Conventions of Yesteryear

>>9493511
ive been going to anime expo off and on since 2003.
to me, the only main difference is the amount of people. definitely less crowded. the exhibit hall was a bit smaller too and less "flashy".
Also, the people there were a whole lot less cringy and autistic.

I went to san diego comic con back in 2008. Between then and now is a huge fucking difference.
It was a last minute trip and ended up buying a 4 day pass with preview night like a month before the con.
nowadays, passes sell out within seconds.

Also, I remember casually going into panels in hall H. nowadays, people line up a day in advance just to try to get into hall h.

Im curious for more stories about conventions in the past but since /cgl/'s demographic is pretty young, Im sure most were too young to go to cons in the late 90s to early 00s.

2001 veteran here.

Skimpy costumes have always been a thing. Pretty girls in skimpy costumes have always been a thing. But patreon and facebook likes were not. It was just cool to have your cosplay site linked on other better and more experienced cosplayers websites with those cute little 88x31 buttons.

Conventions became popular because it's far more accessible today than it was back then. Any normie in the late 90's and early 00's knew what Sailor Moon or Pokemon was to a degree. But might've not known about Tenchi Muyo or Ranma 1/2. You had to be pretty hardcore into this stuff and often times cons were your only way of getting access to new anime series if you had dial up or no friends who could trade cds (or sixth generation japanese copied vhs or beta tapes).

Nobody knew what they were doing when it came to cosplay. There were no real tutorials, no real guides. The best costumes would be considered mediocre these days. Nobody did fancy photoshoots. Everyone had hall shots... oh and they were usually on disposable cameras. You were lucky if you had a friend with a 1 megapixel camera that would give you a 640x480 picture at best (My first digital camera did 320x240).

It was close and tight-knit. Elitisim was still at thing but it's not nearly what it is today. Nobody cared about "pulling off" a character. You just cosplayed a character or series you loved and met other fans and made lasting friendships where contact was over email or like, ICQ or something until the next year because you were lucky if you had one con in your state a year.

>>9493511
The intimacy is lost a lot of time in bigger conventions nowadays.

My fondest memories of earlier AX's (started going in 99) was being able to talk to people with similar interests, and see them all throughout the day, since the convention was smaller. You'd meet up again, make plans, talk to other weirdos. Costume meetups were more impromptu, and it felt like there were more people actually cosplaying because attendance was lower. You knew the people showing up were hardcore nerds like yourself.

There was still the usual cringe and odd fuckers, but the nice thing is your interaction with them ended when the convention did. And for the people you liked, you were lucky to exchange emails or home phone numbers.

The community aspect was more socialable, more inviting, and I dare say more pure in it's intent. I actually looked forward to going to conventions to meet back up with "con friends" who I only saw once a year.

It's why I gave up on AX after 2008. It's turned into this beast of a convention that doesn't resemble itself from my youth in the slightest. Comic Con was always fuckhuge, but at least I originally was able to walk up at con for a badge and didn't need to pre-register.

I stick to smaller conventions now whenever I can. It's still not the same due to how the community is, but it's still better for social interaction.

>>9493511
>girls in skimpy costumes seem "too hot" to be geek
Protip: Understand that several geek girls were not always hot. We grew up being weird ugly ducklings who were outcasts who found just as much comfort in nerd shit as you did in our awkward phase. Just because we're hot now doesn't mean we always looked like the cheerleaders. When we figured out how to groom ourselves and found our confidence we enjoy being the hot girls we could never be growing up. I could talk extensively about the works of Akira Toriyama, Satoshi Kon and Makoto Shinkai and learned Spanish by watching a fuck ton of pirated anime that I could only find in Spanish and can name all the capitols and identify the flag of every country in the world, but because I'm wearing bikini armor I must just be after sweaty nerd money.

I find the concept of fake geek girl fascinating because I think it's just created by awkward dudes who think that girls just don't like them because they're geeks when in fact we just don't like you because you're awkward and ugly. But you can't accept that therefor it's impossible in your mind that attractive girls can like geek shit too. Patreon girls only represent <1% of the rest of us.

>>9493821
Didn't mean to offend, maybe I should've include buff brodudes and hipsters in the post.

My viewpoint is probably tinted since I come from a London estate and my area was void of geek stuff, basically void of almost any culture at all. I knew 1 maybe 2 people who were vaguely interested in secondary and college.

So it's a little odd, seeing a lot of non-anorak people cosplaying.

>>9493901
*non-anorak looking

I feel people who say the social experiences back then were better are seriously overglossing how things have improved


>Meeting people and cons
Cons are getting bigger and as such people tend to stick to groups more. However with the bigger cons its much easier to carve out hang outs. The bigger the number the more likely you'll gather a group of people of these interest.

>Organization
This one is a no brainer, social media has replaced message boards as the go to place for gathering and meetup hosting. Getting the word out there that you're doing a gathering or trying to find a cosplay group is so much easier and you're more likely to get responses.

>Post con interactions
Social media allows us to stay connected after a con happens. Hell, its easier to make friends even before the con starts as people bond of series events and costume construction

>>9494171
>social media, big cons, organisation

Seems like I was born 7 years too early.

>>9493554
>Nobody cared about "pulling off" a character. You just cosplayed a character or series you loved and met other fans and made lasting friendships where contact was over email or like, ICQ or something until the next year because you were lucky if you had one con in your state a year.
This sounds really nice. I really can't imagine how people consumed anime before the internet, I've only ever heard vague descriptions of college tape trading networks etc to acquire and exchange copies of shit.

>>9495699
I remember these days. My first con was a decade ago and the Internet was just then starting to go for accuracy, so being ultra close was actually just going above and beyond. There was a novelty in making things and people just being excited you cosplayed someone they loved, whether your prop was made out of foam and pvc or cardboard and duct tape. It was less stressful too, could still wear the cosplay half finished and all you had to worry about was cosfu, if you worried at all.

>>9495699
>I really can't imagine how people consumed anime before the internet
Imagine rows after rows of VHS tapes, each one containing 2 episodes of a series, being sold at the tables of every con.

>>9496234
Is there dumb money to be made in cons or is it oversaturated?

>>9498410
What do you mean by dumb money?

>>9498410
Its just people selling shitty self drawn art work, or over priced action figures.

>>9498867

There's no shortage of shitty self-drawn art. Not that i'm knocking art vendors because some of them make really fantastic pieces, but around here at our local con there's like 5 or 6 artists and at least 4 of them make the same poorly done DeviantArt 2006-tier "chibi characters" usually like Sam and Dean playing paddywack with Attack on Titan dudes. Shit like that.

>>9498967
Now its all poorly done over-watch images

The lack of Taobao cosplay mannequ...models compared to today. Almost every cosplayer I like to see always say their outfit is from Taobao.

>>9499854
And a decade ago it was all costume satin outfits from milanoo and cosplayfu.

>>9495699
In the 90s there were so few titles it was absurd. Everyone had seen Fist of the North star, Akira and one of those horror hentai titles. Tokyo Babylon?
Fuck Love Hina. I will always hate you.

A 96'er here. I still have a stack of VHS tapes I meant to trade with people, that is going for nill on ebay. I also remember every con had a fucking karaoke room, and it was always "ZANKOKU NA TENSHI NO YOUNI" Fuck that shit.

I'll say, sure was less children. When I still did masquerade contests, one lady took in her newborn for the contest with her and it was a TRAVESTY since it was the only person in the damn convention under the age of 18.

Also, back when masquerade contest prizes were sticker packs and a piece of paper with your character written in. Now it's fucking sewing machine prizes and you have to sign up months in advance, and they have prizes for bought costumes? Fuck that noise.

I wonder what happened to all those people. Like guy above me said the community was a lot older... It's not like you just move on when something has been such a major part of your life into adulthood. Cons now feel like a middle school. I guess they just participate in the community from the shadows.

>>9498700
>What is dumb money?

Like buying cheap chinese shit and hocking it for obscene prices. I mean, I see stalls with fizzy pop selling them for £1.50 when there's a fucking Tesco across the street.

Is it still possible squeeze in a stall selling cheap crap? Or is it oversaturated?

>>9504287
>Cons now feel like a middle school.

I really envy this generation, everybody's a geek, even if they're not real geeks.