it's a great life, if you don't weaken (matociquala) wrote,
it's a great life, if you don't weaken
matociquala

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this is what you wanted

Concerning the latest round of Hugo gatekeeping cloud-yelling...

You know what? Pretty much anything I would have said on this topic has already been said by Scalzi, Seanan, or Cheryl.

Except this: I hear a lot about the graying of fandom. I hear a lot about the death of science fiction. I hear a lot about how SF is getting old, and not enough young people are coming in.

Dudes. I just got back from Space City Con. It was crawling with twenty-somethings. I can go to any anime convention in the land and be the oldest person in the room. Steampunk conventions are full of youthful faces. DragonCon, which is four times the size of a Worldcon, also skews about twenty years younger.

Have you been on Tumblr?!

Fandom is not graying. Fandom is evolving. Maybe our friends are graying, but fandom is not just our friends.

And that's what this is about. Fandom is not just our friends anymore, and the ideas and people we grew up comfortable with. And rather than finding that threatening, maybe what we need to do is make room for lots and lots of new friends and new ideas. Listen to some new music. Get out and dance.

Make some room in the Hugo balloting process for new kinds of fans, and young people on a budget. And then live with the results, which, I am sorry to say, is going to be girls and queers and brown people all up in the awards along with the straight white cis dudes.

It's okay. It's a good thing.

Breathe in. Breathe out. Move on.
Tags: awards, face down in the cheerios again, internet slapfights, worldcon
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