________ ________ ________
2017-07-03 / \/ \/ / \
/ __/ /_ _/
Yesterday we slouched by one of the / _/ / /
larger Melbourne pop culture conventions; Oz \_______/_\___/____/\___/____/_
Comic-Con. Not as attendees, just to people- / \/ \/ / \
watch a while. I've never had a real love / _/ /_ _/
for the big conventions, it's the smaller /- / _/ /
indie cons that really appeal to me. \________/\________/\___/____/
What really struck me was the age of the crowd. You've always had those
older geeks at conventions but they were always only a few, with the majority
being late teens/young adults, but now I'd say they were a good third of the
crowd at least. Some did seem a little out of place, just there escorting
their kids or whatever but there were also quite a lot of older people in
cosplay and more than a few families all dressed up.
I thought it was quite interesting and really speaks to the ongoing
normalisation of what was once outsider culture, the MCU has a lot to answer
for I guess, but at the same time and in a pretty selfish way it made me
jealous for a couple of reasons.
Firstly, as I got older I clung to my geeky identity while a lot of my
friends who were into those things fell away, "putting away childish things"
as it was. Some just growing less interested in the nerdy or weird things,
some scoffing at those of us that didn't and in one or two cases so sourly
denoucning any kind of nerdy fandom that we argued and stopped talking
altogether. So now to see it so comfortable and even fashionable to be one of
those holdouts pokes at old bruises a little bit.
The other thing that bothered me was the question; where were these role
models when I was growing up? Where were these wholesome Star Wars and
Avengers families when the only people I had to look up to were greasy, sleazy
creeps and twitchy autists?
I don't know.
All very petty thoughts and probably I was just feeling over-sensitive
about it because a depression-fog, but it just stuck with me a little.
Anyway the big cons have always been a different crowd I suppose, and good
on these people for embracing all that. Heck, some of these older geeks might
have been in the same situation I felt like I was back in the old days and are
actively trying to be the role models they wished they'd had. I hope that's
the case!
