Weekend stuff and other stuff

[giza]

This past weekend, I drove down to Virginia to visit film2edit, golum, procy_raccoon, sirkain, and others for their housewarming party. So Friday night and Saturday mostly consisted of hanging out around the house, watching movies and videos, and consuming food and drink. It was a nice way to get away for the weekend.

On Sunday, most of us went to Glen Echo Park for the picnic that was there. I got to say hi to some folks I haven't seen in awhile, includeing rigelkitty, "xydexx, stahi, "ryvex, denimwizard, vt_komainu, and stripeswaterkat (write in your LJ more often, dude!). I brought my ham radio along, and used it to find shortwave81 and electropaw, who also had theirs. Ham radios are fun.

Random other things of interest lately:

- Live Journal has a new feature called schools, where you can set up what schools you attended and for what years. I managed to find the LJ of a classmate that way.

- Someone mentioned on Saturday that my ham radio callsign of K3TCP looked like the word ketchup. I never intended it to resemble an actual word, but I found it amewsing anyway.

- sirfox made this awesome post about his thoughts on the personal development and the current state of the furry fandom. I've found myself feeling the same way over the last couple of years (part of the reason I rarely go to public meets anymore), but I was unsure if it was just me or if others felt this way. I'm glad that I'm not alone in what I've been noticing. If you find that you're not being invited to certain peoples' parties or that certain people don't talk to you or even acknowledge your existance, you might wanna give his post a read.

I took a few pictures over the weekend. I'll post those here as soon as time permits.

Comments

[giza.livejournal.com]

You mean that the lager, black and tan, wine, raspberry brandy, sake, and rum wasn't enough??

On the other hand...

[xydexx.livejournal.com]

If you find that you're not being invited to certain peoples' parties or that certain people don't talk to you or even acknowledge your existance, you might wanna give his post a read.

If folks have a problem with us, they could at least have the testicular fortitude to say so.

I'm just saying.

Re: On the other hand...

[sirfox.livejournal.com]

Depends on the case. Sometimes in the past, i have. Other times, it'd be like showing a card trick to a gerbil... they just wouldn't understand.

No worries, though, you're one of the good folks. ;}

I'm destroying the fandom, though!

[xydexx.livejournal.com]

I suppose I can take some consolation in knowing the only things I get flamed for are things I haven't actually done. -:)

Re: On the other hand...

[giza.livejournal.com]

I agree with sirfox. Sometimes you can pull the person aside and say, "You're being an ass, please stop".

Other times, I know it would only be a waste of time and/or start drama, so I take action quietly. (usually this is in the context of banning someone from my LJ)

Some thoughts...

[swift-fox.livejournal.com]

Glad you had a great time at PG's Picnic down at Glen Echo park.

Also, thanks for the link to [info]sirfox's post. Lots of food for thought. While I don't question my association with the fandom, I have been questioning my associations with certain parts of it. I understand that no matter how hard I work to give something back to the fandom in the form of the meets I host, my association to certain groups will always have a large effect on my successes and failures in the fandom.

But that said, I don't believe it would be prudent for the fandom for me to step away from my post within the group in question, nor would doing so mend or repair my reputation within the fandom, nor would it change the fact that I would still retain the private interests that associate my psudonym with the offending group.

At the same time, I also believe that those of us who have grown older within the fandom, who have moved on to have successful careers and relationships, have taken on the responsibilities of owning a home, starting a family, or furthering a career have matured to a point that looking back on the sea of youth, misdirection, rebellion, poor judgement and inadaquate social skills and easily say, "Oh heck, Why am I bothering with this anymore? The fandom has become all about [insert beefs with the fandom here]?

There really aren't enough role-models in the fandom for newbs to look up to and say, "Oh! That's what furry is all about?" Instead the 20-somethings are the driving force behind convention programming, events, art, writing, and the fandom's reputation in general because they have the numbers. Add to that the amorphous nature of the fandom and it's little sub-groups. There's no order behind it. Sure we have our figure heads, our high profile members, but even they don't have the power to enact change across the fandom or the voice to say, "Hey! This isn't right."

2-Gryphon may be the closest person to having the collective ear of the fandom IMO. But when you raise the problems in a comedic tone, or rant, it lessens the underlying message because it's presented to be funny.

Drastic measures will probably need to be put into place before things get better. I'm not sure the history of other sci-fi fandoms like Trekkies and Anime. Whether or not they experienced this same influx of size and membership and what they had to do to tone things down. Regardless, Furry's bad name in the other genres started with the advent of our conventions and with our generation of furry fans and probably because of furs who have long since moved on from our ranks. All the same, those few furs helped open the flood gates to what we have now. We didn't and couldn't stop it then, what makes us think we can blame the next generation for how bad the Fandom is now?

Just some thoughts to ponder.

*Hugs*

Swift Fox

Re: Some thoughts...

[nightwind292.livejournal.com]

And with two retiring from his.. no, retired from his weekly shows... even his inflance grows fainter.

I think the closest things we have to a head is small infliencial leaders for the sub groups.

I know there's a lot i would do for the old bear, but I also know his reputations rather black outside of the group.

[elfasi.livejournal.com]

With regard to what Sirfox was saying, and what you agree with, I think a lot of it comes down to us getting older, sadly. We're a lot less inhibited when we're younger, I can think of things I did 10 years ago I just couldn't do now. Not bad things, mind you. Also you do tend to get the more extreme kind of person at furmeets, you've gotta wonder just how many furs dont go to those gatherings at all, for whichever reason, so you don't see that other more reasonable kind of person to balance the equation. Or more reasonable people who've stopped going because of the more extreme behaviour they percieve.

Extremism in furry

[giza.livejournal.com]

> Also you do tend to get the more extreme kind of person at furmeets

Assuming your statement is true, it brings up the question of why?

I've got a couple of theories:

1) Since the furry fandom is not "mainstream", it attracts people who are maybe, 1-3 standard deviations from the mean. This works both ways, though. We have people who are very talented writers, artists, and costumers. But we also have people who have issues ranging from severe social retardation, to folks who are outright "reality challenged".

2) Furry fandom is pretty tolerant of different people and backgrounds. We don't CARE if you're gay/straight/green/purple/whatever. But I can't help but wonder if that if sometimes the tolerance goes a little too far. That maybe people don't know where to draw the line on what is acceptable behavour and what is not.

Just my random thoughts on the matter.