What We Don't Talk About When We Talk About Con

AUTHOR'S NOTE:
I wrote this last year, after the SDCC 2013 and was unable to find a place to publish it, so it's languished on my hard drive ever since. So now, nearly a year after it's writing, I bring it to you in the hopes that you'll think about the con experience you had or have been dreaming about and get motivated to try something different and think something new.

I did not attend the con this year, so I don't know if any of the issues I raise in this piece have been addressed or if things have gotten worse. I welcome your comments and hope that you're kind.

 I'm waiting in line for The Black Panel and I can hear it already. Voices of others in the line, happily acknowledging that they're only here for some X-Files panel hours away. This sets off an alarm in my head, an alarm that rarely stops ringing while walking around the San Diego Comic Con. The alarm that says something is very wrong here. The San Diego Comic Con is a microcosm of American inequality. Everything you see outside the convention center is mirrored within (and what you see is literal shanty towns of homeless human beings, living in tents blocks away from the modern celebration of disposable plastic culture that SDCC has become).

If you're attending one of the “big” panels at SDCC (read:money, read:hollywood) rules and decorum are enforced with a strictness and efficiency that would make the NSA blush. However at the smaller panels, the panels where someone talking sounds a lot louder due to a more empty room, due to regular people talking and not sideshow barkers screaming or enormous screens blaring, you won't find any enforcing going on at all.

Here's some advice for first time convention goers, don't worry about getting to panels on time because they will let you in, pretty much whenever, provided the room isn't full. Who cares if this means there is a constant clanging of doors, creating a perpetual chorus of bangs and clangs interrupting whomever is unlucky enough to be trying to speak at the moment. This itself wouldn't be that bad if these constant interruptions were coming from legitimately late attendees who truly were arriving to see the present panel, but more often than not that isn't the case. That is due to the fact that Comic Con does not clear rooms in between panels. That's why there are folks who are taking up seats during the Black Panel and the following Milestone Anniversary panel, folks taking up seats inside while attendees who actually want to be there are forced to wait in the hall, hoping that space clears up.

The not clearing of rooms between panels is one of the biggest challenges to anyone attending the convention who is actually interested in actually seeing anything they're actually interested in. What this policy does ensure is that many panels will be attended by an audience who is not interested in the panel, so then panelists (many who travel the lengths of states, countries or continents) are making their presentations to no one who is actually interested in seeing them, thus creating an environment where panelists are exasperated, bored and disrespected as well as the audience. So while Comic Con can crow about the diversity of the programs they offer, good luck finding one where you'll actually be able to hear what's going on over the voices of room volunteers themselves chatting away in the wings or the constant percussion of the door. Good luck getting into that panel you were really excited about if god forbid, someone from television has a panel in the same room in three hours.

Granted because of this cycle I sometimes have ended up sitting in panels that I never would've experienced in the first place, such as the Christian Fellowship Comics Society meeting where science, as a whole, was disregarded as conjecture. That was a unique experience that I certainly wouldn't have gotten otherwise.

I'll repeat my point because I think it bears repeating. Because of the non clearing of rooms between panels, panelists don't have the audience they have come to reach and the audience isn't interested in the panel being presented. How is that an ok resting point for convention policy? How does anyone try to put a smile on that? Please give me good reasons for creating a convention where no one can see anything that they want to see, nor can the presenters present to the people they want to see. Because it sounds like a lose/lose situation.

Even though the SDCC is run by a non-profit, the convention itself proudly enforces the worst capitalist instincts in people creating a culture that is not so much about community, but more about every person for themselves. Quick! Run into the exhibition hall! Sure people will say “Don't run” but that's all they'll do and after all you need to fill up your bags with as much “collectible” plastic nonsense as you can carry, or risk disappointing the legions of eBay shoppers you're planning to rip off. While there might be a limit on some exclusives (“I can only buy 4 Galactus busts?! What is this, communist Russia?!”) don't despair! You can pay people to wait in line to buy more or hell, get the whole family involved! Everyone from Grandpa to Junior can walk away with their four Galactus busts! There's a panel you want to see? Well screw whomever is trying to see the panels ahead of you, this is about YOU and YOUR COMIC CON EXPERIENCE. After all, when are you going to get the chance to see Joss Whedon again?!? (Spoiler Alert: next year.)

The counter argument to both of these points (regarding exclusives and room clearing) is that “it wouldn't be fair otherwise”. This is the classic capitalist comeback that takes on the form of the hurt individual where in actuality it's masking a stubborn refusal to deal with life in a grown up and mature way. “But what if I want to see two panels in a row?” well, that's unfortunate but you know what? You're at Comic Con! If you want to see the next panel and you have to leave the room and re-enter the line to do so, that might be a little annoying for you, but now more people are actually getting to have the experience that you yourself just enjoyed, sitting in a panel that you actually wanted to see. “But what if I want to buy 2 Galactus busts because one is for my son and one is for my brother?” again, you're at Comic Con, you can buy pretty much anything even remotely geek related and while making a 1 each cap on exclusives would certainly elicit plenty of belly aching and complaining from people mirroring the sentiment I just displayed, over all more people would actually get to get one of the exclusives that they actually wanted, rather than feeding a mob frenzy of 99%ers desperate to get home and start screwing over each other for cheap plastic nothings.

I met a girl on the shuttle one night who expressed her disappointment at not being able to get a Monster High doll, something that she collected, because of the collector scum dominating the sales of the hot ticket item. Surprisingly enough she wasn't thrilled with the notion of paying $150 on eBay for a $25 doll. But hey, it's Comic Con right? Just shout “Woo” and pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. Or the homeless outside. Or the shouting Jesus people (actually, you should seriously pay no attention to the shouting Jesus people, it only encourages them).

People complain about the exhibition hall floor and how it's dominated by the larger companies but that doesn't even rate on the annoyance scale like the wholesale criminal attitude taken by money crazed collectors as they desperately try to screw everyone else before getting screwed.

So while the Comic Con website may put on a nice show like they actually care about celebrating artists, don't be fooled. Comic Con is only as successful as the advertising and merchandise orgy on the floor says it is.

And speaking of the exhibition hall floor, do you know what the exhibitors pay for wifi a day? It's not MTV's Teen Wolf free like it is for the rest of the con, it's actually incredibly expensive. Then again, it's not for any of the larger corporate entities at the show, $80 a day won't break the bank of Time Warner, but when it's one of the independent artists or artisans at the show, many who rely on being able to take credit cards via their iphones or ipads, that daily wi-fi charge quickly adds up. And it adds up to a whole host of charges that exhibitors will enjoy while trying to “celebrate the pop culture community” or whatever gets people ravenously tearing each other apart for the chance to come in and empty out their bank accounts. You better bring your own chair or enjoy a $50 a day chair rental fee (for a folding chair, by the way, it would be understandable if you could rent the Iron Throne), and you better hope that you don't draw a crowd or get ready to hire mandatory security (that you'll enjoy paying $50 an hour to). So in the end the people who have the least invested (artistically, emotionally, spiritually, what have you) enjoy the nicest treatment, while those who are working the hardest to create a unique convention experience that isn't just screaming heads and HBO shirts are forced to break themselves for the opportunity.

This is what Comic Con has turned into ever since big money got involved. The convention is not about comics or even cynically about movies or television. It's simply about money. And it's about encouraging the worst aspects of people in the pursuit of that money. Comic Con does not bring people together, if anything it creates an environment where people are rewarded for not looking out for each other. So while the Game of Thrones panel will be allowed to proceed uninterrupted by constant entry of late arrivals or talking room attendants or even talking disruptive guests, you better believe that the panel on Gender in Comics or Spotlight on Whomever will most certainly will. If you have the money you can have the comic con experience you want, but if you're there for the love get ready to pony up for the experience of total disrespect on nearly every level.

I write this with the heartbreak of a former devotee. I argued against so much criticism of the con for so long because I had incredible experiences there. This year I still had incredible experiences! I still was able to be a part of moments so unique and honest to god magical, moments that would never happen anywhere else, that it hurts me all the more to write this and bring these points up. But these points are what's killing Con. It's not about finding an easy scape goat (Oh it's Twihards or it's whatever) and it's not about the most boring, repetitive, incorrect lines that people say like they're discovering a cure for cancer not and not just parroting a dull group thought (Can't even find comics anymore at Comic Con!). (Seriously, saying you can't find comics at comic con is like saying that only black kids like rap or that video games make people violent, it's that inherently thick headed that you sound really, really stupid and look even worse.)

This year as I tried to move around the floor, I found myself constantly being shouted at, regardless of what I was doing. Simply trying to move on the exhibition hall floor is grounds to be shouted at because, there's a celebrity coming through! Everyone out of the way! Or This is a ticketed event! You can't be here! Or Everyone needs to keep moving stop taking pictures of Loki! (That last one I really enjoyed since everyone within immediate ear shot of shouting guy was moving, while the number of people who were taking pictures of Loki, coincidentally enough, weren't).

You not only get the Con experience you pay for, but you get the Con experience that you demand, that you run, sleep, bleed, sweat and fight for. Is that what this convention is supposed to be? A Hunger Games style battle for pop culture supremacy? I don't know anymore. I've lost my faith. Despite the experiences I had this year which I will truly treasure forever (I say that without hyperbole, I experienced some of the best emotional highs I can remember this year) overall I couldn't fight the feeling that I was taking part in some sick and debased ritual.

Riding in and out everyday passing the uncountable number of homeless people brought the experience into sharp focus for me. Is this really a cultural celebration that is worth participating in? Is it worth it to pay exorbitant plane, hotel, transportation prices just to pay exorbitant prices on everything inside from food to water to disposable, plastic crap to $80 for an autograph (Hey Duchovny is all about the fans)? What is the real cost when a community allows themselves to be herded like sheep and then sold to like brain washed cultists? What is the real cost of engendering a group of people to look out for themselves alone in an uninterrupted merchandising gang-bang, where the only thing you can't buy is dignity or empathy? Comic Con is what it is because we make excuses for it and we try to defend the undefendable because it holds a special place in our hearts. We give them the power to create an experience solely around the acquisition of capital and the dissemination of the artistically bankrupt, creator crushing hollywood sales pitch.

I don't know if I can stomach another SDCC, which kills me on a level I can't even describe. I spent 15 years dreaming about it, since I first heard of the event in the back pages of an X-men comic. I made it out for the first time in 2010 and was like a man in love. But every year since it's gotten bleaker and bleaker and now I feel like I've seen too much and I know too much and I can't pretend it's ok or just for fun anymore.

This doesn't discount your experience, if you had an amazing time, made friends, did the things you wanted to do and left with money in your pocket I'm happy for you. But these problems I've brought up are real and if they remain unaddressed and continue in the manner that they've been progressing, it's only a matter of time before you see them too.