In The Wake Of Disturbing Revelations, ColossalCon Top Management Turns Over
Over the course of the past few days, social media posts that revealed a pattern of misogyny, bigotry and lack of concern for alleged sexual assault has caused at least two people at the very top of the management of ColossalCon and ColossalCon East (and maybe other cons) to no longer have their jobs.
It’s been no secret that con chair Donnell Shoffner (apparently his legal name although he goes by Donnell Sinclair on social media and is even identified as such in news reports by the Sandusky Register) and his head of cosplay Chris Gary have had a reputation for less than diplomatic speech online. But on Friday, Aug. 23, cosplayer CrazieCrissie posted on Twitter an image from ColossalCon’s own Twitter feed of a new t-shirt design it was planning to sell, which was at the very least an example of poor taste and bad decisions.
The shirt was supposed to be making fun of how it appeared non-convention goers got ColossalCon East cosplayers last September thrown out of the waterpark at the Kalahari Resort earlier than they expected on Sunday of that con. So someone at the con staff had an artist design a shirt that had a bunch of frogs chasing a bunch of women on cellphones. Across the top was “COLOSSALCON” and across the bottom was “NORMIES GET OUT!!!!” and “RRRREEEEEE!!!!” (I may not have the exact number of EEEs and exclamation points). CrazieCrissie pointed out that it was the Kalahari that did the booting out, and the idea that it was because some “normie” complained was an unsubstantiated rumor. Worse, the frog has been co-opted by the alt-right as a symbol, although the design was not copying that of Pepe the Frog. And that the exclamation “reeeee!” in some form is used as an insulting indication of autistic “screeching” in memes.
ColossalCon’s social media responded badly as it often does. Eventually it had to apologize, again a regular occurrence. But that opened the floodgates for all kinds of screenshots of direct message attacks on people criticizing ColossalCon over the years by top staff, mostly the head of cosplay Chris Gary. The comments, which are easily read on CrazieCrissie’s Twitter and Sarah Fongheiser’s Facebook, are bigoted, misogynistic and in the case of one series of comments by Shoffner himself, making light of someone who alleges sexual assault by someone who was a con staffer at the time (and is no longer with the con, according to Shoffner in the DM thread).
The hashtag #boycottcolossalcon2020 on Twitter was growing rapidly as was the same sentiment on Facebook, although most people planning to go to ColossalCon East this year, Sept. 13-15 in Poconos, Penn., said they would still go as they had already paid for the expensive hotel rooms. In the face of that growing sentiment ColossalCon (likely Shoffner himself although I have yet to confirm that he handles social media) announced late on Monday, Aug. 26, that Chris Gary had been fired from his position as head of cosplay, replaced by someone named Miranda, eventually identified with the last name Schossler.
That was seen by many as just a single step in the right direction, and many continued to call for Shoffner himself to step down as con chair. Today, Aug. 27 at roughly 2:45 p.m. Eastern Shoffner announced that he was stepping down as con chair for all ColossalCon events immediately, to be replaced by someone named Victoria. That could be the head of guest services, but as of writing this no further information has been announced about the new con chair. The website has been updated to remove Shoffner and Gary, however.
I have questions for Shoffner I sent this morning, but have not heard back as of posting this article. Shoffner owns NostalgiaConventions.com LLC and in addition to all ColossalCon events, it runs Ichibancon, Banzaicon, and Triad Anime Con, all in North Carolina, among others. I asked if Chris Gary was associated with any of those cons, and if he was associated with NostalgiaConventions.com or just the ColossalCon events. If he was associated with more than just ColossalCon events, I want to know if he has been removed from all others. The website for NostalgiaConventions.com is simply a placeholder with a logo and an email link for info, despite the fact the domain was registered 17 years ago.
Also unanswered as of posting is what is Shoffner’s actual legal name, and if Chris Gary’s replacement Miranda Schossler is the same Miranda Schossler that co-owns Spectacular Party Entertainment, a costumed entertainer service based in Ohio for family parties and corporate events. When we get answers to any of the questions above we will update this article.
People on social media are still calling for the removal of other staff members, including James Pyon (who commented in the most blatantly bigoted thread) and head of press relations Chris Fox. If any further staffers are removed we will update this article.
