fandom, get your shit together

[solarbird]

What the hell, fandom? I mean, I know, everybody is terrible lately, but c’mon.

Mark Does Stuff went public with the abuse and harassment he faced as FanGoH(!) at ConQuesT. Jesi Pershing, who resigned from the concom over their refusal to act, adds her account here.

MidAmeriCon II, despite being a separate convention, is clearly feeling some blowback and trying to get ahead of this right now. I hope they mean it. Rachael Caine has made a statement about being fed up with this bullshit.

Meanwhile, Rainfurrest is down, perhaps for the long term, due to misbehaviour including significant hotel damage and actionable assault. That’s quite the writeup. They did not get ahead of things, and it’s taken them down. Which is why it’s probably good that Katsucon is taking immediate action in response to similar bullshit happening at their event this year.

In short, TAKE SOME GODDAMN NOTES, PEOPLE – get ahead of this or go down. I like our shiny conventions. Stop wrecking them.

eta: File 770 now has a post up about it too, with a big comment thread.

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Comments

[oh6]

That's pretty disturbing, regarding Rainfurrest and Katsucon. I've been hearing about harassment and abuse at conventions for a while, of course, but I had thought it was increasing recognition of an existing problem, and this makes me wonder if it's getting worse.

[solarbird]

I have knowledge of this sort of vandalism at non-SF events in the 1980s and 1970s. And of course such things have happened before. So it's not unknown beforehand - Shriner conventions used to be infamous specifically for things like hotel damage, for example.

I don't really know if there's a trend, because I lack real data, but the vandalism-to-hotels damage is not something I've seen associated with F&SF cons, historically. I imagine it, like so many other things, is cyclical - but that means you need to get ahead of it to blunt any surge, and reinforce that "you do not. fucking. do. this."

[julian]

The worst I've heard of with SF fandom instances is Disclave, the year or so before it ended. As far as I'm aware, it's not a /trend/, but individual incidents do stand out because they then contribute to a Problematic Perception, from the hotel POV.

[vatine]

All of a sudden, I had a (minor) moment of clarity. Reading "she took her pants off" and seeing people not (necessarily) considering this overtly sexual behaviour, I was all of a sudden reminded that in US parlance, "pants" are trousers, not undies.

It is still very much Not OK, unless you have rather specific contexts.

[solarbird]

While people focus on that, that's really less the point for me and more the "rubbing her legs up against his partner" part. People seem to focus on the "removal of trousers" and miss the "rubbing on him" part.

[vatine]

Both are WAY out of line.