VOTE for pictures.
My first con I went to was A-kon of 2004 and I went purely to see Fred from Megatokyo and if I remember right, this was right after he got married to Sarah. My memory on this whole thing is pretty shoddy, but I remember he talked about how he put a picture of him and Sarah from their wedding and he immediately got emails from people telling him to take it down because it "ruined their otaku fantasy." I was honestly, completely flabbergasted. I couldn't imagine anyone ever being that rude but at the same time I believed it. The internet makes you faceless right?
So for the longest time I never put a picture of my own self up on this site for fear of the same thing. Maybe not that exact email, but a rude, hurtful email nonetheless. And for the longest time I've gone on this site with people not knowing if I was a guy or a girl. I go to cons and people have no idea what to look for. They just see me sitting at the table and after a while of talking with me they'll realize it and I usually get an 'Oh, wait! You're Juno?!' And I guess I never realized why that was. The most recent changes to this site included the two new rant icons for Mike and me which give you a small glimpse to our physical appearances. Not enough to ruin any otaku fantasy, I'd take. But today I decided I'd throw up a vote incentive for those who are curious of a picture I took yesterday with my laptop's iSight camera.
Honestly, I'm at an age now where you can't hurt me anymore by telling me that my skin is ugly and scarred and my nose is huge. And I figure I beat myself up worse than any of the random rude people who may read this comic. But I honestly also don't think I have people like that reading. Hence.
Otaku fantasies be damned. And whoever said that to Fred ages ago - burn in hell, k? Thanks.
I have found that going to Cons makes for really interesting people watching. I'm not just talking about seeing all of the interesting Cosplay outfits, but just people in general. Since no-one goes around with a label saying what they do during the week, you are left kind of wondering.
Take for instance, those that decided to go to Con, sans knickers (tighty whiteys). I mean, what were they thinking (I personally didn't see this, but Juno did come back to the table and try to claw her eyes out once).
Another behavior I like to watch is people as they either pass your table and look at your stuff. Some will look through it, and then move on. Others will say its not their thing. You have the Super Fans who come and want to know everything that is going on, and what comes next. And then you have the negative people. It's these people that I have a hard time understanding. Juno and I didn't really have any of these this year, for which I am thankful. However, I did hear about a few that visited the tables of other people that we know.
Its one thing to say that someone's work isn't your thing, after all, you can't please everyone all the time. However, it is quite another to walk up to someone you don't even know and say they don't belong, or compare their success to someone else's, or that their style sucks. Just because you appear to be nameless in a sea of many faces, doesn't give you the right to denigrate an artist whose work you do not care for (BTW – at ACEN, your full name is printed on the front of your badge and easily readable… Just a thought).
Anyway, I think that the best part of any Con is the Artist Alley. Here you get to meet some of your favorite artists, and discover new ones. And even if you find something that you do not care for, at least respect the person enough for the effort that they made to be there.