Sunday, September 7, 2008

Compare and Contrast

CaleCon:
  • Small group of closely related people.
  • Inaugural 'large scale' meet.
  • A meet of a single sub-set of a fandom in a platform.
  • Little regimentation.
SLCC:
  • Larger group of somewhat related people.
  • Fourth such meet.
  • A meet of anyone in the platform.
  • Some regimentation, but not a great deal.
Dragon*Con:
  • Positively massive meet of every imaginable type of geek.
  • Been going for decades.
  • Anyone welcome.
  • I'm surprised they didn't have metal detectors at every doorway.
Random thoughts:
  • CaleCon gave me never a feeling I was alone. Very intimate.
  • SLCC was lonesome at first, then I gradually met friends of people I knew, or just random meetings.
  • It seemed a bit of an oldbie hive, although they were all personable it was still a bit intimidating. I suspect subsequent CaleCons will seem that way to those who missed the first.
  • Dragon*Con was far and away one of the most visually dazzling displays I've ever seen. And I put what I'd seen there into my costume for both SLCC and CaleCon. I was a major hit in both with that costume. SLCC had some costuming, but I feel that if I didn't raise the bar, I vaulted it and made it look easy. I might have been merely 'good' in Dragon*Con.
  • Caledon has a reputation for being insular and distant.
  • Caledon has a reputation for being insular and distant!
  • Caledon has a reputation for being insular and distant! OMG!
  • This is not a good thing. At SLCC, these people are not blingtards. These people rock. Hard.
  • Caledonians rock hard. Steelhead rocks hard. New Babbage rocks hard.
  • SLCC needs the Neo-Victorian presence.
  • Stroker's Ball was pretty extreme, not my cup of tea. I was having fun, would probably have lasted an hour or two before I'd have had to leave or collapse from heat exhaustion.
  • If there had been a classical ball, I'd still have gone to Stroker's because I was with a party who made a point of it. They had to leave because the cramped space was just too overwhelming. Then I'd have made an appearance at the other ball. Heck, I'd have made an appearance ahead of time too.
  • CaleCon may have been counterproductive to SLCC and to Caledon. No, that's not it. CaleCon, 2008, was a wonderful, intimate meet. And too close (on the calendar) to SLCC.
  • CaleCon might do well to drop the strictly Caledon feel, and openly invite anyone of the Neo-Victorian set.
  • CaleCon would do well to either move months away from SLCC, or throw in with SLCC, take part as part of, and contribute to SLCC with panels and attendance.
  • And overall well-mannered dress and comportment.
  • And rent a ballroom to have a much less extreme ball for the top hat and coat, ballroom gown set with music ranging from the classics through Sinatra.
  • SLCC with 20-50 Neo-Victorians and steampunks in the lobby in full dress would rock.
  • Really, it would rock.
  • SLCC needs more costuming badly.
Summing up:
  • Open the CaleCon concept to Caledon's related and friendly communities. Focus on anachronistic civility.
  • Either barnacle to, or move far away on the calendar from, SLCC.

2 comments:

Rhianon Jameson said...

"Insular and distant"? Short of offering to bake cookies for newcomers, it's hard to imagine a more welcoming environment. (Note: the cookies offered by the Merry Widows don't count.) This was true both when I first stumbled across Caledon, where a number of people made me feel welcome (and still do), and now, when I try to live up to the same high standards that I first encountered.

Perhaps "insular" is meant with regard to grid-wide gatherings, and I'll confess I have less firsthand knowledge of such activities. (I'm not insular, I'm just shy.) Even here, I'm not sure what the term refers to. Although some seem to spend the majority of their time in Victorian-themed areas, others happily recount their activities in various role-playing sims, or as dancers/escorts/models/etc. in sims with *ahem* other codes of behavior, while still others are linked to the larger world of building or scripting or...whatever.

This is not to deny that Caledon has such a reputation - and I'm relatively new to all this, so my experience is both limited and not necessarily representative - but it seems a little puzzling.

itsdavidvc said...

"Caledon has a reputation for being insular and distant."

Doesn't surprise me in the least. When a scantilly dressed (or entirely undressed!) Mainlander glimmering so brightly from body jewelry that I have to don my laboratory goggles approaches me speaking a dialect of LOLkat (or worse, using Voice in broken English), distant is usually the best I can manage.

After seeing our success as a social experiment in comparison to their own continents, the Lindens are only now are making an effort to impose some form of social engineering and aesthetic sensibility to the Mainland. To me it seems as ill-fated as the engineers in the boiler room of a condominum taking over the condo association. While the tenants are shivering.

True, I tend to avoid the Mainland whenever I can in favor of Neo-victorian islands, or any other islands for that matter.