LittleHobbit13

And they're asking you not fill be in that space, not to fill it in anyways to try and force your own preferred autograph experience. This isn't staff being unreasonable. Being in that space regardless of their instruction is just blatantly ignoring their requests which is not cool. Right up until it's you who missed the call and then suddenly I bet it would be someone else's fault, be it staff or another attendee. Just because it's not your solution, doesn't mean it's not a valid one. I'm sorry, but I'm reading through your comments and you're finding fault with every explanation and possible solution except your own. Every compromise someone offers falls short in your eyes. I understand that your main concern is getting that autograph, but you'll just need to accept that right now Otakon doesn't want to devote endless amounts of their staffing and space resources to creating and managing a space for you to sit around 4 hours early. We might have the physical space available for people to line up elsewhere, but they've repeatedly mentioned how staff is limited so they have to be pragmatic about their usage and placement. Someday that might change, but for now it is what it is. Several people have offered good compromises, and you even acknowledge yourself that staff can't be everywhere. Until something changes, we should look for a compromise solution to the autograph line problem that helps everyone a little rather than placing all the burden on one side. It's about costumes that have metal components, not fit. And if you don't even think they'd be helpful, then what is the point of suggesting them? Yes, that's accurate. The Otakon staff is not trained to look for fake IDs, so they use a 3rd-party service.

If you're not going to even watch the video, then your opinion holds no weight.

This is actually the part that's been bothering me most about the whole thing. This should have been basically a non-issue, at most you show it to your friend and comment privately "Can you believe this guy?" and instead plenty have rallied like a lynch mob around this guy. I've made peace with the fact that there are people who come across as "creepy" who attend Otakon - fact of convention life - but to see how many people engage in and support bullying "outsiders"? Well, that's the part that broke my heart a little bit. That revelation was far more damaging to my notion of Otakon as a safe space than this guy's random comments were. He doesn't know the event community, so he can't be expected to know proper ettiquette. The Otakon community, on the other hand, should behave better because we do know better. And we didn't.

Well I'd like to point out for the record that it's certainly not my intention to downplay the nature of the comment and I apologize if my wording implied that. I'm merely suggesting that, like you said, these people exist and you can't really do much about it, and in the grand scheme of the internet I've heard way worse. It's really easy to try and make this an "us versus them" situation, but in a crowd of 30k people, it would be false to think that at least 5-10% of attendees aren't having the same thoughts regardless of voicing them. You may have caught this guy, but we're still walking around with plenty of other people who feel the same way. I certainly took issue with the comment - gave it an eye roll and a hearty groan and tsk - but I also just recognized that I can't do anything about it. It is what it is. And I still believe that if he had a badge, this still would have been handled differently than it was, all because people would've just chocked it up to "one of those attendees" rather that turning into "KILL THE OUTSIDER!" My concern is less the specifics of what he said, but the witch hunt that took place by the commentators all because he was viewed as an outsider. I take issue with mob mentality, especially when it has a lean toward the hypocritical. Vendors/Artists at Otakon sell sexualized body pillow covers and highly suggestive fanart, and I stand by my earlier inquiry asking the difference between that kind of fetishizing action and a passing comment made one YouTuber. Is the comment acceptable? No, and I never said it was, but it's not exactly surprising to hear it either. Certainly doesn't warrant the witch hunt it generated. On the other hand, you know where his channel is. It could warrant a maturely worded PM explaining why the comment felt inappropriate or offensive and try to educate him on the concern so he understands for the future. That's probably far more effective in fixing the problem than everyone shouting aggressively at him, don't you think?

Maybe, like, an eye roll at most?

That's gonna happen in every fandom. Maybe it's not right, but it will happen. I mean hell, this whole thread (as well as Facebook and YouTube) is littered with comments mocking this guy for something he was enjoying. Mocking happens. This guy wasn't really mocking the MLP person though. He was just saying he didn't get it. I can't even gonna fault him for the "I think it's sexual?" comment either, because even though I have never set foot into that part of the MLP world, I still know it exists and is one of the more major issues people discuss. Makes total sense if that's the extent of his exposure: hearing the odd conversation about the sexualization that occurs in among the bronies, and I'm pretty sure before I watched the series that issue was my only awareness of it too. Based on the video evidence, I thought he was on the nicer end of the spectrum of con attendees. I'd love for him to join us next year, properly badged.

Iya, chigaimasu. Ano hito wa hentai zya nai yo. So what if he made that comment? It wasn't even that pervy. Why can people put pervy fanart of characters down in the Artist Alley, or make whole blogs devoted to sexualizing their favorite asian idols, but one guy saying in passing that he hopes to see some sexy asian is somehow such a problem? "Should see some really sexy asians" is a fairly benign statement. You know, I've seen multiple sources of people claiming "What are you cosplaying?" is one of the top things you should never say to a cosplayer, and I've never understood it. Like you said, nobody can be an expert on everything. Isn't it nicer to complement the person by acknowledge the obvious level of effort you noticed in their cosplay? I feel like that's just as great a compliment, especially if you don't know the series. It means it's you just really like the job they did on their costume rather than just because you know the series. Besides, if someone asked for my picture and then admitted they didn't know the series but the costume intrigued them, I would consider it an opportunity to introduce someone new to something I like. So yeah, I don't get how not knowing a costume is ever a point of contention. That doesn't make sense to me.

I don't think the controversy came so much from the incident as it did how aggressively damning you and others were reacting to it. It's fine if you want to vent your frustration that this happened, but you don't need to call names like "douchebag" or "idiot" or "trash" and call for permanent bans. That was just too much. I think the video itself was fine to bring attention to, because we clearly got some good discussion out of it; people having their different opinions, or helping to point out weaknesses in access control and offering suggestions for how to adjust it. That was good stuff. The name calling was unnecessary though, especially since it was just a new con-goer mistake. As someone said in a YouTube comment, he was actually more respectful than plenty of the other attendees we get at Otakon. Polite with the photo requests, didn't block anyone's way to take photos, etc. We've had way worse attendees at Otakon over the years, so the controversy here was only that people started a witch hunt because he's an "outsider". That's not good. It's gatekeeping, and it doesn't really belong at a convention that's supposed to be about sharing culture. We had that in past years at the BCC, but the layout in the WEWCC wasn't ideal for that this year. There didn't seem to be enough space to fit Registration/Pick-Up right up front I can't remember how the space works out, but I wonder if it wouldn't be easier to send people with badges off to the left (side we came in on this year) and people without up the right? Those without badges would come up the path to see registration right in front of them. Those with badges would also be on the side with the escalator traffic to/from the AA/DR floor, so no one without a badge would get lost in the mix of that. For me it's hard to suggest a change without being in the space to understand the space allowances, but maybe splitting the line somehow is the way to solve this going forward given the restriction of not being able to pull Registration closer to the door?

At the same time, I think anyone would assume they were about to get in trouble. You don't get called into the principle's office because they want to ask why you forgot your textbook one day. Usually "the heads" are reserved for bigger issues. Especially if all they wanted to know was how he got in, why wouldn't the staff right in front of him be able to ask such an easy question? To me, that suggests there was going to be something slightly more in-depth than "How did you get into the building without a badge?" when everyone knows the answer to that. Like you said, there are plenty of rule breakers at Otakon that don't get called up for a more in-depth discussion about it. Considering that he was in the photo area, I think it might have been more along the lines of wanting to see what photos he took and potentially having them deleted out of security/privacy concerns for the badged attendees. I would love if staff could comment on why they wanted to talk to him. And for next year, they just need a way to separate badged from non-badged attendees at the door. Send those needing to purchase through a separate line. Unless I'm remembering wrong they did that on Thursday. There were different doors they wanted you to use depending on what someone needed in the building.

This seems like it could be a good potential compromise, perhaps worth some refining to determine efficiency/feasibility.

I didn't know where I was going on Friday morning either, and I chose to wander, just like him. Just because I had experience to aid me where he didn't doesn't make me more right than him. My very first Otakon, I also wandered. Plenty of people wander rather than ask. And again, he didn't know he needed a badge, so why would he have thought to ask where to get them? You keep coming back to this one assumption of "he should have just known better" when it doesn't even make sense. People go up to cosplayers and ask for pictures all the time, and as a cosplayer who has been asked for photos myself I can say he was nothing but polite at all times. He didn't act any differently than any other typical con-goer, save exploring the Photosuite a little too freely. You are officially grasping at straws. Let's just acknowledge that you're intent on vilifying him and not interested in the facts, and move on from discussing your logical fallacies.

But again...some conventions allow you to be in the lobby space without badges. Katsucon, for example, does that. In fact, when I went this year, I had to cross the entirety of the hotel to get from the point of entrance to the badge pickup line. It wouldn't matter if he saw people with badges if he thought it there was a public space policy. You are making an awful lot of assumptions - ones without basis - about what he should and should not have already known. Did you know everything the first time you went to Otakon? I know I sure as hell didn't. Took me a couple years to get my Con legs under me. Since when did Otakon become so elitist that only other experienced Con-goers are allowed to attend? In the video, he quite correctly asks "How come we were able to walk in?" That's not his fault. That means there are adjustments that Access Control needs to make for next year in the new space to prevent that from happening. Maybe some signage that needs to be hung to make it more clear where to go after bag check. And even if he were an "attention whore"...literally why do you care and in what way does it affect you? If he likes hot asian girls (which might have even just been a joking comment given that he was headed to an anime convention)...literally why do you care and in what way does it affect you? Even if he has a preference, as long as he's respectful in his interactions with them, there's no problem and it's none of your business. If people who have been coming to Otakon for years and years had trouble navigating this new layout, why are so many people assuming this person who has never attended before should just automatically know it all? That's the part I remain confused about. There are dozens of posts in this very forum about being confused and getting mixed up in the new space, yet here's a guy who's never attended and too many people are like "God, what an idiot. I can't believe he didn't know how things worked." What the hell, guys. What the actual hell.

Yeah, and given that, I think it's weird how many people have had such a strong and often negative reaction to it. Some of the comments between Facebook and YouTube are just awful. To include, on YouTube, someone claiming to be the staffer and rewarding the commentary from others calling this guy "trash". That's not the professionalism I want to see from Otakon staffers, and frankly I think it doesn't reflect well on Otakon to have staffers encouraging hateful comments. I'm happy to have new faces at Otakon, but with new faces also comes the understanding that they're new and probably won't know how things work, and staff needs to be prepared to handle those situations more effectively, be willing to respond rather than react. But the thing is, he did leave pretty quick. He was on his way out and staff is the one who asked him to come back.

Totally, totally. He has a lot of similarities to that "douchebag" YouTube personality you often see, but at the same time I kept noting to myself that he never once said anything mean to anyone no matter how much I felt like I was expecting it to happen. And yes, both sides could have.

Same. He wasn't trying to break in. He wasn't trying to get in to make fun of people's costumes. He was just like "Hey, there's something interesting going on. Let's see what it is." He was incredibly gracious and enthusiastic to each cosplayer he talked to as far as I saw. Didn't make any of the usual comments jerks make about "They're too ____ to be cosplaying that" or "Their costume sucks" or whatever. He was just in there excited to be taking pictures, and I liked seeing that he was even communicating with the cosplayers about what kind of pictures he was taking. I liked that he was taking a moment to talk to them about their costumes. I agree. Even on Thursday when I was picking up my badge - as someone who knew what to look for in signage - I still had no idea where registration was until I was in the room and could see the signs at the booths. I even had to ask a staffer that night to point me toward it. I can't fault these guys for not seeing an obvious "registration mandatory" requirement. I think a hanging sign pointing you toward registration is a great idea. Really not sure how you got that idea. He literally said, and I quote, "I think this stuff's cool 'cause it's such a sub-culture. These are the people that in school you made fun of, but they are really cool. [...] This is cool because it brings them all together." He took pictures of the cosplays he knew, but he also took pictures of costumes he didn't even know but could tell people had put effort into. Not only did he reach out for costumes he didn't recognize, but he made a point to politely explain "I don't know your costume, but it's really cool. What series are you from?" Cosplayers love that! I'm sorry to say, but I don't really care for your attitude. He "should have been treated rougher"? If anything, I'd feel more unsafe with you at convention than with him. Your comments about this are 100% more mean-spirited than anything he said during this video. I guess I'm failing to understand the very drastic reaction that occurred. He wasn't being malicious, nor impeding anyone else's ability to enjoy the convention. I can understand staff having a mild panic at how someone without a badge got in, but to be fair, he's right. It was just the lobby area. Registration and Photosuite were opposite sides of the same space, and if he'd turned left instead of right, he'd have seen registration and figured it out. Should he have been wandering Photosuite without a badge (...or at all, if not on staff?) Of course not, but I think we take for granted that veteran Otakon attendees know the rules about maneuvering around the convention. He says, right there in the video, that he had no idea what Otakon was before getting there. Didn't even know the name. To be fair, there are people in that lobby without badges because they haven't been to registration yet, and if it was such an issue about people going into that space without a badge, then maybe the staffer should have been facing outward instead of inward. I think the best reaction in this situation would have just been to first escort them calmly out of the space, then explain that badges were needed and point them toward registration. If then he said they didn't want to purchase badges, then explain they'll need to leave but can stand outside the convention center and take pictures there if they wished. No muss, no fuss. As an attendee who appreciates the attention Otakon gives to our security, it's my opinion that the escalation that occurred in this situation was a bit of an overreaction. I walked into the convention center plenty of times over the weekend, and there wasn't one obvious sign saying registration was mandatory. At BCC, it was obvious because the main entrance lead you straight up to registration, but that's not the case for WEWCC. Maybe that's the learning experience for this new space. Aside from the weird and slightly creepy-if-he-was-being-serious comment about hot asians, there were no red flags to me about his behavior. I think this situation could have been much better handled, and I think what concerns me more is the idea that he should be mocked and ridiculed just because he made a mistake. We don't come to Otakon to be mocked or perpetuate ridicule for imperfections. We gather at Otakon because of our common enthusiasm...enthusiasm he clearly shared.