Con-mon Fallacies

[thebitterguy]

While skimming the FL, ratmmjess pointed to this post that puts together congoer social fallacies, in reference to the five Geek Social Fallacies. (nb: He uses 'fan' as shorthand for convention attendee so he can make a joke).

1. Everyone who goes to a con is a fan.
2. All fans were ostracized geeks in high school.
3. Fans are better than mundanes.
4. We're one big happy fan-ily.
5. Passive-aggressive behavior is much better than confrontation.

Number four is pretty weak, if you've ever spent more than 20 minutes around geeks you quickly realize they're A)clique-ish both within and between fandoms and B) there are intense personal politics with fandoms that make everything short of US political schisms seem reasonable; it's not quite a fallacy that'll survive past registaration.

Number three is not one held by anyone with the maturity of a fifth grader, which is unfortunately not nearly enough people. Number five is, well, kinda normal human nature for people who don't wanna be confrontational.

JN's own Pro Social Fallacies make me glad to have never met a rude pro, or at least just have had them be nice to me.

Comments

[stop-no-dont.livejournal.com]

Maybe I haven't been to enough cons lately, but the Pro Fallacies list surprised me a little. I've had brief, but pleasant, encounters with both Mark Waid and Bendis over the past few years.

[ratmmjess.livejournal.com]

I say this in all seriousness and with no snark: I envy you. I wish--really--all my dealings with pros were nice. I wouldn't be nearly as bitter as I am now.

[thebitterguy]

Well, I've never had a pro be rude to me as a fan; I've had guys I'm working with in other capacities be dickish.

[thebitterguy]

Oh, don't get me started on Bendis. He was on his damn Crackberry all through dinner.

[normanrafferty.livejournal.com]

The better television shows portray a fandom as full of refutations of #4 -- probably because conflict is the essence of story-telling. Often, a #3 shows up either as comic-relief or as the villian; if time permits, an anti-#3 will be presented, usually as an aide to the mundane heroes.

Most shows don't have the time or the budget to refute #1 -- although in some shows, a recurring character will be revealed to be a fan; sometimes they will be closeted and ashamed of it, but other times they will use the episode to brazenly assert their fannish identity. (A recent ep of Psyche comes to mind.)