From: "Ernest Lilley" <elilley at mindspring.com>
To: "'WSFA members'" <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: Shocking News! Sci-fi conventions are luring fewerfans
Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2004 18:10:55 -0500
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>

So fandom changes. Is that bad? Did we want our vision of the future to
live forever?

Ernest

ern at e357.net / (703) 371 0226 hm/cell

-----Original Message-----
From: Michael Walsh [mailto:MJW at press.jhu.edu]
Sent: Thursday, November 04, 2004 4:43 PM
To: WSFAlist at WSFA.org
Subject: [WSFA] Re: Shocking News! Sci-fi conventions are luring
fewerfans

> mike at nthzine.com 11/4/04 4:17:31 PM >>>
>Very true. And this article doesn't mention that anime cons are
>getting
>larger and larger every year. Plus DragonCon and San Diego
>Comic Con
>have both topped out at over 30,000 people the past few
>years. SF
>fandom is larger than ever. It's just become very very very
>different
>than the fandom that we all grew up with.
>
>Michael D. Pederson
>Publisher/Editor
>Nth Degree

What some call "fandom" is not the "fandom" that I first encountered in
the late 60s, not the"fandom" that Ted White encountered in the 50s.

Are folks who go to the San Diego ComicCon and/or Dragoncon "fans" ?
Is there a commonality between those folks and what I think of fans,
what Ted thinks of fans?  I think there is a growing chasm.

But books continue to sell.  So I usually have hope.

mjw