________  ________  ________
   2017-07-03                                   /        \/        \/    /   \
                                               /       __/         /_       _/
   Yesterday  we  slouched  by  one  of  the  /        _/         /         /
larger Melbourne pop culture conventions; Oz  \_______/_\___/____/\___/____/_
Comic-Con. Not as attendees, just to people-    /        \/        \/    /   \
watch a  while. I've  never had  a real love   /        _/         /_       _/
for the  big  conventions, it's the  smaller  /-        /        _/         /
indie cons that really appeal to me.          \________/\________/\___/____/

   What really struck me was the  age  of the  crowd. You've always  had those
older geeks  at conventions but they were always only a few, with the majority
being late teens/young adults, but now I'd  say  they were a good third of the
crowd at  least.  Some did seem a  little out of  place, just there  escorting
their kids or  whatever  but there  were also quite  a lot of older people  in
cosplay and more than a few families all dressed up.

   I  thought  it  was  quite  interesting and  really speaks  to  the ongoing
normalisation of what was  once outsider culture, the MCU has a lot  to answer
for  I guess,  but at  the same time and in  a pretty  selfish way it  made me
jealous for a couple of reasons.

   Firstly, as I got older  I clung to my  geeky  identity  while a lot of  my
friends who were  into  those things fell away, "putting away childish things"
as it was. Some just  growing  less interested in the  nerdy or  weird things,
some  scoffing at  those of us  that didn't  and in one or two cases so sourly
denoucning  any  kind  of  nerdy fandom  that  we argued  and  stopped talking
altogether. So now  to see it so comfortable and even fashionable to be one of
those holdouts pokes at old bruises a little bit.

   The other thing that  bothered me was  the question; where were  these role
models  when  I was  growing  up?  Where were  these  wholesome Star Wars  and
Avengers families when the only people I had to look up to were greasy, sleazy
creeps and twitchy autists?

   I don't know.

   All very  petty  thoughts and  probably  I was just  feeling over-sensitive
about it because a depression-fog, but it just stuck with me a little.

   Anyway the big cons have always been a different crowd  I suppose, and good
on these people for embracing all that.  Heck, some of these older geeks might
have been in the same situation I felt like I was back in the old days and are
actively trying  to be the role models they  wished they'd had. I hope  that's
the case!



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