Day in the Life of an Idiot

So, to be fair, my normal experience of cons, even when not palling around with a Hugo nominee, is much more "insider-y" than most. That ABSOLUTELY does taint how connected I feel to a con.

However, I wasn't on any Virtual WisCON panels this year, either, but I somehow managed to find some good Discord chats to join in, I ran into people who knew me, and I felt more "with people" in a way I am decidedly NOT feeling here. Maybe it was having jiawen to watch opening ceremonies with? Or the spontaneous parties, where you could literally stumble into a jitsi meeting that someone organized on the fly? If those are happening here at ConZealand, I am not finding where they are. But, the fact that within minutes of going to the "Concourse Atrium" Discord Channel on the WisCON server I "ran into" several people I knew IRL but rarely get to see really made the Virtual WisCON experience feel startlingly like what happens at meatspace WisCON.

To be brutally honest, I tend to feel somewhat disconnected at Worldcons, so maybe this *is* actually a lot like my normal experience??

So, okay. What I have done so far at WorldCON includes a few panels, but mostly listening to a lot of readings. Those are entirely passive as a non-presenter. You can choose to go into them with your Zoom camera on, but most people go in dark since you're always, automatically muted and expected to stay that way. If you have questions for the reader at the end, you need to use the chat function and I am surprised the extent to which no one does? I do see the chat being used more at panels? Though because there is often a programming track on Discord, a lot of cross-talk seems to actually happen there.

So, I've been watching people read a lot.

I am rarely a fan of readings, so it's been pretty passive and pretty boring. Charllie Jane Anders did her level best to make her reading into a highly enjoyable performance piece, but I did not feel like I was in a room with her, and I'm not entirely sure why not. Maybe the room I'm set up in is kind of hot and stuffy? I don't know.

I tried hanging out in the con bar channel on Discord, but part of me got really irritated by the fact that I paid $190 dollars to watch someone I don't know type: "I've poured myself a Scotch. Wish I had cheese stix." 

The hallway wasn't much better.

I mean, this is partly how text channels on Discord servers WORK? I am a long time Discord user, so it wasn't just the chat function that bugged me. It very much may be an issue of the attendance fee? It's one thing when your expectations are low because you paid what feels like a more reasonable amount (I  choose to spend $30 on Virtual WisCON, though I could have attended for free). I am currently UNCERTAIN  how my $190 is being spent on Virtual WorldCON right now.

To be perfectly fair, I have NOT tried to join a voice and/or video channel on Discord. I do see that people are breaking out into those and I suppose that's where I'll find the WorldCON version of the spontaneous parties. I may just have to be brave and break into one of those or try starting one and seeing who might show up.

I did give myself a tour of the Art Show, while waiting for Charlie Jane Anders's reading to start, and that was okay and I even lingered on one piece and considered buying a print of it, but then I decided Shawn would kill me if I actually bought one of those cat and dragon type pictures. But it was really pretty. If are registered and you go, I recommend "Calico," because it's just a wintery scene with two calico colored creatures, one a cat, the other a dragon.... it's just nicely done.

I sort of tried to wander the dealer's hall. They do have it set up in a way that you can just click through the dealer's web pages in a way that almost sort of mimics the experience of wandering through a hall, but, like in real life, I hit two costume sellers in a row and I was like, "I'm not going to hit buy on any of this, what am I even doing?" and so bailed out.

I did go to one of the "Party Bands," because I was one of the featured guest at the Wizard Tower Press party yesterday. I had a hour where I was sort of a panelist, in that I did a reading and answered Q+A afterwards for the first hour of a Zoom breakout room/the party. I shared that party with Juliet E. McKenna and so I stayed to hear her reading and listen in to the afterwards. I felt that I had a really lovely conversation with people around the world about how f*cking cool birds are (flying dinosaurs!) and that very much a WorldCON experience because I learned that parrots are invading the south of France from someone French, living in the South of France. So, I mean, that kind of stuff is always awesome. I am absolutely the sort of person who enjoys the kind of rambling conversations you can get at Zoom parties with strangers and adding an international dimension was, for me, extra awesome.

So, I am having some fun?

So far, my favorite thing about WorldCON is seeing into the apartments/houses of people in OTHER COUNTRIES. During the training session on how to get the most out of ConZealand, I spent an inordinate amount of time trying to see what was all happening in the background of a Japanese couple's... apartment? (It was small enough that at one point, the lady got up to get her and her male companion cups of tea and she only went partly out of the screen.) And I was like, holy shit, Zoom meetings are a house snoop's DREAM.

I admit that probably makes me a little creepy? But at one point during the Wizard Tower party Martha Hood's parrot wandered along the back of her couch, and, I  had to private message her on the Zoom chat because we had just been talking about birds and she failed to mention that SHE ACTUALLY OWNED ONE AS A PET. (I couldn't just talk to her about it because this happened in the middle of someone else's reading time.)  

I mean seeing other people's pets is always cool.  

But I  keep coming back to the fact that I paid $190 to do this.