What were cons like in the past? Say very late 90s to mid 00s.

MCM London in 2005/2006 was very different to how it is now.
I can't really remember a lot, since I was young then, but I'm pretty sure it was just less guests, less memorabilia and probably less variation in cosplay. However, it was a lot less busy so take it how you will. It was probably just a lot similar to a smaller con that's open nowadays. Oh, and flashmob galore.

> less women
> higher saturation of neckbeards and neets
> less frequent cons (maybe 2-3/yr)

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This is like 2010, so not too old, but even then the cosplay guests were just "misc." and there were only 2. Now they have like 10. This con stopped having music guests soon after too. Especially someone like Less Than Jake.

>>9160912
>>9160821

So it was a lot more niche then?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZmRw9o63RM

>>9161098
Only watched about 8 minutes, and as cringy (and deluded) as they are, they seem kinda like people I'd want to talk to about anime/games/geek crap endlessly.

I would never be able to do that with my normie friends.

Normies are better than autistic weeaboos and neckbeards

Signs by con-goers were everywhere, especially "free hugs" signs. Also people seemed to be more willing to ask for photos in general

>>9161244
I don't know man, I got my normie friends to visit a couple of cons and they got bored of it, even with though it was packed with normies.

No one's going to the next one.

>>9161262
Aren't free hugs signs "relatively" recent?

>>9161418
Not that anon, but I've seen them from as early as 2002

from my perspective i remember more effort in cosplay, no young parents and a friendlier vibe. This is in Aus though i don't know about the UK cons.

I'm a year younger than you, same country, my first con was quite late 2009 and I was around 19, I went at that age because I could afford to fund it and was old enough to get to London MCM by myself.
I think that age of first con has gone down massively since they became more regional, like now almost every major city or town has one, back only around 6ish years ago it was London or nothing really. I was working with a bunch of 14-18 year olds this year and almost all of them went to one local con, I think around 75% of them went to this thing or told me they were going.

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My first convention was in 2002. Although I wanted to go since 2000. There were less Japanese guests and I think AMVS were way more popular back then.

Cosplay wasn't as polished in 2002, but at the same time we were limited in what we could buy for costumes. Most people made theirs. You would be excited if you saw someone who liked the same show as you. Cosplay was more of an expression of your love of the fandom. Cosplay has definitely evolved, but I love seeing the more complex costumes now.

The anime that were released in the US were not as diverse as now. In 2002-2005, tonami was in the height of its popularity in the US and a lot of cosplay and merchandise reflected this.

Depending on the con, there would be huge booths for Tokyo pop and Viz. VHS anime tapes (4-5 episodes per tape.) were mostly replaced with dvds. Originally you had to buy either the sub vhs or the dub vhs. DVDs eliminated that problem. Some manga sold back then were in western and not Japanese format. Earlier than that, manga was in comic book form.

If I recall correctly, there was much less non-anime and video games cosplay and merchandise.

If anything else comes to mine I will let you know.

>>9161418
I saw them at the first cons I went to, and they disappeared for a few years. I saw a bunch again this year.

>>9161098
>You can make Nazi a good word
what
the fuck

less normies, so significantly better

I can only speak from my limited experience going to one con in one tiny Euro-country, but I've gone to that one since 2008. Prepare for essay.

I've noticed an evolution away from niche geekery, like offering rare and hard to find merchandise, to catering to the lowest common denominator, aka "you know what a Mario is and you've seen half of a Star Wars movie? Come on in, friend, and buy our overpriced shit you can nowadays find cheaper, everywhere!"
I've also noticed a decrease in fun activities like AMV contests and an increase in guests you have to pay a LOT for to get anything out of. In their defence, I never cared for convention guests so I'm sure they wer ealways there, I just didn't take notice.

In my opinion, the general shift is that the con is a lot more focused on getting money out of you and everyone else, including normies who might know a vague nerd thing (because being a nerd is now cool), and being a lot less roundabout about it. Back in the days they'd hide their money grab behind activities you couldn't find anywhere else.

>>9162035
I agree about the shift in focus for guest. The dealer's room used to be a big draw in the early days because you really couldn't find much elsewhere.

>>9162100
>>9162035
Another thing that used to be huge were the video rooms. Even though digisubbing was picking up steam in the early 2000s, the internet was still largely pre-broadband. Video rooms were great for discovering new shows without having to blind-buy the dvd or spend literal DAYS downloading on dial-up.

Nowadays there's not much point apart from maybe film screenings or watching comedies to get that crowd reaction feeling.

One word:
Glomping

>>9162194
I'll take your glomping and raise you a yaoi paddle

Me and my friends were young weeby kids then.
>Para Para in the hallways caramel dancin'
>Panels were more Q&A style
>There were less girls and more boys
>In my eyes special guests were actually special not some elated tumblr cosplayer.

>>9162194
>>9162255

That shit was only america right?

>>9162299
Hah. Good one.

>>9162262
Caramel dancing i know but what is para para?

>>9162035
>the general shift is that the con is a lot more focused on getting money out of you and everyone else

My retro gaming collecting has taken a massive hit, common shit like sonic 2 and pokemon red are going for rip off prices.

>>9162194
I'm probably one of the few people who miss glomps
>>9162262
>>9162582
There was the Hare Hare Yukai

Borrowing/Trading VHS anime tapes with neighbors at the con hotel were a thing back then too.

>>9161018
>implying anime was never not niche

>>9162909
It seemed pretty niche to me, all I had in the 90s was a handful manga entertainment tapes from relatives and the occasional film on channel 4 til Pokemon exploded.

>>9162582
Para para was a Japanese dance style in the very late 90s and early 2000. It was popular enough to spawn a video game. It is normally associated with gyaru culture. Songs had routines (think of the macarena) that were specific to that song. Examples include night of fire and yesterday. It's pretty dead now, but there are still some people who dance it.

>>9163035
In the mid 90s, before pokemon, sailor moon and dragon ball z were really popular in the US, anime was seen as adult cartoons. I remember seeing info commercials for these "adult only" cartoons. Of course as a kid I was interested. Anyway, the reason I knew about anime that early on was because of a childhood friend that had a father once stationed in Japan. He only let me see a few things. To this day I wonder what the extent of his collection was.

>>9161864
Most if not all cons banned them for a while, the signs could technically be interpreted as advertising prostitution.

>>9162255
I'll take your paddle and raise you pedobear. But maybe he's too recent.

>>9163163
>Most if not all cons banned them for a while, the signs could technically be interpreted as advertising prostitution.
wut

>>9163166
hoooly shit, I totally forgot how popular that was for a while I'd always see at least 1 person in a full on pedobear costume at con, often posing with people cosplaying younger characters.
With the rise of SJW in the cosplay community, that would never fly now

>>9163163
I'm sure they were banned cos most people who held them were creeps.

>>9163204
>>9163163
not really prostitution, but soliciting. $1 hugs and what not. but really, the signs WERE annoying af

>>9162582
>what is para para
DDR for your hands.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fAk8GAhQcwA

>>9161098
Why couldn't I have been around for this
These people actually seem like legit anime geeks and I love it
There are too many normies infesting anime cons now adays.

Going to Dutch anime conventions since 2004, but interested since 2003:
> Quality of cosplayers wasn't far as good as it is now
Proper wigs, circle lenses, worbla, pre-made costumes, etc. weren't there at the time
> People more frequently complimented on your cosplay/wanted to take a picture with you if you were a cosplayer
Ironically, but this was because...
>Cosplayers were more rare, instead of 90% of the convention guests
>DDR was totally popular, especially Stepmania
>There were actually people watching anime in the video rooms
>Cosplay competitions being the highlight of a convention, rather than the music guest
>Only one cosplay competition with that
>Cosplay competition being way less professional and serious
I've actually entered a few times with acts that would be really cringey to look back at nowadays. Wouldn't ever do something like that if I ever were to enter a competition nowadays.
>AMV competition being more popular
>This song being popular https://youtu.be/LTJvdGcb7Fs

Plus that most people were either White, Asian, or White/Asian biracial. Nowadays there's more variety in racial background, which is nice to see.

>>9164155
They seem super cringe but I get you, like our own little corner of the world.

>>9162035
Somehow this post spells "Närcon" to me.

>>9163293
I'm so glad people no longer call my Rilakkuma kigurumi a pedobear costume

>>9161098
so fucking awkward/adorable

>>9164205
It's fun (?) to see the same trends apply to multiple Euro countries. I'm further down south, though.

>>9164155
>>Normies
The sound of perpetual virginity.

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>>9164701

>>9160815
I attended my first con in 1997, and I was hooked. From then to around 2005 I attended a few dozen cons. By 2008, I noticed a decline in quality, and by 2012, nearly everything I loved about cons had died out completely (namely cosplay).

That was all in the states, of course. I have been to a few cons in the UK (where I have been living the past few years) and the scene is somehow even worse here.....it's like nobody in this country knows how to organize a convention. I offered my services to help, but they declined. Their loss.

>>9163089
Truth. It was basically some sort of Holy Trinity seen by adults and normies as:

-Sailor Moon was for girls
-DBZ was for boys
-Pokemon was for kids

And everything else was tentacle porn, in their eyes.

>>9164701
Yeah well...

>>9160821
>> less women

This is not the least bit true.

>>9163089

Back in the day Blockbuster put an "18+" sticker on all anime by default. It made it pretty hard to be a 15-year-old anime fan trying to figure out if this video is actually going to make my parents freak if they happen to walk by at the wrong moment or if it's actually just Ranma 1/2.

>>9163166
Ohayocon 2010 i saw a pedobear get arrested. Good times.

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>>9160815
As a Director of a long running Convention 25+ years, and having been an avid Convention Go'er myself I can tell you a little about it. Lol.

For starters, bare in mind that Cons grew WITH the industry or else would of flopped. There was a time before Cons that Sci-Fi was the dominant suggestion and theme. I ran a few of those Cons also, against my better judgement to date myself here.

Star Wars, Star Trek and others in that era were the most popular choices with animation being a sublet inside the Con at booths. It was at this time very little from Japan was being outsourced and even less product was known. Dr. Who and Dark Shadows had more of a following than what you see today.

The Cosplay was known as Characterization and not meant to mean the same as it does today. A homage to your favorite character or actor as opposed to just being dressed up.

Sex, Narcotics, Drinking was not as prevalent as it is today but that also goes with many changes that I'll explain in another post..

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>>9164975
As Japan partnered with upcoming Television stations aimed at kids after minor successes like TMNT and Sailor Moon, a working connection began when a rather large group of travelers to Japan brought back DB and some other very well drawn (for the time) 'cartoons.' These were quickly written off as Over seas animations and shortened to Anime.

I don't need to explain the phenomena thos created with the young and how it opened flood gates. Well, earlier conventions were very small after the branch off from Sci-Fi which created and generated a whole new venue and market. Also came with challenges and major difficulties such as the needs of over sea Voice Actors and flights to get them here, working rights, passports, visas, and calls to and with Studio managers. Keep in mind this was around AOLs time. Not the easiest to coordinate.

Many many loans, missed opportunities due to lack of technology, and not many translators state side who focused on Japanese. There was a shortage of everything and yet small Cons slowly began to crop up all over with trial and error creating mixed reaction from attendees. Including price hikes that were used to cover the media cost and over seas expenditure. Trust me. Those bills were massive.

You wouldn't believe it but st shoddy hotels and even halflets across the Nation only a small, rich portion used to go to Anime cons. People able to afford and or care enough about over seas VA which at the time thru the 80s was seen as a freak show, wierd, obsessive, waste of time, and a lot of Pearl Harbor dislike.

>>9164980
Wasn't until the early 90s that the major interest with huge sign ups came from an unexpected but well met with open arms generation. The internet in homes, anime on Cartoon network, television at large. This is what caused what I've come to call the Golden years. There's been so much learning anfld rough patches but over all a huge experience.

One of the most influential to any Con became apparent when a large community of males wanted more pornography from Japan and to oogle women in Cosplay that to be honest left little to the imagination. Companies realized before we did that they could cash in on lonely individuals and made it seem that real women were out of reach. This is what brought on the deviancy.

Before many Cons had the influence, steady attendances, and reliable promise.. sex was a major selling point that couldn't be ignored. Including buying and shifting models around including those from over seas. Cons were seen as a sexapalooza and drinking mayhem no short due to Staff and what was publicised. Such as Hentai rooms. However, most guys who went realized that the women they wanted didnt fancy them.

So... Some Cons, a majority, did indeed hire hookers or those with loose morales to assist in attracting men the old fashioned way andnl sent teams to raunch up the internet with'staged' pictures. Also made it alluring with a psuedo power trip to be on Staff so not to hire anyone. Cons were in the grey area and were flirting every year with Legal bouts. Many of us didn't care. We saw the money and it was good.

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>>9164987
For awhile inna coast through the mid nineties through the 00's, many rules and policies were being enforced due to the promoting and promising upcome of the new agers. Throughout the early to Mid 00's we saw two major shifts. Men and Woman above the age preying on illegal ages and a sudden introduction of drugs; hard drugs, that were linked but never fully associated with shifting Directorship and Convention Operations.

Everyone fron Staff to Attendees; Anime Cons were now the place to go'bone hot girls and get messed up at Raves.' We shot ourselves in the feet. By moving from expensive theatrics of bands from Over seas to'dances' or raves with live DJs we allowed on lookers to latch onto what we didn't anticipate and when we did realize what we didn't do to stop because of the money. Drug dealers realized the potential for an open market. In truth a quiet'partnership' was created that allowed them to go rampant through Cons while they helped publicize the Con soley for the Rave aspect. Hard drugs, Weapons, Major near death and resulting in death accidents due to both.. This all brought on Law suits including drug induced and deaths with sexual harassment. Illegal underage interaction. Paedophilia. Furries yiffing openly and setting up Mini Yiff conventions in Conventions. We've created a paradise for young pregnancy, problematic law issues, and lawsuits. All of which threatened and still threaten even the largest conventions World Wide. The Golden Age was over.

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>>9165006
What happened next?

A lot of internal fighting everywhere. Different Cons now put the blame on others, backstabbing over the years and espionage that we as a Group were blind to became apparent. Visible. Anonymous people destroying property, parties getting out of control, physical altercations from Staff to Attendees and voce versa, STD outbreak, and lying. The Convention sweet period where everyone got along across the World came crashing down as the naive industry opened its eyes. Those who were smart enough to have a Paralegal team and those who practiced shady involvement began to come out ontop. Buying out struggling Cons who're not hurting for attendees but were taking away from the Big cons. Many were being swallowed up and a race across the States started to see who could swallow up small cons and expand their name plus open sister Cons in'sweet spots'began. No longer did Convention Ops and Directors openly talk. No longer did the insider information get shared between Cons. Separate entites truly became separated and came into their own Major Corporation and or Business inside the Industry.

Creating what was the end to free willy services and from the early 00's to now a decrease has been happening with smaller cons. The bubble burst and attendees plus Staff from all over felt the economies sting. We weren't floating. All Cons were sinking. Many still are. Especially now that their debts are being called into Court or demanding payment. Also Legal issues finalmy getting seen are causing the turmoil of inner Staffs already plagued with inner strife, animosity, and resentment to deteriorate even faster.

Attendees saw prices elevate again, starting to stale on whats out there, more conservative moves by a new generation and a lack of a party or interest has caused the scene to die down. Difficulty selling and even major busts caused the Yiffers and Drug Dealers to be leas brazen or quit altogether. Staffs were changed.

Cons are not the same..

>>9160815
People were very accepting. All sorts of weirdness and oddities were tolerated.

Pretty much the diametric opposite of today, where normies and bullies rule, and all deviations aside from certain special protected ones are frowned on in the name of "diversity" and "tolerance".

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>>9165023
The next boon to come? It's what we're living in today. The new generation of open Cons. The Gender Annex.

Where Cons used to be pushed as a male dominant outlet due to the Japanese animation, major Laws there, and culture.. This age has influenced Japan to rethink or strategize. Because of the next boon coming from homosexual, transgender, lesbian, and add your sexual here; the straight male world has become a figment. This did lead to a major drop off in revenue from older men acrosds the globe but a decline was already being seen due to families now being made and those who thought themselves never to find a woman had finished college and grew up. We were in trouble. That was until the LGBT Pride and Yaoi service really kicked off. Quickly the Big cons began a campaign to bring that market in and disrupt the usual flow. For two years there were major upheaveals that wrre counted on. The hate spiel that caused the LGBT community to uprise in retaliation and the want to'deflate queers.' Needless to say, an Industry willing to change with the money took a winning bet and have ridden the wave of LGBT globe wide. It's starting to decline now because of the same cycle as before. What was once new and shiny; a paradise, is killed by over population and extortion.

In an Industry such as Anime Conventions you must always be willing to follow the trends or find an untapped market. Exhaust that market then either go for an extreme or swing back to the old ways since the new causes the community to resent them.

I've seen Cons rise and fall from infancy to popularity. I've barely touched on what I've seen and only spoke about what's changed and influenced the Industry the most.

I hope you found this a little helpful in understanding the years, the change, and this brief explanation as to how we're here now and why Cons haven't really moved from their recent stagnation.

Hopefully the next big boon and shake up will be easy to spot soon..

>>9164975
>>9164980
>>9164987
>>9165006
>>9165023
>>9165029

Pretty interesting, thanks.

>dip caused by pedo furry faggots on speed.

How unsurprising.

>>9164975
Is this a copypasta of a forum or blog post, or are you actually a con director on 4chan?

>>9165398
To be honest, now I'm not quite sure if I would want to visit past cons, but it's like these modern cons are like an excuse for regular people to dress up and sell insanely overpriced crap instead of the geek collective I imagined.

>>9165400
Not the guy you're asking, but I'm a SMOF in training and I know I'm not the only con staffer who frequents 4chan.

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>>9160815
Back then when it was more nerdy and stayed mostly faithful to that niche.

>>9165029
>Hopefully the next big boon and shake up will be easy to spot soon..

Assuming this isn't copypasta, this is like peak con isn't it?

There's no real direction for cons to go except down, at least in terms of popularity BUT it will never go back into that wonderful obscurity and naivety that others seem to recall.

>>9161604
>i remember more effort in cosplay
lolwut
Back in the day, there were pretty much zero standards when it came to your costume. Spray painting your hair and wearing some outfit you found in your closet was totally acceptable.

>>9164941
It is for comic cons, not anime, though.

>>9165029
What country was this all in?

>>9165023
>Buying out struggling Cons who're not hurting for attendees but were taking away from the Big cons.

>Especially now that their debts are being called into Court or demanding payment.

Are there any examples of these two that are public knowledge? The ones I can remember offhand are New York Anime Fest merging into ComicCon and CN Anime into FanExpo but in those cases both cons were run by the same companies.

>>9165029
> For two years there were major upheaveals that wrre counted on.
What years were these? I'd like to browse the industry news articles and press releases from the time.

>>9166360
.

My first con was Connecticon 2008 so a little beyond the time period but from what I can remember:
>Free hugs/glomp signs were huge
>Panels had more to them and were usually workshop centric (ie. how to design a character, how to make X)
>Common convention goer accessories included tripp pants, naruto headbands, and cat ears or more specifically cat eared hats.
>Amvs used to have their own screening rooms and were considered a major event
> Impromptu hallway raves playing DDR songs and caramelldansen were common
> The term crossplay was used much more
> Artist alleys were a lot smaller and in some cases, the size of a small panel room. I remember buttons, small trinkets, and sewn stuff like the cat hats being more common and not seeing prints as frequent as you do now.
I actually came here because I was curious if anyone remembered old artist alleys better. I rarely find information on the history of artist alleys.

I love these threads.

Attending since 2002, staffing since 2003.

Internet was slow, very slow. I found out about cosplay and conventions by going down the rabbit hole of reading fan sites about final fantasy characters and discovering cosplay through that. Everyone had galleries on their own websites, be it Geocities, or their own domains. I believe ACP was around back then too but it wasn't very user-friendly. Cosplay.com popped up somewhere around my first year (my user number is 500-something). People used forums, livejournal, and AIM/MSN/ICQ to communicate and plan. People made their own cosplay websites or used Cosplay Lab. The community was close-knit and it was very niche and extremely nerdy. We were all "internet people", which is a strange term these days because everyone is on it. Back then, you were either a nerd or a normie and used the internet for basic things. If you were a nerd you were probably creating and buliding in some facet rather than just being a "user" to to speak.

Nobody knew wtf they were doing. There weren't really many cosplay tutorials, but people would make threads on cos.com when they discovered something or wanted to share how they made things. There was no market for us, and those of us who had money would start businesses, which lead to Katie Bair and other future cosplay supplies.

We had 6 styles of wigs and about 12 colors. Nobody knew how to dye a wig. Colored hairsprayed wigs, natural hair, or just wearing natural hair as is was extremely common. People would cut their own hair to suit characters.

We didn't have patterns and we learned how to draft and build off existing ones. People closet cosplayed a lot.

People were enthusiastic fans. While there was always drama and some elitism around, for the most part cons were places for fans to meet with other fans.

cont.

>>9168565
The peak time was probably around 2006-2008. This was around the time internet was becoming faster, cable instead of dial up. Stuff was being traded faster. The anime industry was booming.

Around the 2010 mark or so, is where I noticed a decline. Like long-time anon posted above in regards to raves...

Raves used to be "anime/jpop dances" where remixes of anime themes and jpop were played and there were glowsticks and what have you. We were all pretty much good wholesome nerdy young adults (most of us were adults, rare to see teenagers or younger) and had no real interest in getting totally shitfaced and get laid. Not that it didn't happen back then, but it wasn't commonplace. Again, good wholesome nerds.

Once "Comic Con" became a household term for "people in funny costumes" a lot of "normies" started to attend. With social media being a thing that in my opinion, killed the old internet culture (yes, I miss those days a lot), people were striving for more popularity than ever before.

Cosplay used to be a way to express your love for your favorite series or character. Now it's a beauty pageant. Nobody questioned whether or not you could "pull off" a character, suggestions were made as to whether the costume was in your skill-set and budget rather than if you physically represented that character in every facet.

At any rate, the anime industry began declining, studios were closing up. Less and less good series were being produced. Even Japanese games have been lackluster (Still waiting on FF15 10 years after the first screenshots)

Everyone has kind of begun moving more toward various fandoms. Home-grown fandoms are a thing rather than fandoms over large studio-produced media. Homestuck... Undertale, RPG maker games (common thread here). Not to mention western fandoms. I seriously remember someone flipping out on convention forums over a storm trooper at an early con because they didn't belong there. Welcome to the future, buddy.

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>>9162194
I had forgotten about this shit.

I went to my first con in 2001 and I don't think there were more men,I'm surprised people are saying that here. I think anime and manga has always been popular with girls too.

Feels like missed the whole thing. Where geeks go these days? Or have they been superseded by cool geeks and we're basically stateless now?

>>9169577
More obscure/niche cons.

>>9164941
> This is not the least bit true.

Yes it is. The ratio of men to women at the early ages of cons were like 7:3. Now the ratio is about equal. Back in the late 90's and early 2000's, Anime had yet to boom yet and most of the media was geared towards young men (i.e Dragon Ball, Megaman, Teknoman aka Tekkaman Blade, etc). Other than Sailor Moon, there weren't any series that was specifically geared towards women. It wasn't until maybe the mid 2000's with Gundam Wing, and Inu Yasha and the boom of the anime industry in general that you started to see more and more women appear in conventions.

>>9160815
From someone who was a horny 14 year old then, they were fucking awsomely easy to get laid at. No normies, just the real hardcore fans which meant piles of socially aquward girls who would spread their legs when someone the least bit nice showed an interest in them. I really miss those days.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BuxymcuQqg

I remember going to SDCC and buying badges in March because I forgot to.

Just logged into the website, bought a day pass for each day and that was it.

I didn't even know what a con was for the first half of my life. There wasn't a single one in my homestate.

I hit up the con scene late as shit. But yeah I have noticed the trend that there's less people going for the actual con and more normies going for easy con pussy.

The reason I'm digging Dragon Con is because there's so many old people that are still cosplaying and you can just see the veteran look in them.

Meanwhile I just remember SDCC a couple years ago and a bunch of frat boys and Navy fags screaming constantly at the girls.

>>9163166
>>9163293
>>9164958
Someone did Mexican Pedobear yesterday (it looked fucking amazing, like some professionals did it) and there were so many people taking pictures of it and you could just tell they had no idea what it was, that it was just cute.

>>9169975
Such as?

Preferable in the UK and in London?

>>9160815
Imagine a world with no normies, and especially no normies who discovered that they can use Social Justice to set themselves up as bullies over the very nerds who created these conventions as a safe space to get away from exactly those sort of people.

>>9170248
Until you provide proof, I will have to disagree.

>>9174048
Did you expect him to save the condoms or something?

>>9170248
>From someone who was a horny 14 year old then

And people fucking wonder why I say the age of consent should be 14 or 15. Children, my fucking ass.

>>9174173
Genuinely, what the fuck is wrong with you?

>>9163078
I used to teach panels for Para Para at cons regularly, and the last one I remember doing was 2012 with a decent turnout. Past that, there has rarely ever been Para Para workshops in programming, but it is nice to see that the gaming halls still have the arcade machines there.

>>9166360
I've wondered this. Will there ever come a point again when cons will go back into obscurity?

I was in the 8th grade when I first started going to cons in the early 2000's. I think I was probably one of the few people there who was around the 12-15 bracket, but I generally remember for a short period of time, younger people were actually pretty chill and there was little hostility between us and older fans who seemed genuinely interested to chat with you if you were interested in anime. It wasn't until the mid-2000's or so when younger people started coming in that it wasn't just new, eager fans, but that weeby mentality really took off, and it started causing a rift between different crowds.

Cons were so different than other activites at the time since most were fan run, it felt more transparent than other larger-scale productions. There's only a handful of cons now that have that vibe.

I don't think this era is inherently bad or impossible to enjoy. I feel like even cosplayers who started off early with less materials have grown to appreciate the availability of new products, tools, and tutorials. A number of older fans have come to learn that while there's a younger crowd flocking around, making friends has less to do with age at times and more about maturity and being a chill fan at no matter what age.

>>9174694
>Will there ever come a point again when cons will go back into obscurity?

I guess this is the con-equivalent of gentrification. It will never go back. Just kinda wondering where the socially awkwards geeks/nerds will go once all the giant cons basically become dressup venues for normies.

>>9161244
Tbh I'd rather autistic weebs and neckbeards. They make me feel good about myself and they're entertaining.

>>9161262
Damn so true, I really haven't noticed it until you said it. No one asks for photos nowadays but back in 2010 when my cosplays were craptastic people would ask for photos left and right.

>>9162015
I second this. They're kinda ruining the whole scene. That's why I try to stay away from comic cons cause that's where most of them show up at.

>>9162035
This. I'm glad people are noticing it too. I miss the old days where cons actually had fun activities and less expensive guests

>>9162299
Was it??!?

>>9164155
Yeah I feel you kid. I got in right towards the end of the good days. Lets bring it back.

>>9164701
Normies are a real thing whether you like the term or not.

>>9164707
Omfg someone else gets it. The cosplay/con scene is a nightmare here. I just moved here from the states and any time I talk about it people think I'm crazy

>>9170910
Thank you for posting this. I actually teared up.

>>9171769
Yeah id like to go to some niche cons here too.

>>9160815
Went as part of a full outlaw star group as a teenager (Around 2006/7) in england to a small london convention.

It was alot different than now, for a start costuming wasn't a normality. There was about 20 costumers including us and people were pretty uncouth about it all.

Namely one neckbeard coming up to our melfina and asking why she wasn't naked for authenticity.

Been attending cons since 2006 in Oz.
I remember:
>glomping
>all cosplay was shit but if you did something other than wearing a fan shirt people went nuts over you
>vidya games were not present at all with the exception of Final Fantasy
>Naruto, Chobits and FF cosplays were the most popular
>You went to cons mainly to acquire manga/anime which was impossible to find anywhere else
>Naruto headbands were considered a costume
>A wig was considered a costume
>No children under 14, and it was honestly mainly adults
>Many, many more creepers who were excited that girls like the animu
>Very explicit hentai was always sold
>Hare Hare Yuki where everyone would dance (I miss this)
>Spending 80% of the con watching anime in the screening room
>Cosplay comps were less serious as all costumes were pretty shitty and usually a FF one would win
>If you had a prop you were a godtier cosplayer at the con
>Con would be 80% anime, 20% sci-fi. Quite a few old Trekies and Dr Who fans who would stick to themselves away from the anime
>You heard about cons from flyers in comic book/DnD/MtG shops.
>Cons were under 1000 people, anime specific con's under 500
>No popularity contests or attention whoring
>Bringing your entire costume and changing in the bathroom at the con. No one arrived in costume years ago unless it was just a wig/cat ears combo
>Neko shit was common such as guys calling all girls "nekos". Neko was used instead of waifu.
>Fruits Basket had a huge popularity where at least 30 girls would be Tohru and they were usually fat. Rice ball merch everywhere. Kyo hats everywhere. Fruits Basket manga everywhere.
>Misa from Death Note got every anime loving goth into Lolita (It's mostly..)
>Dealers room was tiny but 100% handmade mercy. Mainly kawaii trinkets.
>Figurines would sell out fast and they never had many to begin with. You'd go early if you wanted a figurine of your waifu.
>Role playing in shitty cosplay was very normal and people would role play characters for ages

>>9178280
Also hug circles. I hated those.

>>9178280
hare hare yuki but also CARAMELLDANSEN. its funny that i still like that fucking song

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>>9178311
>CARAMELLDANSEN.

Why did you make me remember that

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>>9176208

nah man normality's a spook

>>9170243
I mostly concur with this. People were still discovering teh intarwebs, which meant that unless were in college or the tech industry or you went explicitly looking for a con, you were unlikely to just stumble across or happen to hear about one. You had your choice of scifi OR literary-scifi (with an occasional comics-only con); the former was likely the only one with anime. Because the con population was extra self-selecting, they tended to be a lot more nerdy (and male).

All in all, it's much nicer now. If you want a super niche con, it probably exists and you can probably find it.

>>9174061
Well there is this cool thing called a "photo"....

>>9178280
Pretty much everything you said was right. The only think I would have to disagree on is the quality of cosplay; a *lot* of it was good back then (at least in my area). I'd honestly say that the fact every basic bitch wants to cosplay now is over-saturating the con scene with shitty cosplay.

The popularity of Facebook and the fact that everyone has a cellphone camera now has changed a LOT. I still have my photos from cons back in the late 90 taken with my 35mm camera from Wal-Mart. I have them organized by year, and it was always a fun surprise to pick them up after they were done developing.

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>>9182548
>wanting photos of literal 14-year-olds fucking

>>9182555
I don't think I could have phrased that any worse....

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Things had all sorts of weird grain in them

>>9187269
>looks like an early 2000 photo
>if not for the RWBY scythe thing
dang

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>>9187302

>>9162800
Why the fuck does it matter to you though? If you're into retro games you should already own these games.

>>9174173
So you're a pedophile, cool.

>>9189412
My thoughts exactly

I've been going to cons since 2005 and honestly, the only thing that excites me anymore are guests and the artist alley.

I've been to fighting game tournaments on the other hand and they are amazing! the energy of the crowd and how small they are compared to the overwhelmingly large cons, I'm thinking I want to go to Evo one year.

Aussie anon here and the difference between cons now and the cons back in the 2000s is really stark. Back then pretty much all the cons in Australia were anime cons run by fanclubs. Now they're just about all gone and its wall-to-wall pop culture events which are flooded with normies.

There’s been a meteoric rise in sexual harassment of girls. Sure the old events had some creeps and socially stunted people but communities of nerds/geeks etc. were smaller here. So if you harassed people, everyone knew about it and you risked being ostracised from the one place that you were welcome. As others have said, these events and clubs were safe spaces built because everyone bullied the shit out of us for liking Anime. We all geeked out together and thus there was more respect. Normies come in, not knowing these unspoken rules or caring about them, see all these girls in short school uniforms and they fucking go to town on them.

The events were weird and wacky like that 2001 odyssey video posted above because we couldn’t have fun anywhere else. You mention cosplay to a normal girl and she ran a mile. But here you could actually share your love of things together with likeminded people. When you cosplayed a character, it’s because you really liked that character and materials were much harder to come by. So it was a much bigger deal back then.

>>9191362
I’m not saying people don’t cosplay because they like a character these days. It’s just far more common for people to do it purely for the attention it brings. Again not to say people didn’t appreciate the attention they got when they cosplay. That is an inherent part of it. But now you get people who buy their outfit off eBay and strut into a con expecting the same level of respect and admiration as someone who has been making their outfits from scratch for 5-10 years. Then get all shitty when they don’t receive such admiration.

As pointed out by others, the internet is a completely different place now. Back then it was more of a wild west. Past 2010 and everything is social based with a big focus on likes, sharing and subscribers resulting in people doing anything for internet fame. This I feel has led to a massive surge in narcissists coming into the scenes looking for attention. You then get SJWs and the like bullying people for a power trip and the whole place becomes toxic as hell.

I've been going to cons since 2007. The one thing that sticks out to me as an Asian-American male is how open non-Asian women are about inter-racial relationships with Asians. It used to be non-existent. Rarely would I see an Asian male with a non-Asian female, and I personally did not get to socialized with the members of the opposite sex of any race.

Right around 2010, things changed. I assume it was due to the rise of K-pop and K-dramas. Ever since then, instead of being ignored (some women literally walked away when I tried to talk to them) when I try to engage in conversation now, I get smiles and a warm reception. Many of my friends have also noticed this change in overall treatment. Glad to say, it has gotten better every year.

As an Asian-American with a predominately white upbringing, anime was my only connection to Asian culture as a kid. It was disheartening that when I went to a celebration of it, I was essentially ostracized to the same extent as "real life". I actually enjoy going to cons more now, since my identity carries a modicum of social cache.

Attended from 04-06 up and down the east coast. We were absolutely laughing and making fun of the creepy fat guys or pimply passive aggressive nice guys, there was no nerdy nirvana were akward mouth breathers were embraced. Hell, Cats on Mars was basically mostly about making fun of creeps and the weird shit they'd say to us at cons, or their incredibly lame pick up attempts.

Finding a hot guy that cosplayed was like finding a unicorn, everyone fell in love with them, and the competition was brutal but kinda funny now that I think back on it. But if you were weird and ugly outside of the con, you were weird and ugly inside the con, too.

Generally the only girls who put out to the creepy, awkward, "not-Normies" "true fan" types were mostly remarkably obese, hideous, or, in the minority, cute but absolutely batshit insane. None of the people in this thread talking about con-tail ever hooked up with anything you'd want to take a picture with, if they hooked up with anything at all. The guys swimming in cooch usually weren't channers, hell- if they went on cos.com that was rare.

>>9189417
>being straight is bad
Fuck off faggot

>>9196133
nice projecting

Slightly confused here, half you guys say it was pretty much the same but smaller, the other half says it was a more geek-orientated as opposed to pop culture orientated.

>>9165029
If you're still monitoring this thread after all this time, what's the best way to run and maintain a convention security department? tl;dr is one of those guys who's a stickler for details and gets things working even if it's stuck together by duct tape. And the con owner wants me to run security next year.

Problem is I still have a very golden age convention mentality with the 'I'm going to act like a Resident assistant, don't do anything to make me have to write you up.' and generally treat people like adults instead of children as long as they follow the rules. When it comes to convention security.

But is that sort of approach even feasible these days with the different culture? Also what's a good way to try and recruit and evaluate people who want to be on con security? I lack a dominate personality, so I'd like to screen out anyone who wants to join just so they can power trip.

>>9174173
No. Tweens and teens mature at different rates. I definitely wasn't ready to have sex at 14-15 but my best friend had slept with two guys already. The age of consent is there to protect vulernable kids not inhibit them.

To stay on topic I wish had been to earlier cons, my partner frequented cons around 05-06 and he can't stand the modern cons we have now. We go to MCM London and Hyper Japan but this year mcm really died for us. Loads of normies who've watched GoT and think that qualifies them as 'geeks', itas, fuck all atmosphere unless you were outside on the grass and people queuing for signings from the host of storage hunters....

>>9201032
Then why is it both legal and socially acceptable for 14-15 year olds to have sex with other 14-15 year olds?

>>9160815
>What were cons like in the past? Say very late 90s to mid 00s.

I went to several cons in the late 90s and mid 00s and I thought the cons back then were not as good as the cons are now because there were not as many women showing up at the cons back then as do now (some of the cons were actually kind of a sausage party to be honest)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-TvSiYu8z2M

Nostalgia city here.
Used to frequent cons more in the late 90s and early 00s.
People already mentioned glomping and yaoi paddles and a buncha stuff I remember.
I remember sometime in like 2003 or 04, there was a distinct shift with vendors selling more Japanese fashion items, and clothes... more rave apparel as well.

It was a better time, when all con attendees were libertarians instead of regressive SJWs.

It's amazing how quickly it changed, like a mind virus or something.

>>9161418
They were popular in the late 90s/early 2000s con scene.

I'm actually a little sad that I'll never experience a good con.

My first con was Phoenix Comicon in 2009 and I was still in high-school. Back then I was just taken by the glitz and the glamour.

Now I'm 21 and I drink alone and stay up late and wonder what the difference is between doing that at home and doing that at a con.

I see cons mostly filled with kids that were my age when I went to that first con in 2009 and I just wonder, "what the hell am I even doing here?"

>>9214561
Why would anyone drink alone at a con when there are room parties filled with alcohol and the hotel bars are overflowing with fans and attendees?

>>9215269
You can drink with other people and still be alone.

>>9215451
Only in the metaphorical sense.

>>9191363
>But now you get people who buy their outfit off eBay and strut into a con expecting the same level of respect and admiration as someone who has been making their outfits from scratch for 5-10 years. Then get all shitty when they don’t receive such admiration.
On the other hand, you get a lot of people now that buy their costume and get _more_ attention than the ones who make theirs and this makes the old school cosplayers mad.

>>9187302
The Crescent Rose and BMO tipped me off. Everything besides that just screams mid-00's

>>9164941
it is

>>9161970
You can make anything a good word. You can make "shnortoobak" the insult of the century

>>9215269
The only thing I that was better in the 90's was that there were room parties. I miss those.

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>>9190082
do it dude, at my local con, there a few of us playing fighting games and shit gets hype! go to evo, it's where all of god's destiny children go to, ill make sure to be there next year.