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July 14, 2014 - Sargon of Akkad - Carl Benjamin
07:20
SnowflakeCon 2014
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Time Text
Go easy on 'em.
If you haven't heard, Tumblr users decided to have some sort of Tumblr convention over the weekend.
It was an unmitigated disaster.
Hardly anyone showed up.
Between 500 and 1,000 people showed up.
And they were expecting up to 7,000.
it was a just complete disaster but the thing is everyone is going to pounce on this and really going to hammer the point home that these people were fucking useless And they were.
They had failings.
But they weren't the worst failings.
The worst failings were really in the idea itself.
As if a bunch of socially awkward lunatic shut-ins were going to all travel thousands of miles to go and be social with a bunch of other socially awkward lunatic shut-ins.
Which they obviously weren't.
And that's why no one turned up.
And also these are kids with hardly any money at $65 a ticket.
I mean, I imagine plenty of them can afford it, but how rich are they?
You know?
That's probably $65 they could have spent on, I don't know, something to take pictures of to put on Tumblr.
I don't fucking know how their minds work.
But the thing is, the creators didn't do anything wrong.
It looks like the hotel basically said to the convention hosts, doesn't look like your ticket fees are going to cover your expenses, so we'd like the money now or you can stop because you can't afford it.
And so that's why they asked for donations, I think, if I have my information correct.
And to be fair to them all, they ponied up the money and so they got to have their three day thing.
they didn't do anything wrong I don't think it seems, I don't I don't think it's fair to accuse them of stealing the money And all the people from Tumblr did, who actually did take the time to go down and see the thing, they put their money where the mouths are.
So, you know, I don't think there's anything to really have a go at them for there.
I think I really think that the Tumblr community has turned on them.
I saw a lot of tweets and a lot of sort of breakdowns of what went wrong.
And there are loads of people on Tumblr and Twitter who are just saying some really horrible things about these people.
And maybe I'm feeling suddenly magnanimous or something.
But, you know, they tried.
They didn't get the turnout they were expecting.
Which, honestly, I can see why they'd expect a large turnout.
You know, I can see why they'd think, because I mean, the people who made it really did commit to the cause.
And so I can see why they would think Tumblr, a website as big as Tumblr, full of bloody useless kids, might have actually got off their asses and done something.
They tried.
And it was the innate nature of Tumblr that was holding them back, not anything that they really seem to have done.
Don't get me wrong, the convention was naff.
But I think that if it had been packed, it would have been good naff, instead of being shit naff.
Which is the problem that they had.
You know, I mean, it's very easy to imagine from this picture that if the place was heaving, then, you know, it probably would have been a good time and everyone would have been like, the fucking awesome.
So, look, these are my thoughts on this.
I feel bad for them, to be honest.
You know, they didn't do anything wrong.
they did something stupid.
They really seem to have failed to understand that people don't go to conventions for the tools they use.
They go to the conventions for the things they use the tools for.
You know, if they'd just committed to like a Doctor Who or a Sherlock or something like that, they probably would have had lots of these people turning up as Doctor Who or Sherlock or whatever.
But instead making it about just the fact that they all use Tumblr doesn't give them any other shared interest really Or at least probably not enough to really compel people And certainly no one from the general public who are the people who probably you know do have some disposable income and would have just stopped by on the day You know so yeah, that's anyway, that's my thought on it.
I I don't go hard on them.
They tried.
I was gonna I was gonna make a video where I just just ripped it out, but it was it was too mean.
I mean these this is these people are pretty pathetic anyway, and this picture is just the most pathetic thing I've ever seen.
And these people probably did work really hard behind the scenes, even though I really loathe the kind of people they are.
Just fucking Tumblr-right social justice warriors, you know.
They've had to learn a lesson, and I think the way Tumblr's just, I mean, I've seen a lot of shit posted and it's really harsh, and the way everyone in their own community has turned on them and is mocking them and just eating them alive as they turn on their own.
And it's just like, wow, that's really shit.
You know?
But I mean, that's the sort of behaviour that, frankly, we expect from them.
or at least I do, and I think it's going to be one of those things that it's just another nail in Tumblr's coffin, isn't it?
Not the fact they tried and failed, but the fact that once they failed, they turned on him.
I mean, I'm looking at Twitter at the moment.
I'm not going to bother taking a screenshot because, fuck it, you can look for yourself.
But there's some guy called Rim saying, if you intend to dash con, sue them in small claims court.
There's no excuse for their behaviour.
They don't have money.
They've paid it to the hotel.
You know, you're just going to impoverish these people.
It's not like they actually did anything wrong.
They're just incompetent.
I don't really think you need to go after them quite that much.
You know, you went to this convention.
It turns out you were shit.
And there were just loads of people saying, oh, it's the illegal convention because, I don't know, some state law or something where they were in Illinois and Registron, Ohio or something.
It doesn't matter, you know, it's really fucking petty stuff.
It's you know, it's just not that big a deal.
You know.
I don't think they were.
I don't think they were actually hustling people.
I mean, maybe they were, maybe there's information that I'm not aware of.
If they did actually only have like one day and then they did just run off of the money and didn't give it to the hotel or whatever it was as bullshit, then fine, yeah, they they deserve everything they get.
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