Date: Wed, 20 Apr 2005 14:21:10 -0400
To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>
From: "Mike B." <omni at omniphile.com>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: rehash of mundanes VS fans
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>

At 01:34 PM 4/20/05 -0400, Michael Pederson wrote:
>Mostly because it's a missed opportunity. Fandom had a chance to bring
>media, comics and anime into our fold but there were too many people
>that had a very exclusionary attitude about non-literary SF.

I was around at the time you are talking about I think.  We never had a
chance to "bring them into our fold", and what was resisted was having
ourselves overrun by people we had little in common with.  I still don't
see the attraction of comics and anime, though I do admire the artwork of
some comics, and the story lines of a few aren't bad...but the medium gets
in the way of the message for me.  I can't stand novels with artwork in
them either...on the cover is ok, but after that I just want words.  Media
fen I talked about in a prior message, so I won't repeat it here.  They
just seem to have a whole different intent in their stuff than SF fans do
and I don't see them as compatible.  Kind of like sports fans and game
theory experts...you might *think* they have a lot in common, but they
don't really.

>20,000 attendees. Us: World Con - 6,000 on a good year. We're the runts
>on the block now and have to learn to be more accepting of our bastard
>children.

I'm not sure you can claim that anime, and especially not comics, are
"bastard children" of fandom.  Comic cons seem to have grown up separately
from what little I've seen of it.  Anime I saw as a side interest at some
cons, but mostly among the younger gamer types than those who read much.

Has Worldcon ever had attendance much over 10,000?  Even at its largest?  I
seem to remember the last Noreascon I went to being about 8000, and that
was in the early 80s.

I don't think that SF fandom has ever been that large.  It takes some
effort to read a book, unlike watching a movie or TV show, and tends to
attract thinkers rather than watchers.  Those are always in the minority
from what I've seen of history.  If you want a *really* big event, look at
the fly-in at Oshkosh...about 800,000 people every year, and they'd have
more if the area could support it in terms of hotel space (folks are
staying as much as 100 miles away now).  Or the Sturgis bike rally...over
500,000 every year.  Other bike rallies have numbers that dwarf SF, media,
anime and comic con attendance combined...Daytona Bike Week, Laconia, etc.,
etc..

BTW, Mensa has the same issues...a lot more people are qualified than
actually join, and only a small percentage of those who join actually show
up at events.  They are trying to figure out why too...

A more rational measure might be what percentage of SF fans actually go to
cons and become part of "fandom"?  Those are folks we might potentially
manage to include.  We aren't likely to attract those who aren't interested
in reading SF to start with.  What things might fans who aren't currently
in fandom find interesting at a con?

-- Mike B.
--
Had there been an actual emergency, you would no longer be here.