The problem is two-fold: no barrier to entry, and no goal for the con. "Anime" is such a freakin' broad category - broader than video games or nearly any other geekdom - that the con really has no actual focus. Now, it's fine to have a con that has no particular focus, but if you don't provide some kind of barrier to entry - implement some kind of challenge to provide direction to the con - you'll wind up getting this giant amorphous blob of people, all in various states of maturity, with no particular direction.
Anime, by and large, is a passive activity. You just sort of sit back and let entertainment enter your eyeballs. There are interactive aspects to the fandom - cosplay, drawing, LARP'ing, fanfic - but none of those are actually inherent to the activity itself. So, since nobody has to do something interactive in order to be an anime fan, most don't. This means that the fans won't challenge themselves, and if they won't challenge themselves, they'll never self-assess and subsequently never mature. This is a problem with all passive/escapist entertainment; since you don't have to do anything, the activity enables the lazy to be lazy.
That's why the attendees are so immature; they're not usually challenged by their fandom, so they never grow up. Even if you try to challenge them, since challenges aren't necessarily inherent to all anime, they can still escape that challenge. Think about all those punk kids who hate Evangelion; there's nothing making them watch Eva, and they have a plethora of other non-challenging ego-padding shows, so they avoid the show that might force them to think about who they are.
Otakon is basically like a giant fenced-in playpen. They just sort of turn the attendees loose and babysit them for a weekend. What they need to do is start emphasizing the challenging and interactive parts of the fandom, and provide some kind of raised bar that ensures a quality con experience.
The thing is, I've noticed this at CTcon too. The anime fans I encountered, by and large, were less mature (on average) than the gaming fans I encountered. It wasn't as bad as Otakon, but it was still quite noticeable.
I only really say that, mostly because you guys are going into SUCH detail to explain pros and cons about Otakon and even say "If we were at Otakon right now, this is what we would be doing. Go here, go here, see that, talk about that." Might be more fun in audio form.
But, in going back and listening to the Rym and Scott of several years ago, weneverdid much with the con itself, and attended very little actual programming. Most of the fun, we brought ourselves.
Welcome to every con for me. As I think Pete put it once, "Half the fun of cons is misadventures with your friends in a strange city." At PAX we spent over an hour looking for hot wings, a task that stretched into the next day after we we hit 4 different bars and got pretty drunk. Do I need to go to cons for this, no, but the fun just seems to get amped up by them. Like when Wyatt didn't tell Pete and Nuri I was in the hotel room to try and produce a hilarious story. Stuff like that doesn't happen when I just visit Pete, I just ended up in a skirt.
Pete, your argument is still bullshit. It has nothing to do with the medium of the geekery whatsoever. Science fiction is just like anime, a completely passive activity. You watch movies and you read books. Comics are also a passive activity. Yet, the atmosphere, demographics, and maturity levels at sci-fi, comic, and anime conventions are all completely different. Also small gaming cons, like Ubercon, are completely different from large gaming cons, like PAX.
The way people behave at a convention is almost completely dependent upon the convention itself. It's all about the way the staff behave, the way the convention is organized, etc. All of these psychological factors affect the behavior of the attendees the same way that the rules of a tabletop RPG change your behavior at the table.
Pete's argument is not BS. I just don't agree that anime has to be a passive activity. Otakon and cons like it MAKE it completely consumption-oriented and passive. What we're doing at NYAF (which we've tried to do at Otakon for years) addresses this in an initial way. Our MC'd screenings are a big step toward engaging fans with the medium, challenging them, and getting them to broaden their anime horizons.
"Anime" is such a freakin' broad category - broader than video games
Ummmm what? Explain that one Pete. Because I'm pretty sure the argument goes the other way. Since Video games has all the categories anime has plus the advantage of coming from more then one country.
Ummmm what? Explain that one Pete. Because I'm pretty sure the argument goes the other way. Since Video games has all the categories anime has plus the advantage of coming from more then one country.
Also, ConnectiCon is an "everything" convention. It's as broad as can be, yet the culture is very different.
I just don't agree that anime has to be a passive activity.
I never said that it has to be passive; I said that it is passive, which is another way of saying that it is not necessarily interactive. The interactive aspects of anime are entirely optional; you have to want to get into cosplay, fanfic writing, and so forth. The problem is that because it's optional, a proportion of the fandom will simply elect to not be interactive.
If you take, say, video game fandom, those things are necessarily interactive. On average, most video games are more interactive than most anime. As a result, on average, video gamers will be more inclined to engage in the interactive aspects of fandom because the activities are necessarily interactive. This will also result, on average, in a more mature crowd.
That's the whole point of engaging in challenging and interactive activities. It forces self-assessment. That's why we like challenging video games and anime and what have you; we like to engage in self-assessment, and more challenging things are better because they force a greater degree of assessment.
The problem is that because anime can be a passive activity, it often is, and there is no challenge applied. You have to actively provide challenges to anime fans. Gaming provides inherent challenges and needs very little direction otherwise.
So, no, my argument is not BS. You're just not reading it correctly. I speak accurately; every single word matters.
You'll also note that I said that the problem of anime cons is inherent to anything that is a passive consumption activity. Yes, you can add things to those activities to make them interactive, but those are not the default, and unless you have an environment that encourages and emphasizes those challenging aspects, the majority of fans will not seek them out.
Sure. "Anime" means "animation." That's it. It's an artistic medium and nothing else. The stories and tropes that comprise anime can be absolutely any story telling elements. There are no hard and fast rules regarding the content, length, depth, or means of interaction with anime.
Video games, necessarily, have rules, and all games can readily be broken down into game theory components. They are games first and an artistic medium second. As a result, there will be less total variety in video games because they have a focus on being games and not necessarily mediums of expression, and the majority of their purpose can be broken down into a handful of easily understood categories.
Ergo, video gaming is more focused than anime. More focus = less variety = narrower field of experience.
A truly passive anime fan would not be at a convention.
Yes they would. They're passive about anime. They're not as passive about social interaction. The anime is sidelined by the social experience.
Gaming cons are attended by many people who engage solely in passive behavior. They attend panels and the concerts, but do not actually play games.
The majority? I doubt it. What gaming cons are we looking at here? PAX is the biggest one that I know of, and there was a shit ton of interactive content and gaming. Many gaming cons are hybrid cons: anime and gaming, or some such thing. When you get hybrid cons, you get a hybrid crowd, and thus a greater proportion of people looking to engage in passive activities.
Concerts are not passive activities. At all. If your concert is passive, you're going to the wrong kind of show. Go see Amon Amarth, stand on the floor, and tell me that's passive.
Good panels are also not passive if they provide an adequate level of challenge.
Video games include everything from Farmville, to Starcraft 2, to Dwarf Fortress, to Sesame Street ABC, to ARGs, to VR games of the '90s, to laser tag, to that stupid D&D DVD we watched, to augmented reality, to "the cave", to FourSquare.com, to Catan on Microsoft Surface, to Photoshop, to Pokewalkers, to Space War. Any entertaining use of software can be considered a video game. That's almost everything.
Anime includes everything from Astro Boy, to Ghost in the Shell, to Naruto, to La Blue Girl, to Gag Manga Biyori.
Video games not only cover more genres, they also cover far more formats than anime does. Anime only really occurs in movie, TV series, OAV, and short forms. Four forms, that's really it. Video games occur in more forms than I can even keep in my head. And that's only video games. Think about all games, not just video, and it's off the hook.
How can you possibly say that video gaming is more focused? It's more fragmented than any other geekery ever.
Good panels arealsonot passive if they provide an adequate level of challenge.
And this is my main point. Our panels are challenging. We're trying to raise the bar for panels AND screenings at anime cons to challenge and foster thought. NYAF is one of the few anime cons that is even remotely interested in doing this. (Imagine as an aside, how well they'll do from the industry perspective if the average age is older, the average demographic more affluent, and the average attendee more likely to actually buy anime).
(Imagine as an aside, how well they'll do from the industry perspective if the average age is older, the average demographic more affluent, and the average attendee more likely to actually buy anime).
DEMOGRAPHICS!!!!! Runs around Yelling it for hours.
There is a reason people talk about the Otakon expiration date. After 30 there is a lot less anime (and VERY little modern anime) that will appeal to you.
They can't. If that's the case, your definition of anime is far too narrow.
No, you're conflating anime with anime fan culture, non-East-Asian animation, non-animated-East-Asian cinema, Internet culture, youth meme culture, and many others. It just so happens that most anime conventions engage in the same conflation.
Gamers at Otakon are just as obnoxious as Otakon-goers in my experience. Anime fans at PAX are just as chill as other PAX-goers. The con shapes the culture way more than the subject of the con itself.
When was the last time you saw an obnoxious "hug me" sign at a gaming con?
When was the last time you saw a girl (I.E. more then 35% attendees being female) at a gaming con :-p Also again the demographics of a gaming con lead to there not being many 15 year olds there. Also like Otakon they make the behavior illegal usually :-p
On a side note at actual Otakon, the storm yesterday seems broken the humidity and it's actually pretty pleasant outside. At least if Baltimore is anything like North VA, and the computer says it's exactly the same.
When was the last time you saw an obnoxious "hug me" sign at a gaming con?
The culture frowns on it at gaming cons. And, actually, there were two guys walking around PAX east with "Hugs: Free" and "Deluxe Hugs: $1" signs pestering people this year. I have pictures.
Anime con culture encourages that bullshit. Otakon did well to ban it: look how bad it gets at other anime cons where it isn't banned. Gaming con culture doesn't encourage it. But as a result, it's novel. If PAX doesn't clamp down, either culturally or with rules, it will become popular and grow just the same there.
Gamers at Otakon are just as obnoxious as Otakon-goers in my experience. Anime fans at PAX are just as chill as other PAX-goers. The con shapes the culture way more than the subject of the con itself.
Anime con culture encourages that bullshit. Otakon did well to ban it: look how bad it gets at other anime cons where it isn't banned. Gaming con culture doesn't encourage it. But as a result, it's novel. If PAX doesn't clamp down, either culturally or with rules, it will become popular and grow just the same there.
Comments
Anime, by and large, is a passive activity. You just sort of sit back and let entertainment enter your eyeballs. There are interactive aspects to the fandom - cosplay, drawing, LARP'ing, fanfic - but none of those are actually inherent to the activity itself. So, since nobody has to do something interactive in order to be an anime fan, most don't. This means that the fans won't challenge themselves, and if they won't challenge themselves, they'll never self-assess and subsequently never mature. This is a problem with all passive/escapist entertainment; since you don't have to do anything, the activity enables the lazy to be lazy.
That's why the attendees are so immature; they're not usually challenged by their fandom, so they never grow up. Even if you try to challenge them, since challenges aren't necessarily inherent to all anime, they can still escape that challenge. Think about all those punk kids who hate Evangelion; there's nothing making them watch Eva, and they have a plethora of other non-challenging ego-padding shows, so they avoid the show that might force them to think about who they are.
Otakon is basically like a giant fenced-in playpen. They just sort of turn the attendees loose and babysit them for a weekend. What they need to do is start emphasizing the challenging and interactive parts of the fandom, and provide some kind of raised bar that ensures a quality con experience.
The thing is, I've noticed this at CTcon too. The anime fans I encountered, by and large, were less mature (on average) than the gaming fans I encountered. It wasn't as bad as Otakon, but it was still quite noticeable.
The way people behave at a convention is almost completely dependent upon the convention itself. It's all about the way the staff behave, the way the convention is organized, etc. All of these psychological factors affect the behavior of the attendees the same way that the rules of a tabletop RPG change your behavior at the table.
If you take, say, video game fandom, those things are necessarily interactive. On average, most video games are more interactive than most anime. As a result, on average, video gamers will be more inclined to engage in the interactive aspects of fandom because the activities are necessarily interactive. This will also result, on average, in a more mature crowd.
That's the whole point of engaging in challenging and interactive activities. It forces self-assessment. That's why we like challenging video games and anime and what have you; we like to engage in self-assessment, and more challenging things are better because they force a greater degree of assessment.
The problem is that because anime can be a passive activity, it often is, and there is no challenge applied. You have to actively provide challenges to anime fans. Gaming provides inherent challenges and needs very little direction otherwise.
So, no, my argument is not BS. You're just not reading it correctly. I speak accurately; every single word matters.
You'll also note that I said that the problem of anime cons is inherent to anything that is a passive consumption activity. Yes, you can add things to those activities to make them interactive, but those are not the default, and unless you have an environment that encourages and emphasizes those challenging aspects, the majority of fans will not seek them out.
Man, I really like italics.
Video games, necessarily, have rules, and all games can readily be broken down into game theory components. They are games first and an artistic medium second. As a result, there will be less total variety in video games because they have a focus on being games and not necessarily mediums of expression, and the majority of their purpose can be broken down into a handful of easily understood categories.
Ergo, video gaming is more focused than anime. More focus = less variety = narrower field of experience.
If it is in fact not a demographics question explain why Comic Book conventions do not have the same issues.
Concerts are not passive activities. At all. If your concert is passive, you're going to the wrong kind of show. Go see Amon Amarth, stand on the floor, and tell me that's passive.
Good panels are also not passive if they provide an adequate level of challenge.
Anime includes everything from Astro Boy, to Ghost in the Shell, to Naruto, to La Blue Girl, to Gag Manga Biyori.
Video games not only cover more genres, they also cover far more formats than anime does. Anime only really occurs in movie, TV series, OAV, and short forms. Four forms, that's really it. Video games occur in more forms than I can even keep in my head. And that's only video games. Think about all games, not just video, and it's off the hook.
How can you possibly say that video gaming is more focused? It's more fragmented than any other geekery ever.
There is a reason people talk about the Otakon expiration date. After 30 there is a lot less anime (and VERY little modern anime) that will appeal to you.
Anime con culture encourages that bullshit. Otakon did well to ban it: look how bad it gets at other anime cons where it isn't banned. Gaming con culture doesn't encourage it. But as a result, it's novel. If PAX doesn't clamp down, either culturally or with rules, it will become popular and grow just the same there.