Sunday, Wiscon 33, Part 2

Sunday May 24th, 2009, continued

"Media vs. Book Fandom"
Ariel Franklin-Hudson (m), Constance Callahan, Sigrid J. Ellis, Jacqueline A. Gross, Michael D. Thomas

The description read: "Do you know what Paul Gross arms are? Has anything ever harshed your squee? How do SF/F print and media fandoms get along? Is there a generational difference? Gender differences? Race differences? Vocabulary differences? Do people tend to participate in both, or only one or the other? What does each fandom think of the other? Where do comics fans fit in? And what about those crazy bandom people?"

I wasn't sure what to expect, but even then, it wasn't what I expected. That said, I found it incredibly interesting. I was particularly interested in how print and media fandoms get along, and what I learned is that they're not exclusionary; most agreed they were both. (I wonder if they'd say that at a media con; I expect print fandom to also watch media, but I'm not sure it works the other way around.)

One thing that struck me while listening to it is that many of the "classic" SF/F/H that I hear about at cons, which are often before my time, are *WAY* before the time of the younger fan. Is it still relevant to them? Is my feminist protagonist not believable to them because they didn't face the battles she did? Is it like me reading an novel from the twenties or something?



After the panels and dinner, there were parties, parties, parties. The Belly Dancing Party (Woodrow "asim" Hill, Jenn Pelland) was experiential, which was fun. I joined in for a little bit of circle dancing, preferring to sit out the belly dancing. The Fancy Dress Party just meant that there were a lot of people in the party room wearing fancy dress and looking terribly overheated (some outfits were steampunk and layered), but it was beautiful to look at. I wandered from room to room, talking occasionally, but mostly having a good time wandering from room to room. For one thing, the breeze from walking kept me cooler ;-)

I went to bed at a decent hour, not wanting to be out of it for the panel I would be leading early the next morning.