bit esoteric.”
There have been plenty of people to speak up in defense of fandom and sf conventions. But I feel compelled to speak up in defense of journalists.
I’m a newspaper reporter. I’ve been to cons. I’ve covered cons. I’ve written humor columns on cons and straight news stories on cons.
I’ve also covered classic car shows, Persian cat shows, model-train conventions, ceramics shows, the psychic fair, stamp-art seminars, miniature fairs, the bottle-and-jar show, the beer can collectors (not kidding), gun shows… Do I need to go on?
If I ever wrote anything that hostile to my subject, my editor would formally kick my ášš.
I can write, “At the psychic fair, they know you’re coming.” I can’t write, “The psychics just make this šhìŧ up as they go along – here, have a crystal.”
They send me to the local con because I understand what’s going on. This year, I’m going as an attendee, so someone else will cover the convention. They won’t understand fandom, couldn’t spell Sauron (but they could spell “laser.” Jesu Christe.) But they will go to the con and ask intelligent questions to find out about the subject matter, because that’s what we’re trained to do.
Do I know anything about breeding Persian cats? No. Do I care? Not particularly. But if I’ve got my notebook in hand, it doesn’t matter what I think.
That’s the attitude of most journalists I know. There are exceptions, like the Canadian journalist. Hëll, at last year’s convention my photographer complained that he couldn’t find anything to shoot.
I looked over his shoulder at the man in full demon makeup and the woman in medieval garb and the guy demonstrating a full-size kitana.
The photographer has yet to live that down in the newsroom.
Having been a SF fan for many, many years, I have found this reporter’s attitude to be more prevalent than not. Even among my own family. However, when I see those same family members dressing in their blue and orange colors and wearing Gator jewelry and driving Gator cars and having Gator statuary in their yards. And painting their naked chests blue and orange for game day. I just laugh.
(Gators = U. of Florida sports programs)
A lazer eye surgeon should set up shop at one of these events — they’d make a killing: 75% of those in attendance were wearing glasses
Yeah, and I’d wager 100% of them could have spelled the word “laser.”
PAD
Of course, this could also be an example of deliberate misspelling for effect i.e. ‘Bi-Rite Pharmacy’, using ‘lite’ for ‘light’, ‘kewl’ for ‘cool’, ect. It may be possible that in the social circles this reporter normally travels in ‘lazer’ is the current (for lack of a better word) faddish spelling for ‘laser’. This is just a guess on my part, since I am not part of the ‘young’ (I’m in my mid-thirties), hip, cosmopolatian, rich (I’m none of these, at least by how those terms are normally used) white Canadian (never been to Canada in my life 🙁 )social circles she seems to belong to. Just a thought.
By the way, has anyone read any follow-ups to this article in the National Post? Like, did they ever print a Letter to the Editor about the factual errors the original article contained, or did the reporter ever do a follow-up column about the reader response to that column? Just curious.
Chris
MY first reaction was to think about writing a letter to the editor and or writer of said article but then dismissed that as a waste of time.
Even if she ever saw it, which is doubtful in my mind she wouldn’t get it anyway. Doesn’t sound like the type who would.
I do think that certain things were said in her article to purposely bait and piss certain kinds of people off…other comments were made out of pure ignorance.
If she went there with THAT attitude, then it’s no wonder she was ignored and treated as she was.
it would in my mind be the same if say one of “us” went to an event she held in regard and acted as she did.
to get respect you have to show some.
also, maybe I took this a little too personal but to me I think certain crowds of people using normally derogatory words to describe themselves is ok for them.
maybe it’s blowing this out of proportion but people describing themselves as geeks is one thing but when someone who has little or no respect and considers themsefl and outsider uses it, it’s not an endearment.
I mean black people can use the n word a lot easier than white people and with less offense.
same goes with most derogatory, inflammatory and insulting words.
being called a geek by anyone else but oneself is not an endearing term to me…it’s more than that it’s condescending.
but it is what it is and this was overall a hostile fluff piece and nothing more.
All things considered, I wonder why she went at all; she could have written exactly the same article while staying comfortably at home & saving everyone, herself included, all kinds of trouble.
I can’t believe it, my co-worker just bought a car for $18121. Isn’t that crazy!
What do you think of these new cars? Do you think its a good one?