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I do think there's something to be said for "never join any club that's willing to have you as a member," and I specifically have that reaction sometimes at SFF conventions.
-You have to know your target audience. If you advertise your event as focusing on the short written fiction form, you're going to get a lot of heavy readers as well as a lot of aspiring writers. Now, there's nothing wrong with trying to branch out; it's probably good to try and attract a new generation of fans, be that through cosplay or LitRPG or anything else. But. If your panelist introduction is like "I'm not a writer, but I read a lot, I've read at least ten books this year, not small ones either!" There may be some disconnect. Likewise, if a panel is about upcoming anthologies, and you start out by saying "I never do open submissions because the slush pile is just garbage," or "in the past people could launch a career by writing short stories and then landing a novel contract, but that never happens anymore, if you were expecting to earn money by writing short stories you were lied to and should just leave" (maybe some of us had other plans than quitting our day job???) There will be difficulties.
-Filk is a multi-level Dunning-Kruger process, in that singing ability is not required or even particularly sought-after. Anyone can participate, and that's a good thing. However, what it does requires is either a. an organizer who's willing to instill some level of organization (like, "taking turns and going around in a circle") kind of thing, or b. people who can read the room enough to realize that not everyone in the captive audience is necessarily interested in hearing their rambling stories about back in the day; keeping in mind that many of the other people there will be nerdy introverts who might struggle to naturally insert themselves into the flow. It also benefits from c. people arriving near the stated event start time. Alas, all of these attributes are in short supply.
-This is broadly applicable in terms of board games and other events (in person and online), but like, if someone is awkwardly standing around and keeps interrupting everyone asking "hey, do you want to play," it's like...no, sorry, I suspect someone who keeps talking about nothing is not gonna be very entertaining company. But that's why they're here, if they had made other friends they might be off being cliquey with them. I don't want to be the exclusionist snob and alienate the newbies; at the same time, I'm probably the awkward person standing around being weird from someone else's perspective. Which ties back in with the whole ladder-of-respect thing. The idiom is oxymoronic for a reason, but I think there's something to it.
-You have to know your target audience. If you advertise your event as focusing on the short written fiction form, you're going to get a lot of heavy readers as well as a lot of aspiring writers. Now, there's nothing wrong with trying to branch out; it's probably good to try and attract a new generation of fans, be that through cosplay or LitRPG or anything else. But. If your panelist introduction is like "I'm not a writer, but I read a lot, I've read at least ten books this year, not small ones either!" There may be some disconnect. Likewise, if a panel is about upcoming anthologies, and you start out by saying "I never do open submissions because the slush pile is just garbage," or "in the past people could launch a career by writing short stories and then landing a novel contract, but that never happens anymore, if you were expecting to earn money by writing short stories you were lied to and should just leave" (maybe some of us had other plans than quitting our day job???) There will be difficulties.
-Filk is a multi-level Dunning-Kruger process, in that singing ability is not required or even particularly sought-after. Anyone can participate, and that's a good thing. However, what it does requires is either a. an organizer who's willing to instill some level of organization (like, "taking turns and going around in a circle") kind of thing, or b. people who can read the room enough to realize that not everyone in the captive audience is necessarily interested in hearing their rambling stories about back in the day; keeping in mind that many of the other people there will be nerdy introverts who might struggle to naturally insert themselves into the flow. It also benefits from c. people arriving near the stated event start time. Alas, all of these attributes are in short supply.
-This is broadly applicable in terms of board games and other events (in person and online), but like, if someone is awkwardly standing around and keeps interrupting everyone asking "hey, do you want to play," it's like...no, sorry, I suspect someone who keeps talking about nothing is not gonna be very entertaining company. But that's why they're here, if they had made other friends they might be off being cliquey with them. I don't want to be the exclusionist snob and alienate the newbies; at the same time, I'm probably the awkward person standing around being weird from someone else's perspective. Which ties back in with the whole ladder-of-respect thing. The idiom is oxymoronic for a reason, but I think there's something to it.
