Food for Thought: Another Side of the Con Circuit
Every con-goer is like a snowflake: they’re all at the convention for a unique reason. Some go for panels, some to just wander about aimlessly, some to show off bizarre and wild costumes that they’ve managed to put together. Yet, beneath the feathers and flair there is an individual with deeper reasons as to why they came just this year or have been going for many years. Some suffer family problems they need away from, some suffer social anxieties they wish to overcome and others come to see family, friends, and loved ones. This weekend is the only weekend in four months, six months, or even a year that a con-goer can really be themselves and be appreciated for it.
One of the greatest feelings a young teenager can get in a time of crisis is the feeling of acceptance. I have met many teens who fear ridicule at their home schools or situations but once at the con, relax completely. It is normal to see cross-dressers, gays, lesbians, all walking around together, laughing and having fun. This gives them a positive outlet with which to be themselves and find help and guidance from those older and more experienced than themselves. Those who have parents strictly against homosexuality can seek solace in others like them who can help, guide, and keep in touch with them after the con in case they want to stay friends or if they need anything. Something so simple as reaching out a hand to someone scared and giving them your AOL or MSN contact can be the act that saves a life in an age where gay suicides are becoming all too common.
Social pressures from the media and past heartache can make it difficult for some people to want to branch out and make friends. Those who have faced nothing but being told they are failures and idiots can find in one weekend the greatest friends they could have ever asked for. People at a convention tend to be very friendly and open to other people, especially those who cosplay from the same fandoms. Something so simple as a socially-awkward girl cosplaying from an anime she loves can gain her much attention. A person could stop and ask for her picture and then follow up with ‘how did you make that?’ or ‘I don’t have a Tifa in my group, wanna join us for lunch?’ Suddenly, this girl who meant nothing at school, who was considered the freak and the outcast for her love of anime, is flocked with people that she can relate to. People she would never have even thought twice to speak to on the street become someone she can relate to at a con.
Conventions are also a place where people suddenly go from being ‘that announcer from the photoshoot at Anime Boston’ to almost family in the face of a crisis. Another Anime Con 2010 is a con that will go down in infamy in the minds of many for the burning and destruction of a cosplayer’s flag prop. Immediately upon finding this, the cosplayers gathered on the couches in the lounge set to getting the situation under control. Elder cosplayers calmed and took care of the younger while the more level-headed went to security to get the issue resolved. Another sent friends into the con to be eyes and ears and listen in for any sign of the person responsible for the act. In that moment, people who only vaguely knew each other, who had been merely friends came together to protect and take care of each other like one giant family. No distance, no past, no preconceived notions mattered. Something one could truly only experience at an anime convention.
Many people see only the surface when they think of conventions. They see the panels, the guests, the dealer’s room and the sea of faces they’ll probably never see again. Yet within the waves there is that one girl who wants a friend, that one boy who wants to know he is not a freak, that will during the course of this weekend find the answers that the search for. These are only a few of the miracles that one can only find at a convention and in the dark days of recession and ridicule, it’s the only beacon of light one may need to keep going for another year.
