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Tales Of The Industry - Trapped at a Convention

I have observed some rather odd behavior at cons (not to the level of picking your nose in front of people) but enough to make me wonder if being at a convention makes some people lose track of basic etiquette and social cues, or if they never learned them in the first place.

Cons are definitely "younger" if you're out of college/college-age. (let's call that 23+)

Using the Sakura-con numbers as example, they further split out and:
14-17: 20%
To put that in perspective, let's ignore the 50% that's "college-age" for a moment, there are nearly as many people in the NARROW 4 year window of 14-17 as there are in the entire set of people over 26. Or, put another way, there are DEFINITELY more teenagers than there are people over 26.

And, if we assume an "even distribution" in the 18-26 demographic (I will bet money right NOW that it is more heavily skewed to the younger end), then it would split ~17% into the 18-20 range. Which would mean that you have around 44% of people under 21. Which again, means you have almost TWICE as many people UNDER 21 as you have people over 26.

SaitoHajime101 wrote:

I've never experienced odd behavior as what's depicted in the article, however I've seen some weird clothing choices in cosplay. For example, just this last weekend at Sakura-con, I saw a girl (looked to be definitely younger than 20 years) wearing a shirt and underwear, no pants. Seriously. No. Pants.

Which she may have been doing anyway, how closely did you inspect to see if it was actual underwear?

This attracted a lot of chuckles and attention, and actually did inspire sales, and yet seemed to offend no one. The one time I worried I'd gone too far was at Animazement in Durham, NC, where a middle aged man who looked like a deacon at his local church walked slowly over to the hentai, peered down at it, carefully flipping through the discs. But then he looked up at me and said in a thick Southern accent, "people ask me what kind of pornography I like. I like the anthropomorphic pornography." And with that, he walked away.

Article said:

Quote:

a middle aged man who looked like a deacon at his local church walked slowly over to the hentai, peered down at it, carefully flipping through the discs. But then he looked up at me and said in a thick Southern accent, "people ask me what kind of pornography I like. I like the anthropomorphic pornography." And with that, he walked away.

I will not look at deacons/pastors/priests/ministers/reverends the same way.

The one time I worried I'd gone too far was at Animazement in Durham, NC, where a middle aged man who looked like a deacon at his local church walked slowly over to the hentai, peered down at it, carefully flipping through the discs. But then he looked up at me and said in a thick Southern accent, "people ask me what kind of pornography I like. I like the anthropomorphic pornography."

Something had gotten screwed up, and not only was none of our product here, but none would be coming, either. Overjoyed with the prospect of having a weekend to themselves again, he and the rest of the sales guys quickly got the hell out of there.

The only convention I've spent any time at was Anime Expo last year and I didn't see anything that weird. Maybe it happens more at smaller conventions.

I cosplay at cons, but I realize there's boundaries; it's neat to be "in character" and such, but when you make other people feel uncomfortable on purpose with your actions/words, that's just bad and embarrassing.

And as for not wanting to BE anime, I'd have to confess to wanting to be a cute Japanese high school girl or maybe Madoka, but if I cosplayed as that you'd have another entry to Justin's horror at conventions story...

I can say that yaoi paddles are banned there though; any yaoi paddles found are confiscated ASAP. Yaoi paddles were quite the source of trouble, apparently.

Anthro porn. Is that like the furry fandom?

I can say that yaoi paddles are banned there though; any yaoi paddles found are confiscated ASAP. Yaoi paddles were quite the source of trouble, apparently.

In 2013 though, some clown was going around the exhibition hall with a hidden camera on his chest (so that he could get breast shots of every girl who passed in front of him) and wasn't discovered until he put his footage up on YouTube publicly.

leafy sea dragon wrote:

I can say that yaoi paddles are banned there though; any yaoi paddles found are confiscated ASAP. Yaoi paddles were quite the source of trouble, apparently.

Thank heavens!