WorldCon (Days 4 & 5)
Aug. 12th, 2024 08:49 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lydamorehouse OMG, this is a long convention. However! My part in it is now, officially, over.
I was once again up at the crack of dawn in order to Zoom into a panel live in Glasgow. So, I'm probably going to be a crispy critter for the rest of the day.
So, okay, let's see. Yesterday, I had one panel at 4 pm locally, which put it directly in conflict with the end of the Hugo Awards Ceremony. Because I wanted to see hownaomikritzer would do, I had my iPad open to the YouTube channel next to me on the table while I was in the online green room. I am happy to report that she won NOT ONE, but TWO Hugos Sunday night! Well done, Naomi!! (And all before I had to go live and concentrate on my panel, so thank you Powers That Be for that little gift.)
Anyway, because it was Sunday and because I'd had a Star Trek: Adventures game the night before, I will admit that I didn't attend a lot of paneling beyond my own. I did watch on Replay in the CircleCentral hub "Through an African Lens" (panelists: Lauren Beukes, T.L. Huchu, Wole Talabi -- Yvette Lisa Ndlovu was also supposed to be there, but either had unsurmountable tech issues or, like some folks, miscalculated the time difference.) It was interesting because they talked a lot about something I didn't know about, but have always suspected. According to the panelists, there is a real, if possibly unconscious, attempt to curate the kinds of stories that come out of The Continent. Some of these authors more speculative and city-centric work was considered "not marketable," in part because the Western audience doesn't tend to remember that some of the largest and most modern cities in the world are on The Continent. The West is still very much attached to the rural, giraffe roaming monolithic image of Africa. Which is just insane to me in 2024, but there you have it.
I mentally bookmarked a panel about Solarpunk that I'm hoping to catch before they close down the member portal. I should probably watch it today sometime, since I don't know how long they intend to keep any of our various features functional.
Before my Sunday afternoon panel started, I got some homemade pizza dough rising, so that, once I was finished with my panel at five (local time, 'natch), I could pop a deep dish into the oven for all of us, which was a very delicious choice on my part, I must say. (It turned out really well!)
The Sunday panel itself was not my best performance. I will take full responsibility here. If I am willing to yell at the clouds in the direction of Big Name yesterday, I do the same to myself: I should have prepared better. As far as I'm concerned a panelist as two jobs: show up on time and be fully prepared to talk about the subject at hand. I was on time. I failed the other one. Not spectacularly? But enough.
The title was "Help! I Was Reincarnated as a Worldcon Panel!" and was about a type of Japanese portal or another world fantasy manga and anime called isekai. I am, admittedly, a casual fan of isekai--but it turns out there were only three of us on that panel and NONE of us were fully prepped to do the heavy lifting. I feel pretty embarrassed about that. I had about a half-dozen titles ready, which might have been fine in a panel of four or five? Honestly, had I remembered there were only three of us, I would have had a bigger list of names of anime and manga ready and at hand. I probably should have just opened up Wikipedia to "manga type: isekai" in the middle of the panel, you know? But, I didn't.
And so we did flounder a bit.
On top of that, it never helps that, on any given anime/manga panel (unless it's about a single title), the Venn Diagram of "what I've seen" and "what the other panelist are familiar with" often has ZERO overlap. Anime is just too huge a category even when you narrow it down to a single "type" like "anime about food" or "anime about life in another world." Thus one of the big points I had been hoping to make about how difficult it is to actually define isekai fell flat because *gasp* (but also no surprise) I was the only panelist familiar enough with Bleach to make the point I wanted to argue... which is that this fighting manga, Bleach, goes to another world very often and has lots of other markers in common with isekai as a genre, but it is decidedly NOT isekai by anyone's definition. Why, right? So, obviously, I'd been hoping to go from there to spark a deeper discussion... but instead I was met with, "Huh, I don't know Bleach well enough to say one way or another." Well, okay, that might be true, but that reply doesn't exactly foster the conversation I was hoping for because explaining the entire plot of Bleach is not only off-topic, but also, in my case, likely to go WAY off into the weeds. So we just sort of let my thought hang there awkwardly. At this point, something happened to the panel's chemistry. Like, it became clear that we weren't picking up with others were putting down. If you were to watch it, you would definitely see me doing that thing that happens when there's no clicking between panelists were I say, "Did that actually answer your question?"
It was just generally like that.
Again, this probably felt WAY worse to me as a panelist than how it "read" to the audience.
This morning I Zoomed into to "If I'm Not Kira and You're Not Kira, Who is Writing in the Death Note?" which was a celebration of the fact that last year marked the 20th anniversary of the debut of Death Note's serialization in Weekly Shounen Jump Magazine (December 2003). I was initially quite worried about this panel because I had not heard much from the moderator other than receiving an invite to a Google Group and, honestly, I had to wonder what is there left to say about Death Note that hasn't already been discussed to death? But, I think it actually went very well. I mean, maybe if you watched it, you'd be like, "Why does Lyda think THIS is a better performance from her than what she did on the isekai one??" But, I think it really is about panel chemistry--at least from the inside. The people on this panel all had very good, thought-provoking ideas. Yeah, it's true that I was kind of just along for the ride in many ways, but it was a good ride.
That's a wrap, folks!
I would say that, generally, I found the Glasgow WorldCON online experience to be a good one. I am a bit disappointed that I only managed one hangout in RingCentral with people I didn't know very well. I did only try to recruit twice, however (and if you look at it that way my success rate was 50%!) Maybe if I'd had more energy on Sunday, I might have been able to drum up another meet-up. But, for whatever reason, people just weren't checking in there.
Even so, given that the majority of this conference was in-person, I felt surprisingly well-connected to the whole thing. It was BY FAR the best hybrid experience I've ever had as a panelist. I might feel differently about all of this if I didn't have quite so many panels, (It's insane that I, a relative nobody, got 5 panels. There were people way more famous than me with far fewer.) Although, I don't know. The day I had nothing on, Friday, I really enjoyed watching the livestreams and the RePlay panels. I'm sometimes really terrible about attending other people's panels when I'm physically at a con, so I guess this is one of the benefits for online for me. Also, because it's not "appointment TV," as it were, I can catch panels that were scheduled opposite things I was on or each other. So, that's just kind of nifty, I guess.
For me it was worth the cost, I guess.
Anybody else attend virtually? How was your experience?
I was once again up at the crack of dawn in order to Zoom into a panel live in Glasgow. So, I'm probably going to be a crispy critter for the rest of the day.
So, okay, let's see. Yesterday, I had one panel at 4 pm locally, which put it directly in conflict with the end of the Hugo Awards Ceremony. Because I wanted to see how
naomikritzer would do, I had my iPad open to the YouTube channel next to me on the table while I was in the online green room. I am happy to report that she won NOT ONE, but TWO Hugos Sunday night! Well done, Naomi!! (And all before I had to go live and concentrate on my panel, so thank you Powers That Be for that little gift.)Anyway, because it was Sunday and because I'd had a Star Trek: Adventures game the night before, I will admit that I didn't attend a lot of paneling beyond my own. I did watch on Replay in the CircleCentral hub "Through an African Lens" (panelists: Lauren Beukes, T.L. Huchu, Wole Talabi -- Yvette Lisa Ndlovu was also supposed to be there, but either had unsurmountable tech issues or, like some folks, miscalculated the time difference.) It was interesting because they talked a lot about something I didn't know about, but have always suspected. According to the panelists, there is a real, if possibly unconscious, attempt to curate the kinds of stories that come out of The Continent. Some of these authors more speculative and city-centric work was considered "not marketable," in part because the Western audience doesn't tend to remember that some of the largest and most modern cities in the world are on The Continent. The West is still very much attached to the rural, giraffe roaming monolithic image of Africa. Which is just insane to me in 2024, but there you have it.
I mentally bookmarked a panel about Solarpunk that I'm hoping to catch before they close down the member portal. I should probably watch it today sometime, since I don't know how long they intend to keep any of our various features functional.
Before my Sunday afternoon panel started, I got some homemade pizza dough rising, so that, once I was finished with my panel at five (local time, 'natch), I could pop a deep dish into the oven for all of us, which was a very delicious choice on my part, I must say. (It turned out really well!)
The Sunday panel itself was not my best performance. I will take full responsibility here. If I am willing to yell at the clouds in the direction of Big Name yesterday, I do the same to myself: I should have prepared better. As far as I'm concerned a panelist as two jobs: show up on time and be fully prepared to talk about the subject at hand. I was on time. I failed the other one. Not spectacularly? But enough.
The title was "Help! I Was Reincarnated as a Worldcon Panel!" and was about a type of Japanese portal or another world fantasy manga and anime called isekai. I am, admittedly, a casual fan of isekai--but it turns out there were only three of us on that panel and NONE of us were fully prepped to do the heavy lifting. I feel pretty embarrassed about that. I had about a half-dozen titles ready, which might have been fine in a panel of four or five? Honestly, had I remembered there were only three of us, I would have had a bigger list of names of anime and manga ready and at hand. I probably should have just opened up Wikipedia to "manga type: isekai" in the middle of the panel, you know? But, I didn't.
And so we did flounder a bit.
On top of that, it never helps that, on any given anime/manga panel (unless it's about a single title), the Venn Diagram of "what I've seen" and "what the other panelist are familiar with" often has ZERO overlap. Anime is just too huge a category even when you narrow it down to a single "type" like "anime about food" or "anime about life in another world." Thus one of the big points I had been hoping to make about how difficult it is to actually define isekai fell flat because *gasp* (but also no surprise) I was the only panelist familiar enough with Bleach to make the point I wanted to argue... which is that this fighting manga, Bleach, goes to another world very often and has lots of other markers in common with isekai as a genre, but it is decidedly NOT isekai by anyone's definition. Why, right? So, obviously, I'd been hoping to go from there to spark a deeper discussion... but instead I was met with, "Huh, I don't know Bleach well enough to say one way or another." Well, okay, that might be true, but that reply doesn't exactly foster the conversation I was hoping for because explaining the entire plot of Bleach is not only off-topic, but also, in my case, likely to go WAY off into the weeds. So we just sort of let my thought hang there awkwardly. At this point, something happened to the panel's chemistry. Like, it became clear that we weren't picking up with others were putting down. If you were to watch it, you would definitely see me doing that thing that happens when there's no clicking between panelists were I say, "Did that actually answer your question?"
It was just generally like that.
Again, this probably felt WAY worse to me as a panelist than how it "read" to the audience.
This morning I Zoomed into to "If I'm Not Kira and You're Not Kira, Who is Writing in the Death Note?" which was a celebration of the fact that last year marked the 20th anniversary of the debut of Death Note's serialization in Weekly Shounen Jump Magazine (December 2003). I was initially quite worried about this panel because I had not heard much from the moderator other than receiving an invite to a Google Group and, honestly, I had to wonder what is there left to say about Death Note that hasn't already been discussed to death? But, I think it actually went very well. I mean, maybe if you watched it, you'd be like, "Why does Lyda think THIS is a better performance from her than what she did on the isekai one??" But, I think it really is about panel chemistry--at least from the inside. The people on this panel all had very good, thought-provoking ideas. Yeah, it's true that I was kind of just along for the ride in many ways, but it was a good ride.
That's a wrap, folks!
I would say that, generally, I found the Glasgow WorldCON online experience to be a good one. I am a bit disappointed that I only managed one hangout in RingCentral with people I didn't know very well. I did only try to recruit twice, however (and if you look at it that way my success rate was 50%!) Maybe if I'd had more energy on Sunday, I might have been able to drum up another meet-up. But, for whatever reason, people just weren't checking in there.
Even so, given that the majority of this conference was in-person, I felt surprisingly well-connected to the whole thing. It was BY FAR the best hybrid experience I've ever had as a panelist. I might feel differently about all of this if I didn't have quite so many panels, (It's insane that I, a relative nobody, got 5 panels. There were people way more famous than me with far fewer.) Although, I don't know. The day I had nothing on, Friday, I really enjoyed watching the livestreams and the RePlay panels. I'm sometimes really terrible about attending other people's panels when I'm physically at a con, so I guess this is one of the benefits for online for me. Also, because it's not "appointment TV," as it were, I can catch panels that were scheduled opposite things I was on or each other. So, that's just kind of nifty, I guess.
For me it was worth the cost, I guess.
Anybody else attend virtually? How was your experience?
no subject
Date: 2024-08-12 03:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-08-14 01:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-08-12 07:20 pm (UTC)Sometimes I've seen a moderator pull the panel together, but sometimes that's really just not possible.
P.
no subject
Date: 2024-08-14 01:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-08-12 08:53 pm (UTC)(can you tell that i didn't attend worldcon virtually and thus have nothing to say about the experience? i enjoyed your write-ups, though!)
no subject
Date: 2024-08-14 01:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-08-13 12:15 am (UTC)I enjoyed the replays I listened to, and I was so grateful for those. There were a lot more panels I would have loved to have listened to, but I totally understand the difficulties of volunteers setting up and running tech on as many as we had.
no subject
Date: 2024-08-14 01:04 pm (UTC)Did you have a good con?
no subject
Date: 2024-08-14 01:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-08-13 01:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-08-14 01:05 pm (UTC)