Episode 125: Con-solation
In Episode 125, Flourish and Elizabeth discuss the state of fan conventions in 2020, whether they’ve been canceled, moved online, or, in a few cases, are supposedly going forward (DragonCon, what are you doing???). What’s lost in the transition from IRL to remote—and what can fans potentially gain? They also answer a listener question about, uh, other listeners’ questions!
Show Notes
[00:00:00] As always, our intro music is “Awel” by stefsax, used under a CC BY 3.0 license. Our cover is a photograph by Douglas Muth, used under a CC BY-SA 2.0 license.
[00:01:17] Special Episode 17, “Tropefest: Enemies to Lovers.”
[00:02:15] Episode 124, “Ask Fansplaining Anything: Part 7.”
[00:04:11] The question about the Discord forum was in Episode 115, “Power Plays.”
[00:07:22]
[00:10:38] Our episodes about Star Wars, racism and shipping are #22A, “Race and Fandom Part 1,” and #22B, “Race and Fandom Part 2.”
[00:24:11]
[00:34:28] Our interstitial music is “Making the Connections” by Lee Rosevere, used under a CC BY 3.0 license.
[00:55:03] Con or Bust is an amazing organization working to help fans of color make it to cons, and we spoke with them in Episode 48.
[00:57:59]
[01:09:19]
[01:11:10] “How the Pandemic Will End,” by Ed Yong, in The Atlantic.
Transcript
[Intro music]
Flourish Klink: Hi, Elizabeth!
Elizabeth Minkel: Hi, Flourish!
FK: And welcome to Fansplaining, the podcast by, for, and about fandom!
ELM: This is Episode #125, “Con-solation.” Con dash solation.
FK: Yeah, con dash solation.
ELM: Hyphen.
FK: And as you might guess, our topic is what’s going on with all the cons that were supposed to be happening for the rest of 2020 that now have been, um, messed with due to our current situation.
ELM: So we have gotten a bunch of feedback from people about how they were happy to spend an hour of their week listening to conversations about fandom that weren’t related to the global pandemic and, uh, sorry. Now we’re gonna talk about it for a little while.
FK: Yes. But if, I will just put in a little plug: if you still want things that are not related to the global pandemic, come become one of our Patrons. We also released an episode this past week, a special episode about enemies-to-lovers fic, and that is pretty much, you know, pandemic-free content. So you do have an option to hear us and substitute that for this episode and then just like, you know, keep on going. So. Just a little plug there!
ELM: [laughs] All right.
FK: You know!
ELM: We’ll talk a little more about Patreon just after the break, but…first, before cons, before cons, we were gonna answer at least one letter. Exactly one letter! Not…
FK: Exactly one letter, not at least one. [ELM laughs] All right, shall I read this particular letter?
ELM: Yes please!
FK: OK. This is from an anonymous person, and it was sent in through our website where we have a little form you can send questions in through. Subject: How often can you spot a fandom?
“Hey Fansplaining! Love the podcast, you both do an amazingly insightful job at covering all things fandom.” Mm!
ELM: [laughs] What cute, you’re ridiculous. That’s nice. All right. Continue, continue.
FK: OK. “Anyway, this isn’t a particularly serious question but here it is all the same. When listening to your last mailbag episode (Part Seven, I believe) I was reminded of something I’d noticed about reader questions from time to time. A lot of times people talk about their experience/problems/thoughts surrounding a fandom but don’t actually name them, even though to some of your listeners I’m sure it’s obvious which one it is (hello to the Supergirl and/or Supercorp listeners who keep writing in).
“Can you guys normally spot the fandom even when one isn’t mentioned? Do you think this is just a quirk of people wanting to get some kind of ‘objective’ viewpoint from you both or the listeners in case their fandom has any kind of reputation? To me it’s mostly just a fun instance of seeing how someone manages to describe a series without ever dropping a title or character name.
“Thanks for all your amazing work and I hope you're both staying safe out there! Not-so-secret fandom anon.”
ELM: This is a delightful letter.
FK: And one I’ve thought of many times! Do you really think that we didn’t know that was Supercorp? You must have known we knew that was Supercorp. [laughs]
ELM: Right. I can think of at least one instance where we had no idea, it was maybe a year ago and it was about, like, a ship war that involved three different characters, and we just—like, I thought about it for awhile. I was like “Do I know what they’re talking about?”
FK: I didn’t either.
ELM: It was like, “no.”
FK: Sometimes we know and sometimes we don’t know is the answer, right?
ELM: Yeah, the thing that’s funny to me—I don’t know if you feel this way—but when I can tell what it is, it often slightly changes my opinion, though maybe not necessarily my answer to whatever the question is, because I’ll have more context, and especially if I feel like the person is presenting something in a way that I think is too generous for what I’ve observed. [FK laughs] And this is not to stop anyone from sending anything in, and if you don’t talk about what it is, I—I don’t want people to like, mask it even further because…
FK: Right.
ELM: Sometimes I’ve felt like us not having enough details in some of these have made it harder. I remember recently we had a question about a forum, you know, it was about a Discord—Discord conflict, and it was like, we really—it was like we were advice columnists, it was like, “Uh, from your story, if, I feel like this is true, but…”
FK: “Based solely on what you have told us, and with no other context…”
ELM: I have no context and I also don’t want to assume ever that a letter-writer is like, an unreliable narrator. I’m sure that most or all of our letter-writers are depicting things as they see it. But it is funny especially when—
FK: But I mean I’m an unreliable narrator, right? Every human is an unreliable narrator, we all see things through our own particular lens, obviously.
ELM: I actually, someone I just was complaining about this, about using the word “unreliable narrator” the way you just used it, and I’m gonna complain about it too. That’s not what “unreliable narrator” means!
FK: You used it first!
ELM: No! We don’t—so a letter-writer writes in and they say that X, Y and Z are happening in my fandom, they’re happening to me. The unreliable narrator element is they could be outright lying.
FK: Right.
ELM: If they don’t know, if this is truly their perception, then that’s not an unreliable narrator. That’s just a close, close first person, you know, like, a limited first person, right?
FK: OK.
ELM: An unreliable narrator is one where you can’t rely, you know, they’re—the author is doing something deliberately to kind of play, play with the reader, to obfuscate. But, but just the limited, limited perspective of a narrator is not inherently unreliable.
FK: OK. I guess I had interpreted—I had understood “unreliable narrator” to include things like, a person describing someone as, you know, a jerk, when in fact they’re acting perfectly rationally and normally, right. You know, in a book. OK! That’s fine, that’s semantic but I am happy to embrace it.
ELM: I don’t think I’d use that term for that!
FK: All right, cool! I’m not, I don’t have any literature degrees, so like, I’ll take your word for it!
ELM: So true. I do have a literature degree. Now we’re gonna get like 19 letters being like “No! I use ‘unreliable narrator’ that way!”
FK: Well whatever! I mean whatever, it’s semantic, right. We all know what we’re talking about. Fortunately. Because we’ve just discussed it. In any case, I agree with you that I don’t ever assume that our, our writing-in people are like, you know, being purposely, yeah. Like, lying to us or being purposely, like, false about anything. That’s absurd. But I do think that because everybody has their own perspective, it colors what people say, and so yeah, I mean, if it’s about something that’s completely muted then we just take it on complete face value, whereas if we can figure out what it is, we have more context, so yeah, maybe we’re thinking about all of the other stuff.
But I don’t know, I mean, it’s up to the writer-inner what kind of a thing they wanna get out of our advice, right? Like, I think that people who listen to us under—probably have seen this in, you know, in action, and can make guesses as to what we’ll figure out, and what we’ll do.
ELM: I also wanna say, because I was tweeting about this not too long ago: I know far less about most fandoms’ dramas than people think that I do. I don’t know if you’ve had this experience.
FK: Yes.
ELM: I wound up—not personally, you, but me, wound up getting tagged in some Star Wars shit, and I was like, “I don’t even know what the sides are!” And then I wound up, like, on some like blockchain list. I had literally never engaged in this in any way, I didn’t tweet at all, but like, a bunch of Star Wars people blocked me and I was like, I don’t, I don’t even like these movies very much! [FK laughs] Like, I have literally no opinions about them, and I don’t understand how I wound up in some sort of camp, like, you know, supporting X character over Y character. I genuinely don’t know what the conflict is!
And I’ve noticed this too with, I remember we had [laughs] this early in the newsletter with Supernatural, where someone was tweeting at us being like “Oh, I guess, I guess you’re on, like, Y side.” And I was like “I don’t, I don’t even know what the sides are! I barely know what the characters are! I have no opinions about your show beyond the fact that I don’t actually really wanna watch it cause it doesn’t seem like it’s something I’d enjoy!” You know? So it’s like—I don’t know if this happens to you a lot, might happen to me a little bit more between these two projects, but…
FK: Yes. I think it happens to you a little bit more, but I agree that there are definitely—I mean the other thing is that like, I think that when you’re in a fandom and everyone you know is talking about the problem, because you’re in the fandom and like, everyone’s talking about this thing, it feels like everyone else in the world understands about this thing if they’re into fandom.
ELM: Yeah.
FK: And, no! I mean like—it’s, it’s gotten worse for me recently because as I think I’ve mentioned on the podcast, since COVID-19 started I have been aggressively limiting the Twitter that I look at.
ELM: Yeah.
FK: I’ve been aggressively limiting all fandom content, because like frankly, I’m having a hard enough time just focusing on my job, like— [laughs] That is, that is really difficult already and I don’t need to add in anything else. So if there’s new fandom stuff springing up around, I don’t know, whatever, the Chinese dramas that everyone’s into, I don’t know who any of those people are because I have purposely not learned who they are cause it’s not my job to know and it’s just gonna bring more stress into my life over something that I don’t actually watch myself.
And I know that like, in the long-term this is not gonna be sustainable, we do Fansplaining, all this, plus it’s actually part of my job to know some of those things, a little bit, at least enough to like recognize what’s happening, so I’m gonna have to come out of this ostrich-like posture, but yeah. At the moment it’s like, extra bad, because I’m just like “Nope, none of that is happening. I don’t need that drama in my personal life right now.” So.
ELM: Yeah, yeah.
FK: You’ve, I mean, you’ve noticed, you’ve noticed how ostrich-like I am right now. I have missed big discourse points and I’m just like—
ELM: Yeah, I’m like “Man, have you seen this?”
FK: And I’m like, “No!”
ELM: “Never even heard of it!”
FK: I am blessed to not know about this. [laughs] At the moment. Blessed.
ELM: I don’t know if—I don’t know if this is sustainable. I think you’re gonna have to pull your head out of the sand.
FK: It’s not. It’s gonna have to change. I just—yeah, it’s gonna have to change. It’s just, um.
ELM: I think you can do it for right now. But I don’t, you know.
FK: No, there’s gonna be a time, just like the economy is gonna have to open up again… [both laughing] So is my social media consumption.
ELM: Strategically! Six feet between you and the discourse.
FK: Six feet between me and the discourse. [laughing]
ELM: Oh man.
FK: Anyways, so yeah. But yeah, I agree with you that there’s a lot of times when we’re like, it seems, it must seem really obvious to some people and we’re like, “Never heard of her! Nope!”
ELM: [laughs] I, I actually, I remember this was really driven home to me when I went to a convention in the summer of 2016, and I mentioned the Star Wars—which we had done a bunch of special episodes about, which was Star Wars and racism and shipping—and it felt like such a huge conversation and literally no one I spoke to had ever, ever encountered any of it. And it was like, people in transformative fandom, people who were on Tumblr, and people who said they were into Star Wars, and I was just like “How?!” And that wasn’t even my fandom and I felt like it was like, all-consuming my feeds, you know. And so it’s just like…
FK: Well, and sometimes that happens even when I’m not ostrich-like between us, too. Like, we even see it then.
ELM: Yeah, yeah yeah yeah. That’s true. So it’s like, I don’t know. There’s a, there’s a limit to how much—it’s a really tricky balance between like, wanting to keep like a finger on the pulse of fan conversations, and especially ones that are about things that are really substantive like that, like, racism and shipping, while trying to filter out what are truly, truly inner-fandom dramas about things that I do not watch and do not care about, you know, like…it’s a hard, it’s a really, it’s a tricky needle to thread, I would say, because I wanna be able to comment authoritatively, but there’s a limit to what I can do, and I think we’ve talked about this before, but especially for “The Rec Center,” we don’t want to become like a bulletin board where people just can—takes can go flying back and forth for things that we don’t actually have any context for, because that doesn’t seem like a particularly responsible thing. You wouldn’t just reblog, arbitrarily, people’s takes on something on your blog that would go out to thousands of people, you know? So…maybe you would. But I wouldn’t.
FK: Yeah. Yeah.
ELM: So I don’t know.
FK: But I do think the best policy, if you genuinely do not want your question to be associated with a fandom in anyone’s mind, is to not ask the question, because that’s the other piece, is that sometimes we possibly guess and get it wrong. Or like, make an assumption.
ELM: Sometimes, other people do that too, right? All the time.
FK: Yeah!
ELM: “Oh, I think you’re talkin’ about blank!” And it’s like, “I was not, actually! I don’t, I’ve never seen that,” you know? Like…
FK: Yeah, yeah, totally.
ELM: Just like, you know, fandom constantly replays its own dramas, you know.
FK: Yes.
ELM: So…
FK: Which is, which is sometimes why I don’t feel bad about not paying attention. Because I’m like “Yeah, I’m pretty sure that this is just the same drama that I have seen over the past 20 years, repeatedly, so do I really need to be…?” And the answer is probably “yes, I should be paying close attention,” because it’s probably slightly different, but sometimes you just look at it and you’re like “Mmm, yep, you sure are having that conversation.” [laughs]
ELM: Yeah, the discourse.
FK: The discourse. It never ends.
ELM: No, no. Excited to see the return of the AO3 discourse right now. [FK sighs] Not excited! The opposite of excited. It’s like something, you can’t even block it, you can’t even whitelist it or blacklist it, rather. You know, like—I’m not whitelisting it. [both laugh] There’s no way. There’s no terms. What am I gonna block, “AO3”? That’s not, you know.
FK: Yeah, and it also sort of, when the discourse is raging, when the AO3 discourse is raging, it makes it impossible to have any critiques of the AO3 without it being immediately co-opted and like—
ELM: Correct.
FK: —turned into this terrible discourse, and you’re like “NO! Not that!” Yeah.
ELM: Correct. Fine.
FK: The whole thing.
ELM: It’s great. Hopefully that will chill out soon.
FK: Yeah.
ELM: Flatten the curve on that discourse, people, don’t reblog it.
FK: [laughs] The curve on the discourse. Yeah, be like me: six feet away from the discourse! Yeah. Social distancing.
ELM: Good messages. We got good messages.
FK: OK. Thank you, thank you very very much for this, nonny, that was a great question.
ELM: Yes, thank you. A delight!
FK: And with that, should we turn to the topic of our episode?
ELM: Con-solation.
FK: Con-solation. So. For anybody who has been even more fandom socially distanced than me, obviously, conventions were scheduled to happen throughout the rest of this year. And they have taken very different approaches to what to do given the current pandemic. And—
ELM: I think “very different” is overstating it. I think most cons are taking a couple of different, somewhat similar approaches.
FK: There’s some outliers!
ELM: Yeah.
FK: There are some outliers!
ELM: OK, hold on.
FK: So…
ELM: Let’s, let’s take a little step back. The first convention-like thing…there’s a bunch of things that are like, kind of straddle the line between conventions and big events and somewhat industry-facing but also fans can go too, and South By Southwest was probably the first to cancel at that scale in the United States.
And I remember people being really taken aback by that, I think that was before…people keep talking about the turning point being when the NBA players tested positive, as the like, “Oh, oh no.” Like, in the United States, of the like, “Oh, this is serious!”
FK: It was before that, because I was, I was paying very close attention because I was supposed to go to Austin for a different reason, not South By Southwest, that week.
ELM: It’s so weird that you were gonna go there during South By Southwest.
FK: It was, yeah. It was not a great idea to begin with, but it was what it was. So, um, yeah, I was supposed to go there for work, for a different thing, and I had just got back from Norway, and for a little while there was this question of like, “Am I going? No I am not going.” [both laugh] You know.
ELM: So there was that. I think that people were more upset for that from the various industries involved, which obviously like, that’s huge, now you have all these films that were hoping to get distribution from it and these artists whose careers are really banked on being able to perform in front of people there, you know, like—so it’s that kind of thing.
FK: But it was, but it was about that time too that some of the major entertainment companies first instituted no-travel rules.
ELM: Right, right.
FK: For—right, so this was, this was the thing for me is that like, suddenly like, people that I was working with were like “We are not allowed to travel and we’re not allowed to pay for you to travel anywhere.” And that happened, like, around the same time as South By got canceled. Which was, you know, that was pretty much the first…I didn’t hear about, I’m sure other industries were doing it but that was the first thing where I was like “Oh! This is like a major, major major change in business policy.”
ELM: Oh, you don’t work in the tech industry. The tech industry was locking down.
FK: You guys had all been for a long time?
ELM: Ah, no, but definitely, my friends who work for big tech companies, they were told to work from home long before anyone else I know.
FK: Wow.
ELM: But then, a lot of them already were working, like, a lot of them were working from home a couple days a week anyway, so it’s like, not a massive change for them and they figured “why not.” But I think it’s because a lot of them, because so many of them are completely global, and so they were observing what was happening in Asia and then in Europe.
FK: Totally, right.
ELM: So. But, OK. So then, aside from South By Southwest, around the same time, the biggest con con, like a proper con, was Emerald City Comic Con was going through this huge, like, public debate about whether they should cancel or not, and it’s very interesting to think about now because that was only like—it was fewer, less than two months ago, and there was true debate about whether it was worth it to put people’s health at risk—this is in Seattle by the way, and Seattle already was the hotspot of the time, cause it was around the end of February beginning of March—and other people were saying “but people’s livelihoods depend on cons like this, and maybe there’s only a couple of cons of this size that they’re able to sell at a year, and they make most of their money at a couple of events throughout the year and what are they gonna do.”
FK: Yeah there was a huge, and I remember—there was a huge, like, swell of people being like “Here are all the people who are vendors at Emerald City Comic Con, go and buy things from them,” you know, to support them.
ELM: After they canceled it right, yeah.
FK: After they canceled it. It was, I mean, that was a huge debate. And that hasn’t persisted even as other cons have canceled, which I suspect is because it gets sort of rolled into the bigger, like, “Are we all going to get checks from the government? Question mark,” you know. Discussion.
ELM: Most of us are getting check from the government. Or have gotten them.
FK: Yes.
ELM: Not very much money, but we got those.
FK: Yes. The continuing discussion about this though, like, of how much aid there will be, and what, you know.
ELM: You know, exciting news that I can announce to everyone: I thought mine was coming in the mail in August because of the way my address was set up on the IRS website, but I just found out today that I think that I may actually get it electronically! Which is so sad, because I thought that I would be able to see that, see Trump’s signature.
FK: Trump’s signature.
ELM: I really thought that that could be a really special experience for me, in August. [both laugh] When I’ve been sitting in my apartment with the air conditioner on for three months, just a special thing to light up my day when it came. No. I want that money now. It’s fine, it’s great. But yeah, it’s, it’s interesting to see.
It was before millions and millions and millions of people were, you know, kind of instantly laid off. I think it’s still, and remains, a sort of—as someone who’s been a freelancer for a long time, like, I think people have a really hard time wrapping their heads around, like, the—what the working rhythms are like for artists, you know? And the idea that you could be really reliant on a couple of things like that, and like, there’s no, you know, for some people there’s no way to make that money up. It’s not like a steady thing where you lost your job. And obviously they’ve expanded on insurance to cover contractors, so hopefully when people can finally get registered [laughs] like, can access some of that like, that’s huge. That’s like a massive change from normal.
FK: Yeah.
ELM: When there were no protections whatsoever.
FK: Mm-hmm.
ELM: But it is interesting to see how that’s kind of fallen through the cracks as a lot of people with more traditional steady employment are unemployed and they get most of the spotlight now.
FK: Completely.
ELM: Which happened in the media coverage after the, you know, after 2008 as well, which I found pretty frustrating. So. Anyway, this is a little, that’s a little bit of an aside. So Emerald City Comic Con eventually canceled, and from that point on, from the middle of March, it’s just been one long string of either cancellations or cons deciding to go online. And it’s been interesting to see how early—obviously things that were going to happen, like, within the last month did really quick cancels, because they had to. But it’s been interesting to see who’s kind of, like, called it well in advance for stuff that’s not gonna happen towards—till the end of the summer, or even into the fall. Just saying, you know.
FK: Nope! Whatever happened.
ELM: It’s interesting to see, you can only speculate about people’s contracts with venues and vendors and things, and about whether making that call early means that they’ll be able to recoup some of the money, or whether maybe they can’t recoup any of that money and so they’re waiting as long as they can to decide what to do.
FK: Absolutely. I mean just having worked on cons many many times, and having run a con as the lead organizer, I think that—whenever I look at the decisions people are making about this, I can only think “I wonder what your contracts are like.” Right? Because I would be shocked if many of these choices were not being made with the question of like, “Well, what counts as,” you know, “what counts as ‘acts of God,’ for insurance purposes?” Right?
ELM: Right.
FK: Is this pandemic bad enough that it is an act of God that has prevented the con from going on, right? Is the venue like—also, like, are the venues working with people? Have the venues been put in a position where they can work with people, because obviously like, if you have a contract with a hotel chain and the hotel itself is worried about going out of business, they’re gonna squeeze you, right? That’s how our economy works!
ELM: Capitalism!
FK: Capitalism! And then similarly the big con that has not canceled so far, right, is DragonCon, and DragonCon—I hate to bring this up so early cause I feel like there’s lots to talk about with everything else, but it’s almost impossible, if you’re on the topic of contracts, not to bring it up, because DragonCon is in Georgia and Georgia is one of the states that is now supposedly open for business.
And there’s been a lot of people, I just saw—I was really relieved to see a lot of people talking about how this open for business business is kind of a way for states to dodge having to give people as much relief. Because if businesses are open, you’re not furloughed any more, there’s no reason the business shouldn’t be open, suddenly it’s like “Oh, are you not going to be open? Are you not going to be holding your event? Well that’s on you then.”
ELM: Right, right.
FK: There’s no more act of God. The insurance doesn’t cover this anymore. And I don’t know, but I would be shocked, if that were not one of the reasons DragonCon is moving forward, because they don’t have any protections—I would think—because Georgia’s open, and in theory, the con can go on.
ELM: OK. So for context, DragonCon is probably the biggest American—I wonder, you know, I can’t think of one that would be this large in Europe either—con that’s like a, I would say is like really fan-run and oriented, that there isn’t—obviously like, some, you know, genre TV stars will show up for panels, but it’s not, you know, San Diego Comic-Con where there’s a big, big corporate presence, you know?
FK: Yeah.
ELM: Marvel have a giant booth or something like that. It’s really fan-focused, fan-oriented, fan-run.
FK: It might be worldwide. I don’t know enough about the Asian con scene to say, but I’ve gotten the impression from the times I’ve sort of been exploring this that those are also a lot more sort of run for profit than, than DragonCon is.
ELM: Right. It’s very hard to find at that scale something that’s very fan-oriented. It’s very easy to find small, small-to-medium cons that are fan-oriented.
FK: Right.
ELM: So that’s really an interesting element of it, and it happens every year, Labor Day weekend, at a collection of hotels, and everyone I know who goes goes every year and loves it, and I, you know, it’s always been on my list and I haven’t had the opportunity to go yet, and I would not go this year if it continues! [FK laughs]
So they, for context, on April 22nd, which was a few days ago from when we’re recording this, they tweeted: “Many things in the world are uncertain right now. One thing isn’t: we are planning to throw one sorely-needed, amazing celebration come Labor Day. We’re moving forward to keep DragonCon 2020 on schedule. Currently there are no plans to reschedule or cancel the event.” They followed it up with, “However, we are keeping in touch with the experts either way and working with our venue partners to make sure everything and everyone stays safe, happy, and healthy. Rest assured, if we ever feel that cannot be accomplished, we will do what is needed to protect our community.”
The responses are very interesting to me because… [laughs] Oh, the first one here is Chuck Wendig wrote, “Uhhhhh…” Just “Uh” with like a whole bunch of H’s. But a lot of them are like “Thank you for keeping the hope alive,” like, “Hoping for the best,” people asking, you know, like, someone says “134 days out, no one knows what the future holds, thanks for keeping me hopeful.” It’s really just most of the—actually Chuck Wendig might be the only person being like “Excuse me?” And everyone else is like “Thank God!” You know? Which is really, really really interesting to see, right now, and I think…it’s really hard to say but it may reflect the kind of fracturing we’re seeing right now from places which feel like they are not being…and I don’t just mean places, I mean communities within…there are a lot of people in Georgia who have been directly affected and had people die or be very sick. But those have been, they’ve been clustered along socioeconomic and racial lines.
FK: Completely.
ELM: As they’ve been elsewhere, as they’ve been here in New York as well.
FK: Yeah, yeah.
ELM: I think when there’s not a scale—I think you’d be hard-pressed to find a person in New York City who did not flee who is not actively feeling it right now, regardless of whether someone close to them has been very sick or has died. But I think if you’re in a place where it’s a little more spread-out, I get the sense from talking to people elsewhere that it can feel a little abstract, even though you may have the best of intentions and want to be, protect other people with your actions. So. I wonder.
FK: Yeah, it’s completely different when you like, are—when every morning feels like a litany of the different people who have been directly, you know, whether or not you—even if you’re not, you go to Facebook and it’s like, “damage report,” right?
ELM: Yeah, right. So that’s not to say that people who live in various parts of the country where there haven’t been a ton of cases aren’t being affected at all. Obviously everyone is, and especially with the economic stuff as well! But like, I have to wonder if it doesn’t feel like it’s super present, then your response to that would be like “Yeah, amazing! You’re giving me something to look forward to.” Whereas my response to that is “Are you kidding me?” Like, that’s—this is nonsense! That’s absurd! You want to put 100,000 people into a couple of hotels, or however many people? I don’t know how many people attend. But like, it’s a lot, you know?
FK: Right, right.
ELM: I have never, never ever ever in my life gotten out of a con unscathed, disease-wise! Like… [FK laughs] You know? And everyone always is like, “Con crud.” OK, it’s not just like you feel—maybe I have a very weak immune system. I have never attended a con and come away with, like, a day of feeling down. I have gotten sick literally every time. You know? Like, SICK.
FK: I could make some joke about you washing your hands more, but, uh…but I too have had this experience. So.
ELM: I wash my hands, unlike men, apparently, I wash my hands constantly, you know?
FK: Certainly everyone who runs DragonCon knows this. I cannot imagine they do not understand the depth of the con crud, right. But, to this point, right, it is not—it seems like immediate nonsense but look at the dates on this. The day they announced this, it was two days after the governor of Georgia announced that they were reopening.
ELM: Right.
FK: Right? That’s just enough time for you to go to your lawyers and look over your contracts and be like “there’s no way out of this.” Again, I don’t run DragonCon, but I would be shocked if that was not part of the conversation. It just seems like clearly that has to be what’s going on. I can’t imagine it otherwise.
ELM: It just feels very…it’s difficult because, so, sports, right? You know sports. You’ve heard of them, right?
FK: Uh, sometimes.
ELM: Ye old sports. I’ve been fascinated to watch the total meltdown in the sports world, the like, psychological meltdown of people not being able to handle having no sports. Which is something that people in other kinds of corners of fandom do not have to contend with right now, because the TV’s still here, and you can still watch your favorite show, and you can still read your fic.
FK: Yeah, the worst thing that’s going on is the cancellation of like, tours, right? For people who are in band fandom.
ELM: Yeah. That music still exists, but there’s something very different about having to watch, like, the—actually I was gonna have to say “old games,” but there’s nothing greater to me than the NFL films, the Super Bowl specials, you know?
FK: Oh my God.
ELM: So magical. Though apparently those are very expensive to license. I was talking to my dad, I was like “Why don’t they just run those NFL films constantly?!” And like, it’s not that cheap. So. But anyway, there’s only so many times when you can watch, like, the lead-up to Super Bowl XXXV, like. [laughs]
FK: And it’s also a very different thing, like, with sports, if you’re in your season, then there’s new stuff. There’s multiple new things every day. Right? And like, that’s a very different pace.
ELM: There’s a lot of content. Constant content.
FK: Super different pace.
ELM: But so, the interesting thing about the sports leagues, much like the tech companies and the massive entertainment companies, like Disney making the call to cancel everything I think was a huge indicator of where things were going. They have the scale, the institutional scale to make these calls and say “the NBA is shutting,” you know. And that takes the decision out of the hands of individual fans, it takes the decision out of the hands of low-paid workers who are facing a question of “Should I go sell popcorn at the—” do they sell popcorn at NBA games? Sell, sell concessions. [laughs] I think they have popcorn! At, at—
FK: I feel sure that they have popcorn.
ELM: I’ve never been to an NBA game, I’ve only been to other…
FK: Oh, really? I’ve been to many. I feel pretty certain there’s popcorn.
ELM: Nope, I’ve been to…
FK: Usually I eat nachos at NBA games.
ELM: I’ve been to multiple NFL games, I’ve been to a Sabres game, and I’ve been to Yankees games. So.
FK: Wow, OK. Growing up it was always, it was always basketball.
ELM: What, am I gonna go to a Knicks game? We don’t, New York State does not have great, that’s our only—until we got the Nets a couple years ago that was our only basketball team and you cannot ask me to root for the Knicks, I’m sorry.
FK: [laughs] Yeah whereas when I was growing up it was the height of the, at the time, Sacramento Kings–L.A. Lakers rivalry and so it was like, you could not miss it.
ELM: Yeah yeah, I get it, you guys have basketball. I get it!
FK: Yeah, we have basketball. [laughs]
ELM: But anyway, so the NBA making that decision or any of these leagues making that decision, and on the flip side of that, Major League Baseball talking about trying to do it in some sort of like, domed environment, make all these thousands of workers come in and like, so many more people than the baseball players, and try to play the season without fans and like, you know, to pull this off they’d have to test them constantly, it’s like, what on earth? This is—OK!
So it’s like, that’s interesting to see in sports because you have these huge institutions that can make these top-level calls. They have big impact, but they also wind up protecting people who are literally not in a position to make that choice, because it’s facing a question of potentially getting sick or starving, you know? That kind of thing. Whereas these cons are so disparate and they’re so…you know, there’s, there’s obviously there’s a couple of corporations that run, you know, like Creation runs cons throughout the, you know.
FK: Yeah.
ELM: But that’s really really different than—and you know, even that probably, they’re gonna have to deal, they could make an overall decision, but there’s individual states doing individual things.
FK: Yep.
ELM: And so they could make a case-by-case decision, whereas like, it’s really weird to see this kind of, you know, the fragmenting of it and the outliers, basically, you know, like this one.
FK: Yeah, and it’s not like—it’s not like there’s a corporate policy about the way that you negotiate your contracts with everybody, right?
ELM: Right.
FK: Because there’s so, so many—I mean again, whatever, if you’re ReedPop or Creation or something like that of course there is. But so many of these cons are run by individual concoms, you know? And some of the smaller ones even, I would be shocked to find out that none of the smaller ones had not, like, failed to incorporate, and so you’ve actually got individual people on the line for, you know, like, on the hook for the money for whatever they’re doing. So I’m sure that it’s like, a very different experience depending on the size of your con and exactly what, how it’s organized and like, the way the structure is.
And yeah, like you said: I don’t trust myself to make good decisions right now, even living in the middle of one of the epicenters of this, and like, seeing the effects of it all the time. I think that I would probably make bad decisions if I were given the opportunity to, just because I’m desperate to get out of my fucking apartment, right?
ELM: Wow, really?
FK: I’m glad when people—well, I don’t know! I don’t trust myself that much, right? Genuinely. I’m tryin’, but I also know that I’m human, you know? And I don’t trust anybody very much to make great decisions about this, like, for themselves, in the heat of a moment.
ELM: Yeah, I don’t know. I would—
FK: I mean I have been walking around New York City and seeing people do things that I think are incredibly dumb, and they are all in the same situation as us, so.
ELM: I thought we were talkin’ about you and what you would do right now!
FK: I’m just saying, I don’t trust myself either! I see evidence of them, and they probably think they’re fine. And I think I’m fine. But like…we can’t trust ourselves.
ELM: Yeah, and somewhere out there someone’s tweeting, “I just saw this person walkin’ a little chihuahua dog—”
FK: Yeah!
ELM: “—you know, scratch their face,” and you’re like “I’m doin’ everything great!”
FK: Exactly! Right? That’s exactly what I mean! You know? Like…
ELM: I saw, I saw a woman pull up her mask the other day to scratch her nose, and it’s haunted me. Like: does she know she did it? Probably not.
FK: Right? And—exactly. [ELM laughs] Exactly. So I think that, right, so I think that it is important that cons are making these choices for us even if they suck.
ELM: Yeah.
FK: Because it’s hard for us to make good choices. But I am interested in the way that cons are choosing to sort of…like, the ones that are canceling, or that are moving online rather, I’m interested in what they’re doing to try and sort of bridge that gap, you know?
ELM: OK. Let’s, why don’t we take a quick break and then we can talk about that?
FK: OK, let’s do it.
[Interstitial music]
FK: OK, we’re back, but before we get into cons going online, or anything else, we need to take a pause and talk about this podcast.
ELM: Did you just reference “PAUSE,” Governor Andrew Cuomo’s plan to…
FK: PAUSE! [both laugh]
ELM: I do remain…“delighted” isn’t the right word, but it just is endlessly hilarious to me that literally everyone else said “shelter in place” or “stay at home” and we came up with like, an acronym. It stands for something I think! And it’s like…
FK: Does it? OK.
ELM: I think it does!
FK: Great, I believe you.
ELM: Please…
FK: It seems like the kind of thing that… [laughs]
ELM: Please, or. Put Ass Under…no. I don’t know. This is too much. I’m not, I’m not on the governor’s PowerPoint team.
FK: Someone I know, someone I know uses the acronym “TYPAITH,” which stands for Take Your Punk Ass In The House. [both laugh] Which I think is really catchy.
ELM: Tell the, I was gonna say “tell the state of New York,” but it feels like, that would be like, I don’t know, the City of Philadelphia. That’d be the official. And it’d be like delivered by Gritty in a PowerPoint. It’d be like “Excuse me, here’s what you need to do.”
FK: Yeah. TYPAITH.
ELM: That’s fine. OK. Pause, pause, because we live in New York, pause it: Patreon.com/fansplaining is what you were about to say before I interrupted you.
FK: I was gonna let you say it. Why don’t you do it?
ELM: I said it! Patreon.com/fansplaining is…
FK: Right. So this is…
ELM: …our Patreon! [both laugh]
FK: And as you guys probably know, or could guess, we have lots of really great thank-you gifts, effectively, for our Patrons, which include we’ve been doing this series of “Tropefest” special episodes for everybody who donates $3 a month or more. And we’ve done three of them in rapid succession, and we’re gonna keep going with them. So, we really encourage anybody who’s got the ability to do so to, you know, chip in a couple bucks.
We should note that there are some really great Patreon rewards that require us going to the post office. So for $5-a-month-and-up Patrons, we’ve got Fansplaining pins, little enamel pins, and for $10-and-up Patrons we have tiny zines, and we are not gonna be sending those out until we are allowed to go to the post office again. But, when we are, we will be sending lots of exciting things there. So.
ELM: Nonessential, but exciting, things.
FK: Nonessential but exciting things. So…
ELM: All right, wait wait wait, go back, Tropefest, we should just say what it is.
FK: Tropefest.
ELM: It’s when we talk about tropes!
FK: Yes, and so far the tropes we have talked about are: “Trapped Together.”
ELM: Yes. “Canon-Divergent AU”...
FK: And “Enemies to Lovers.”
ELM: Uh-huh! And we talk about them in the context of fanfiction, even though I am aware enemies to lovers is also a romance novel trope.
FK: Sure.
ELM: It is!
FK: But we’re talkin’ about fanfic here.
ELM: Yeah. And, uh, I don’t know. I’ve been really enjoying these conversations! I’ve learned a lot about what you think about these things.
FK: I already knew about what you thought about these things cause you tell me constantly. [laughs]
ELM: I can’t wait to let you know! Yeah.
FK: You gotta let me know! I appreciate that you gotta let me know.
ELM: Gotta let you know.
FK: Anyway, we’re not sure what the next one will be, but it’ll be soon, whatever it is. So. We’ll, uh, we’ll keep making ’em if you keep supporting us! And, if you aren’t able to support us monetarily right now, we completely and absolutely understand that. There’s some ways that you can support us without spending any money, by subscribing to us on iTunes—which helps us move up the rankings—and by sending in letters and voicemails like the one that we read on the podcast today.
To do that you can call 1-401-526-FANS and leave a voicemail, or you can send us an email, fansplaining at gmail dot com, you can use the form on our website to send an anonymous question, or you can contact us through social media. We’re “Fansplaining” pretty much everywhere.
ELM: All right! That was good. You did a good job.
FK: Thank you! I really tried to channel my inner public radio. I don’t know that it worked that well.
ELM: You didn’t say anything about “we’re a resource for the community…”
FK: We are a resource for the community, aren’t we? Yeah!
ELM: I don’t think you listen to enough pledge drives to really capture that spirit.
FK: Well, next time I look forward to you taking over and, and really capturing the spirit.
ELM: They’re doing a pledge drive on WNYC in this coming week, so it’ll be fresh in my mind.
FK: Great. That all done, shall we get back to cons?
ELM: Yes! Cons. So, there are two big routes for most cons—DragonCon aside: outright cancellation or going online. And it’s interesting to see…before San Diego Comic-Con canceled itself, which was only about a week ago…no, it was within the last few days! Time doesn’t matter anymore. I was thinking, the only reason I imagine they took so long to announce…I was surprised they took so long because E3, which is in Los Angeles in the beginning of July, or excuse me, the beginning of June, canceled ages ago, and I was really surprised that SDCC was taking so long, because it’s still Southern California, it’s still the same state situation going on, you know. And so…and a similar sort of massive industry side, very important to their respective industries, games and entertainment media.
So I was surprised, but I was thinking like, what would be the point? Like, who would get value out of SDCC going online? I don’t think that film studios would get a great deal out of it. First of all, you can speak to this better than I can, but they don’t actually have much to announce, because they’re in this—they’re paused, even though they’re in California, it’s also a pause. You know? And they’re pushing back their release dates for the things they had wrapped production on and so forth. Their calendars are all screwed up and so much of what they’d built over the last decade at SDCC was like, “Here’s what we’ve got on the slate!” “Get excited, think about our calendar” kind of stuff, you know? So that’s totally shot. You know?
FK: Yeah, yeah, and to be clear, I think that it’s ultimately going to be fine in that like, the things that were in production right now—production has had to be shut down, so the things that were going to come out now are getting pushed until productions can get started again.
ELM: Right.
FK: So that then you can have a continuous pipeline, right. And it also doesn’t make much sense for people to put things in, to put—even if you have a movie in the can, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to put it out now because you’re gonna make so much less money putting it over streaming than you would if you were able to get people into theaters. So, you know, obviously that may change depending on how long this drags out, but for now, it seems like it’s just sort of a “Nope, we’re just, we’re gonna hit pause too!”
ELM: It’s been interesting to see people having no conception of either of those things. Like, the fact that most of these…it was interesting, I was talking about this with some people yesterday online, and like, it’s different for small independent films, right? Especially if they were, like, looking for distribution right now. The ones that were in, like, there’s a series that WNYC is doing called “Tribecish,” and it’s all the people who were supposed to premiere at Tribeca, right? And almost none of them had distribution, right? And they were relying on that to potentially wind up in theaters, right. So they’re doing—
FK: But similarly, like, streaming services are trying to get more content in also.
ELM: Trying to buy those, right.
FK: So it’s, actually if you had a movie that you didn’t have distribution for and you weren’t sure and, like, your hope was that you’d get distribution, like, as a Netflix thing or something? You’re probably in an OK position right now, because—
ELM: Maybe even better, because, yeah—
FK: Yeah, exactly.
ELM: There’s a scarcity. But for the big big blockbusters, I think that it’s been interesting to see people be like “Why don’t they just put it out now?” It’s like, these thing exist in—maybe I overestimate the amount of knowledge the general public has about franchises, because so many fans keep talking about franchises, but like, they exist within a broader sphere and there’s…with other franchises, you know, they’re jockeying for different release weekends or whatever. They’re not gonna just toss it out and be like “Here ya go!” You know? Like, it is all connected to each other. So them releasing it now would have like a domino effect of having a weird gap later, right? So.
FK: Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah, I mean, I think that the thing with San Diego Comic-Con and—there’s lots of reasons that people do things at San Diego Comic-Con, but the big reason is that it is a chance to actually like, touch an excited audience who cares specifically about your thing, or who are excited…
ELM: Not literally touch. They don’t, there’s like…
FK: Some—
ELM: They’re like, on the stage and the audience is like…
FK: They’re on the stage.
ELM: Six feet. More than six feet away.
FK: Or, or people who are ready to get excited about your thing if you can show them something cool enough, right? There’s the people who actually really care about your thing, and then there’s the people who are coming, they’re like, “Wow me!”
ELM: Yeah.
FK: “And then maybe I’ll become an evangelist,” right? God, I hate myself for using that term.
ELM: Yeah, you’re terrible. You’re terrible.
FK: But I’m gonna go with it because that’s, that’s the biz term. So anyway, I think that the thing is that if you’re going to be doing something online that’s not San Diego Comic-Con…I mean, maybe there’s a benefit to having it promoted through San Diego Comic-Con’s channels? But you also might just look to doing something that will just reach your fans, and then you know, yeah. Postpone that sort of big marketing push stuff until next year. That’s intended to get out to people beyond the sort of hardest-core base. So I don’t know. We’ll see.
ELM: Do you, can I ask you with your industry hat on, so they’ve talked for the last few years about Disney retreating from SDCC and starting to pull its stuff towards D23, which is its own—Disney’s own expo basically. And talking about that about whether that was gonna be a sign of the future of that space, is just the individual studios would have enough of a base that they don’t need this huge thing, right? And I’m wondering if you feel like this could accelerate that, you know, if Sony or Warner Brothers or whoever feels like they can reach fans without SDCC.
FK: I’m not sure. I think that there’s…I can’t speak to the Disney of it all, but I do think…I think that there is that going on. I think that there’s also just the fact that places are realizing that SDCC is, is not the greatest place to reach people who care specifically about your thing?
ELM: Yeah.
FK: Because people go to SDCC to go to SDCC. So while it might be good from, again, like I said, from a sort of marketing perspective of like, “Let’s get this out to people who could become evangelists for our thing,” it’s not so great necessarily for “Let’s get this out to people who actually do care about our thing, even when it’s not on the SDCC stage.”
ELM: Sure, right.
FK: So, and I have seen some discussion of that happening in the industry broadly, ideas about what if we went to other cons? Smaller cons? More fan-focused cons? Right? I don’t know that, it’s not a trend yet, but maybe this will cause it to be a trend. But I also don’t know what this will impact on that, right, because if all of those smaller cons are, you know, shutting down, what happens then, right?
And similarly again, there is a bit of a question of how do people message their delayed projects, how do people message the things that are going on as this all drags out. That’s a lot of what my work, strategically, what I’m thinking about these days in my work. So.
ELM: Sure, well. You don’t have any—it’s gotta be incredibly hard too, with like, it’s gonna be one of the very last things that you can open again, is a movie theater.
FK: Correct.
ELM: So…
FK: And, and even if you’re talking about TV or something like that, if the production is shut down—
ELM: Yeah.
FK: —then that’s gonna delay you longer. So, I think that, I think there’s just a lot of questions about how this is all gonna shake out at the end of this, and I don’t think anyone has any answers, and I suspect that SDCC was probably trying to figure out: what is their, where are we gonna land on our choices? And I don’t know.
I mean, of course they have actually canceled it, but I don’t know, I’ve heard some intimations that maybe they’re going to try and organize some big reveals or something like that that are just happening online, that they’re going to try and get people together to at least do some kind of programming during what would have been SDCC weekend. I don’t know that that’s going to be SDCC branded. I would be surprised if we didn’t see people trying to jump in on that weekend and, you know, create some kind of online programming during that time, that people have already in many cases blocked out, right? Taken as vacation or, you know.
ELM: Sure.
FK: Arranged to be free. So.
ELM: It’s interesting though because a lot of the people who would be able to consume this, and who would care, are like, sitting in front of their computers at all times right now, you know. So it’s like, whether you are working from home or you have been laid off—which is a huge portion of people when you put those two groups together, as opposed to just people who are working from home, you know. So it’s like, why do it that weekend when they could announce it, say, this, I mean—I guess maybe it’s tricky to try to like, how do you capture that attention, how do you build that momentum and say “Everybody! This Saturday, big Sony announcement day!” You know what I mean?
FK: Well, they also may want strategically to preserve that weekend as a thing in people’s minds, right? If I had any con, even a small con, running right now, wouldn’t you want to preserve that weekend in people’s minds? The weekend that you always hold your con? Right? I would, from a branding perspective.
ELM: Sure. Yeah yeah yeah. All right, what about the things that are actively choosing to go online? Worldcon is the biggest example for me, and it’s been interesting to observe. OK, Worldcon, for context, goes to a different city every year. It’s like the Olympics, but less geographically diverse. [FK laughs] But this year it was supposed to be in New Zealand, and I do feel bad for folks down in that corner of the world, because it’s rare, I think, that WorldCon is over there, you know. And I saw people saying when they said they were going online, “Can an Australian, a city in Australia or New Zealand have it again soon, because…” You know, that was probably the first year that a lot of Australians would be able to go over, because it’s relatively closer than, you know.
FK: Yes.
ELM: And they were like “Uh…” [laughs] So. I saw that the proposals for the cities next year are not in that area of the world, so I don’t, I don’t actually know how that’s gonna go down. But while I’m very, I’m thrilled to be a Hugo finalist for this year’s Worldcon—that is where they do the Hugos—I was a little surprised to see how much money they’re charging for the virtual Worldcon. It works out to about $200 USD? Which is kind of a lot! You know? And so it had me thinking about, if you pay to go to a con, what are you paying for?
And obviously that depends on the con. For Worldcon, a lot of that is to be in the same space with…if you are in the SFF world, you could potentially be a budding author, you know, just starting out, and you’d be in the same room with George R.R. Martin.
FK: Yep.
ELM: And so what is the value of that when that gets shifted to a digital space is really unclear to me.
FK: And how you even manage it when you shift to a digital space, right? I mean, I would imagine that for Worldcon, more than for something like SDCC, where most people are ultimately sort of a passive member of the audience and then you also go and buy some stuff in the dealer’s room, at Worldcon there’s a lot of parties, there’s a lot of interacting with people, as I understand it. Certainly that’s been the way it’s been for every SFF con I’ve ever been to, I’ve never been to Worldcon.
But I would think for something like that you would really need to think about investing in a lot of Zoom licenses, you know what I mean? A lot of, a lot of different ways, a lot of different strategies to create breakout rooms. You might need to pay people to moderate those breakout rooms, right? I don’t know how they’re going to do it exactly. But I wouldn’t, it just seems like it’s a more complex situation if you’re really going to try and replicate—or even, even replicate a pale shadow of what that networking experience is. It’s—that’s a tall order. Right?
ELM: Yeah, yeah. I mean, it’s something that I know a lot of people are thinking about if they work in industries where much of the exchanges happen at IRL, you know. Every academic I know, you know, most of them anyway, their careers really are structured around presenting…especially depending what field they’re in, but friends I know in like, sciences, going to these, you know, huge conferences and being able to present their papers there? Obviously you can still present a paper online, you know, but it’s not the same thing I think as being able to physically go and meet with the people in your field from around the world.
FK: Yeah, and it’s also, I mean—just things about online teaching, right. Living in a house with a professor spouse, let me tell you I have heard so much about this [laughs]
ELM: Man, I bet he’s great on Zoom. I bet he’s thrilling.
FK: And people who are like, having to do their thesis defense on Zoom or whatever, right, that’s—obviously you can still do it, but it’s a very different deal.
ELM: All right, but no, now you’re bringing it into the challenges that a lot of people have in different industries.
FK: Sure.
ELM: I’m talking about conferences, like—
FK: Conferences specifically, yeah.
ELM: Places where you’d meet people.
FK: Networking issues.
ELM: Lots and lots of industries are having work-from-home issues, and that’s students and teaching is another one of those issues. So.
FK: Yeah, I was just—I was more thinking about the like, physical co-presence stuff. Which is another part of, even if you’re not talking about networking, being physically together is a big part of cons, right? Why do people go to cons, and what are the things that can be overcome if, you know, if it’s inaccessible to you, what are the things that can be overcome through whatever kind of setup, and what are the things that you absolutely can’t replicate without a con?
ELM: Yeah. So this is something I’ve been thinking a lot about. You know, I have a lot of disability activists on my feeds. There’s been so much commentary, even when this all started, about saying “Oh, you told me I couldn’t work from home?” You know, “I have a disability and you said that wasn’t feasible, and now everyone has to do it? Looks like it was,” you know. You’re seeing some of this commentary not around disability but around regionalism, people saying things like “You said you have to be in New York City to work in the publishing industry, and yet you’re all doing it remotely right now,” that kind of thing. Which turns into, you know, a financial argument as well.
And I’ve seen a lot of disability activists, disabled folks on my feed, saying things like “I’m paying attention, I’m gonna see what happens after all this is over,” in a way that’s interesting to me. The way I frame that is kind of saying, at least for the working component of this—not necessarily cons—and I’m curious to know if you think it could translate, is like, right now, tech companies aside—cause they already had the system set up for this—so many industries are completely flying by the seat of their pants trying to scrap together some kind of functional practices, and it’s like, people at like half-brain capacity also, and they’re like “This is so hard!” And it’s like, “It isn’t! I’ve worked from home for years, it doesn’t have to be this hard. It’s just like, we’re all half-zombies right now.” So. But.
There’s a hope I have, especially as this stretches on, that technologists in particular can help people build the structures to be able to do this more effectively, to be able to do this seamlessly, to translate some of the things that they’ve already built within their companies so anytime an employee says “I’m working from home the next two days!” you go “OK!” And that doesn’t affect, you know, because you still have all the structures in place because you’re used to working with teams all over the world, synchronously and asynchronously.
And I’m wondering if there’s a way…a lot of the stuff I’ve seen for cons going online has felt a little slapdash, and I know it’s kind of an emergency situation, and so of course it is, and I’m wondering if there are kind of medium-to-long-term things that can be built to make cons more inclusive in the future to people who aren’t physically able to go to them.
But that being said, part of me is like “Well, what is the thing about,” like, “why is a con a con? What are you actually getting when you’re there?”
FK: Yeah.
ELM: And—
FK: Yeah!
ELM: —can any of that actually be translated into a digital experience? I’m a little skeptical. The things that I find valuable in a con I don’t think would translate. You know? And I’m not, I’m not every congoer, you know?
FK: Right. So one of the things that I think—I think that there’s sort of—there’s multiple pieces about this, right. A lot of the conversation about con accessibility is to do with accessibility in the physical space, or accessibility in terms of like, translation, right?
ELM: Yeah.
FK: And I think that those things are all obviously big issues, still problems, still things that need to be, you know, addressed better by cons. Also, many of them are not things that are so relevant if you are streaming. Obviously things like, you know, if I’m deaf is there closed captioning? You know, that’s relevant, right? But not so much if, you know, again, like, you know: can my wheelchair fit down your hall? Well, if you’re doing it on the computer, if you’re streaming everything, that’s not—I mean, you still have that concern wherever you are, but it’s not the con’s concern, right.
ELM: Right, right.
FK: So I think that there’s that category, and that’s all sort of on pause, you know, until cons are physically together again. Then there’s the part about, like, finances and who can afford to attend cons, right? Who can afford to go and pay for the hotel and all of that. And I’ve seen a lot of conversation about this with people saying, like, “It’s so expensive to go to your con. Why can’t you stream all your panels and, you know, have people pay less or stream them for free or something?” Right? If what we’re paying for, really, is the hotel and the physical space.
And I think that if—if cons go back to being physical, there’s still some problems with that, right? Right now the way that cons are streaming is everyone’s from their own living room, streaming on their own computer. But if you’re physically together in a space, often with like a contract with a venue, it will say you have to hire X company for A/V if you want to have streaming video in your room, if you want to have anything like that you’re required to hire this, our vendor. And that can be very expensive! So it can actually be quite prohibitive for cons to stream more than a little bit of anything. That’s one of the reasons why you don’t see as much streaming. It’s also, you know, a lot of moving parts and so on, which are not as good reasons. But I wonder whether—I mean maybe it’s possible that if people are reluctant to go back to big physical gatherings, maybe venues will have to change their rules, right? And maybe that will become more of a part of cons. I don’t know.
ELM: I just, I’d be curious, like…I would love to do some sort of massive survey and find out how many people who go to cons think that panels are the most important part.
FK: Yeah.
ELM: That is literally my least favorite—no offense to, I mean I’m on panels. But no offense to everyone on panels, but like, it’s rare that that is, that’s a reason…at a smaller con, when it’s more fan-focused, yes, because then often it can feel like a fun discussion.
FK: Right.
ELM: But even then, that’s not something that can translate. It feels very different to me than being in a chat or, right, any sort of digital conversation, because you’re like in a focused space for an hour and you’re all talking, you know, tossing ideas around. And it’s just like, that’s not the way that any chat platform works or has ever worked, right.
FK: Right.
ELM: So much of it is asynchronous. It’s really hard to get the sort of situation where you might have, like, I did a small fan-run con once and I, like, led a discussion group, essentially, of a ship, you know? And it’s like, I guess you could do that digitally? But like, to have the organization to do that, and it just like, it’s really hard to envision that sort of like, the sort of space where anyone can walk in who’s there, and you can see everyone who’s there, and it takes away the…you know, when I’m in a space like that, I’m way less on edge about the idea that someone is gonna shout out something that’s like, super offensive. Even though obviously it could happen, there’s something about the physical space, I think, that raises the bar for people to feel comfortable doing that, whereas in any online discussion I’m like, “OH NO who knows,” you know what I mean?
FK: Right.
ELM: Actually, you know what this reminds me of? Is when you preached that sermon on Zoom and that, that man wrote in the chat—am I allowed to talk about this?
FK: Yeah, so I was preaching a sermon and this guy wrote in the chat. I was like—
ELM: On Zoom.
FK: On Zoom, it was on Zoom.
ELM: It was like the first, like, the first week of Zoom church.
FK: And this guy wrote in the chat, like, it was just a few minutes in and he was like “This sermon’s really depressing, I might bail!”
ELM: No no, no no no, he said “Anyone else thinking of bailing?” He wrote it clearly as like—cause it’s like Zoom, so it’s like a chat on the side, and I was just like… [gasps] And then one of our other friends who was watching it immediately like DMed me and was like “NOT COOL!” His name was—ah, I shouldn’t say his name on the air. But like.
FK: I mean, like, whatever. It didn’t bother me that much. Someone in my congregation sent him a delightful message that communicated that this was perhaps not the most polite thing to have said on Zoom.
ELM: Oh yeah? The immediate response—because I’m sure everyone was just like “What do we do?!” And then someone did a little prayer hands emoji and said like “Peace be with you,” and it felt so perfect, it was like “Goodbye!”
FK: He apologized to me afterwards also, so I bear this dude no ill will. I think that he just didn’t know what the situation was or like, that that was inappropriate? But it was, it was a thing.
ELM: It was just such an indicator of like, the kind of online behaviors that are utterly, utterly unacceptable IRL. Like, you can think that in your head! He could’ve—
FK: [laughs] But no one—if I was preaching this sermon, no one would have stood up and been like “Yo, anyone thinking about bailing? This is kinda depressing.” Can you even imagine?
ELM: “It suuuuucks!” [laughs] Right! Like, those are inside thoughts! You could like, stop listening, I’ve seen people like, doing their—balancing their checkbooks during the sermon or whatever, all the classic things. These are like, that’s an old-school reference but people truly still do that, you know.
FK: I’ve observed it happen in church. Church is full of old people.
ELM: Yes. But going about their business. But no one will say—and sometimes people will whisper to each other and I’ll be like “Maybe you should just go to brunch right now! You should skip this, because if you’re just gonna talk…”
FK: You’re really judgy! You’re really judgy during church. [laughs]
ELM: I’m sorry, I’m sorry, if you are just whispering to the person you’re with through the entire service? You should’ve just gone to brunch. Because you clearly don’t wanna be there!
FK: In any case, judgment aside, I agree with you that there’s a difference. But I will point this out, which is that at a convention, right, the very thing that makes you and me feel more calm about being with other people in that physical space? That’s not shared by everybody, right? There are people who have social anxiety in those contexts. There are people who are really on edge about, like, what’s going to happen. Will somebody say something to me in person, which I find harder than, you know.
ELM: Right. A lot of people have trouble with in-person interaction. I’m just talking about the potential for someone to act like a troll is lower.
FK: Sure. I think it is too, but I do think that this is sort of one of the challenges with cons, is that that in-person stuff is the point of cons for me?
ELM: Yeah.
FK: And so there are some people, if you have that level of social anxiety, like, there’s no way to make a con accessible to you.
ELM: Right.
FK: Or maybe there is in the sense of like, you may have strategies, there may be ways that you—if there’s a chill-out room, that may make it more accessible, right—but ultimately it is about people being physically together in in-person interactions.
So that’s a challenge, and that’s also a challenge with regard to things going online, right? Because unlike with work, right, when…with work, I can have a Zoom call with somebody that’s specifically intended to be, you know, us talking, but it is also true that like, we’re not going to—you know, we can establish coffee break times to chat or whatever, but we’re not going to be in an office and like, chatting about things, right?
ELM: Well, it depends on your workplace. My, my old job, everyone was remote and I had it for two years, we did everything on Slack, we regularly hopped on the phone just to have a chat…
FK: Right.
ELM: We had almost no scheduled meetings. We just said like, “Hey, are you around for a quick check-in?” You know?
FK: Sure, yeah!
ELM: And, and we had multiple channels of Slack where we just chatted! And they, it was really important to the people who ran the company that we be able to—
FK: To just chat, yeah.
ELM: —replicate the chatting of an office, and I felt closer to one co-worker that I work with than I have to any other co-worker I’ve ever worked with, and he lived in England, you know?
FK: Yeah, yeah.
ELM: So it’s like, I think it depends on your workplace.
FK: Right.
ELM: But everyone who says that you can’t replicate those things online is just not making the right choices, because you can. And you know, maybe—
FK: Or, or they’ve never experienced everybody being remote, right. Because that’s the other thing that I’ve noticed. As a person who’s—like, I’ve always worked remote, but then the only one remote in my office?
ELM: Yeah.
FK: And now, all of those things can be replicated, because everyone’s doing it, right? Whereas I think that there is—if everybody’s in an office and there’s just one person remote, I don’t think that someone should be denied that if they’re disabled and need it, but I do think there is a point to saying: “Well, everyone else is having this conversation in a,” you know, “in a coffee break room, and you know, you’re gonna miss out on that and that’s too bad.”
ELM: Sure.
FK: Again, that’s not to say that I think people shouldn’t be allowed to do it. I do think people should be allowed to do that. I just, you know, there is a real thing people are talking about in terms of like, if everyone’s together and one person’s out. And I know, because I live it. All the time. [laughs]
ELM: Odd man out! Yeah, all right. But going back to cons, it’s just like, it is true for me too and it’s like, it’s been interesting to see—so in “The Rec Center” we’re running this section called “Lockdown Stuff” and it’s really meant for like, smaller cons going online, and fests, and you know, challenges and stuff like that. Just like, organized fannish things that are happening online. And the fests mostly like, we’ve never done that before, but we could’ve been a bulletin board for fests this whole time, because those just, you know. Like, Big Bangs, which you now know aren’t just about sex…
FK: Agh, stop making fun of me!
ELM: You dirty, dirty-minded…
FK: I didn’t think they were just about sex. That is a—
ELM: I’m blowin’ up your spot, blowin’ up your spot!
FK: That is also an irresponsible way of framing it! I—
ELM: Anyway, anyway…
FK: No, I feel like I have to say this to clear my name! I knew perfectly well what Big Bangs were about but because I always read ones that were about ships I thought there was also an implied element to the “big bang” term that meant that there was like an explosive love connection in most of the stories, because that was what I saw in most Big Bangs, even though obviously I knew that some of them didn’t have that in it, I was like, “But like the implication is about like the ship.”
Turns out, no one else held onto this implication, and I discovered this like, literally last week and it blew my mind, because for 15 years I have had close enough of a definition that it has never come up in all of the time that I’ve been reading Big Bangs, and talking to people about Big Bangs, but in my head I’ve been thinking something different than everybody else, and I am boggled! And also embarrassed!
ELM: OK. For the record, you’re not just getting this from me. You like read the Fanlore entry for it. Like…
FK: No! It’s lots of people! The moment that I found this out, I actually found it out from someone other than you at first and I went to you and I was like, “Please help me, I think that I am losing it,” and it turns out the answer was, “It’s not that I’m losing it, it’s that I had lost it for 15 years. I’d just lost the plot on this one.”
ELM: I love that this is the thing that’s gonna give you your breakdown. It’s incredible. I can’t.
FK: [laughing] Anyway, back, back to cons.
ELM: I can’t.
FK: Because we’ve been talkin’ awhile, we need to get back to cons—
ELM: Fests!
FK: —to fests…
ELM: Right. So, so all these, all these [laughing] all right. Moving along. All of these small cons going digital, I’ve noticed a bunch of them, they were basically saying that like, “We’d always run this Con-solation thing,” like “con dash solation” is a popular construction, “for people who couldn’t make it to the con, and it was like, everyone who was at home, and they would still like meet up to chat and would do prompts and challenges and stuff for the weekend, and so now we’re just gonna turn that to everyone,” you know, “everyone’s gonna do the thing that we were already doing for people who couldn’t make it.”
And I think that’s awesome, and I think it’s great to have these like, scheduled meetings, you know, like, I’m really appreciating when I have, you know, I have certain groups of friends that we’re having like, scheduled times with to hang out and stuff and do a game or whatever. That’s great! But it’s funny to me, because to me, it sort of feels like…it’s a lot of the things that I normally do day-to-day in a fandom, but it’s like happening in one weekend. So my daily fandom life is like thinking about, “Oh, should I do this fest,” like, “Oh look, people are chatting about this over here” or whatever.
And a con to me is so wildly different because like, I don’t do, like, IRL meetups with people I’m in the same fandom with ever, you know? Actually, and even going to cons, it’s mostly just people who are in fandom, it’s not people who are in my fandom, you know what I mean? So it’s like, it feels very marked different from my regular life, whereas meeting up with people and doing things online over a weekend around fandom doesn’t feel super-different? And I think it’s totally totally fine for now, but it also is just kinda like, “Yeah, it’s a consolation!” You know? To me it just kinda highlights what I really get out of physically going to these places. And being able to be in the same room with people who live thousands of miles away just for a couple of days, like, it’s really different to me than being able to talk to them on Skype.
FK: Yeah, that said I do think that I am now Team Let’s Do More Video Chatting on, in fandom? And I know there are some people who do tons of video chatting already, shout-out to all the Reylos I know who are like, constantly in contact with each other. But, for me, that hasn’t been a huge part of my life, and and I really have enjoyed it, because people who I normally would meet up with in the One Direction fandom, to like go drinking and listen to One Direction songs or like, karaoke or something, we’ve moved some of that stuff on Zoom! Just the way you would move a dinner party or like, a cocktail hour or something like that. The way that every other party has been moved. And that’s been great! And I really wanna do that with more people who I normally wouldn’t be able to hang out with online, right? So that we can…
ELM: I mean, I have that with—
FK: Interact, you know?
ELM: —even non-fandom friends, right?
FK: Sure.
ELM: Like, one of the groups that I’ve been seeing a lot, most of them don’t live in New York, you know?
FK: Yeah.
ELM: They’re the kind of people that I see, they’re all from college so I saw them at Reunion and a bunch of us went to India last year for our friend’s wedding and stuff, and so that was awesome, and I always—they’re the kind of friends where immediately you fall back into it and there’s no small talk and no awkwardness because you have that deep connection. And I think that’d be great, to have that—I guess I have that with some fandom people too, and people who live across the country, we’re chatting and stuff, but it’s different! It’s really different to be able to, I don’t know, it’s different for me to get in a plane and go to California!
FK: Sure.
ELM: Be like, “Ha ha, California’s so funny,” you know?
FK: It’s true.
ELM: “I’m gonna wear some sunglasses!” I wear them here, too, also. But you know what I mean, right? Like, it’s just…it’s just…
FK: [sighs] Yeha.
ELM: It’s removing yourself. It’s like putting yourself in a different situation as opposed to like…
FK: Not to mention Zoom fatigue.
ELM: You know?
FK: Yeah, totally.
ELM: So, it’s just like, yeah. I mean, obviously it’s not something that I’m so desperate to do that I would like fly—if they announced San Diego Comic-Con was back on, I would absolutely not go! Right? I still have severe physical side-effects that cause me pain every day from the disease you gave me at Comic-Con last year!
FK: Can I just say you would have gotten that disease from someone else if it wasn’t me?
ELM: Think of all the droplets that came out of your mouth and directly went into my mouth while we shared a bed day after day after day and you [coughs] and it went directly at me!
FK: Did I hear the trope “bed-sharing” but in the grossest way possible?
ELM: [laughs] Droplet-sharing!
FK: Droplet-sharing! I will say I did, my last post on Instagram was sharing a photo of you and me and friend-of-the-pod Nozlee hangin’ out in a pool…
ELM: Oh, Nozlee who also got me sick.
FK: Zan took this photo, it’s a great photo, and I was just thinking about how on the—like, on the one hand I would give anything to be in a Southern California pool with all of you right now. At Comic-Con! And on the other hand in that photo I was already like, sick, and later that night I was so sick I was like, gonna be weeping. And like, that’s the reality of that photo, and yet I feel such great nostalgia for that moment even knowing that it had in it the seeds of, of my own destruction! And I feel like that’s a really good metaphor for everything that we’re living right now.
ELM: Look, look. I, as I said I’ve gotten sick after every single con, some of it truly debilitating, like that one. I was sick for months. And I still choose to keep going to cons.
FK: Great.
ELM: It is different right now, because it’s like, I don’t know what it is about it, and maybe if I were to, you know, eventually like, now they’re expanding the antibody tests, if we happened to have had it, maybe I would feel differently after?
FK: Yeah.
ELM: But it’s something about—it’s so weird, because it’s like, even if I had had it I feel like I would still feel incredibly uncomfortable about it even happening, right?
FK: Right, totally.
ELM: Because, because the people being exposed—and I don’t know why I never feel that way when I go normally even though I get sick! So obviously people are being exposed to viruses in that cesspool, you know? Like…it’s gross!
FK: I think this is a question that doctors are asking about the, like, every year’s flu, that they’re asking constantly: “Why do we all suddenly care, this happens every year with the flu!” I mean, this is much worse, right, that’s why we all suddenly care.
ELM: Because it’s concentrated. But it’s like, “What if I told you this actually happens every year, but in a stretched-out way,” you know, and like, it is very interesting to me. I don’t know. There was that really great—did you read that really good piece by Ed Young about how this will end, in The Atlantic? This was really widely shared, he’s one of their lead science writers.
FK: Yes, I did.
ELM: He had a framing device talking about friends who have babies who, babies that are being born right now, and he called them “Generation C” for “coronavirus,” and there was a part that like, just made me so, it made me very emotionally moved where he was kind of winding down a section and he was talking about like, well, you know, eventually there’ll be like a vaccine that you have to get every year, and eventually maybe it’ll be so commonplace that Generation C won’t even care to get the vaccine at all.
And I was just like “OH MAN you’re talkin’ about the flu right now!” [laughs] Like it was such an indictment of our baseline state of, of lack of care about public health. This kind of idea that we could be so caring right now, and in 20 years’ time, many people could still be at risk and we would just be like “Uh, I don’t really wanna get that. I’m busy. I don’t wanna stop at CVS and get that thing,” you know?
FK: Well…
ELM: I just brought it right now. Right down.
FK: You did. On that really depressing note, I think that we do have to end.
ELM: Yeah. We do. I, uh, I don’t know. I, you should let me know if you’re gonna go to any of these digital cons, because I haven’t been to any. I actually haven’t logged on to my private fandom Tumblr in like a month. I haven’t…
FK: Wow.
ELM: I’ve barely been thinking about James McAvoy. I know that’s really hard for you to believe.
FK: That is, that’s an indictment of the situation.
ELM: Actually, did you know he was—I did check on him early on to make sure he was self-isolating.
FK: Good.
ELM: He was.
FK: I’m glad. Glad to hear it.
ELM: Yeah.
FK: All right, that’s a happy note: James McAvoy self-isolating, gonna be fine.
ELM: [laughing] I’m not worried about any celebrity, for the record, except maybe Ben Affleck who was recently photographed lifting up his mask to smoke a cigarette in a sad way, as he always does.
FK: [laughing] That is the most…
ELM: I mean I’m probably not worried about him either, frankly.
FK: Ben Affleck! He’s gonna be fine.
ELM: It was an exquisite picture. It’s like, every time he does these things it’s destined for memedom. He’s a walking meme basically. So.
FK: Yeah, all right, OK. Well, I’m gonna talk to you later, Elizabeth. We’ll hope that neither James McAvoy nor Ben Affleck get the coronavirus.
ELM: [laughing] Don’t, don’t say it!
FK: And I will, uh, yeah! I’ll talk to you later, and who knows, maybe, maybe we’ll go to a—I mean, definitely we’ll go to a con again someday. It’s not a “maybe.” We’ll do that.
ELM: No, there’s no maybe! This is like, “Oh, maybe we’ll never go to the movies—” No! Like, no. We’ll go to the movies again! Like, it’s just like maybe not for a couple years…which is sad to think about. Yes.
FK: All right.
ELM: Someday. Someday.
FK: Well, I’ll talk to you later, Elizabeth.
ELM: OK. Bye, Flourish.
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FK & ELM: Thank you everybody who has pledged to support our podcast, and especially Alaine Sepulveda, Amanda, Amy Yourd, Anne Jamison, Bluella, Boxish, Bradlea Raga-Barone, Carl with a C, Carrie Clarady, Chelsee Bergen, Christopher Dwyer, Citizen D, CJ Hoke, Claire Rousseau, cordsycords, Desiree Longoria, Diana Williams, Dr. Mary C. Crowell, Earlgreytea68, Elizabeth Moss, Elasmo, elledubs42, Fabrisse, Felar, Froggy, Georgie Carroll, Goodwin, Graham Goss, Gwen O’Brien, Heidi Tandy, Heart of the sunrise, Helena, Ignifer, Jackie C., Javier Grillo-Marxuach, Jennifer Brady, Jennifer Doherty, Jennifer Lackey, Jennifer McKernan, Josh Stenger, Jules Chatelain, Julianna, JungleJelly, Karen Kanipe, Katherine Lynn, Kitty McGarry, Kirsteen, Kristen P., Lizzy Johnstone, Lori Morimoto, Lucy in Bookland, Mareinna, Maria Temming, Mariah Mercer, MathClassWarfare, Matilda Filch, Matt Hills, Meghan McCusker, Menlo Steve, Meredith Rose, Michael Andersen, Milarca, Molly Kernan, Nary Rising, Naomi Jacobs, Nia H, Nic, Nozlee, Paracelsus Caspari, Poppy Carpenter, Quietnight, Rachel Bernatowicz, Sam Markham, Sara, Secret Fandom Stories, Sekrit, Simini, StHoltzmann, Tara Stuart, Veritasera, Vita Orlando, and in honor of: A.D. Walter Skinner, fandom data analysis, One Direction, BTS, Francis Crawford of Lymond and Sevigny, and Yuri Katsuki, and Captain James McGraw Flint Hamilton.
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