{"id":46588,"date":"2019-05-27T23:02:50","date_gmt":"2019-05-28T03:02:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/?p=46588"},"modified":"2020-08-10T23:03:01","modified_gmt":"2020-08-11T03:03:01","slug":"i-wonder-if-theres-any-coming-back-this-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/?p=46588","title":{"rendered":"I wonder if there\u2019s any coming back this time"},"content":{"rendered":"

MomoCon was this past weekend, and I didn\u2019t go at all, even despite future wife and I having free badges, courtesy of a friend who worked for the con.\u00a0 We had a lot of wedding decorations to do over the weekend, which consumed pretty much the entire three-day weekend, but the thing is that even if we had no plans, I can\u2019t say that I really would\u2019ve gone anyway.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t really know of that many people who were going that I\u2019d have wanted to hope to run into.\u00a0 And frankly, I had little desire to fight the traffic to go into Downtown Atlanta on a holiday weekend, and I didn\u2019t really feel much desire or inspiration to get my camera out and take pictures of costumers.<\/span><\/p>\n

The thing is, this time last year, I was in a position where I had wanted to go to MomoCon, but couldn\u2019t, because I had to entertain guests in from out of town.\u00a0 I had undeniable FOMO as the weekend trucked along and I wasn\u2019t there and I was disappointed that I didn\u2019t get to go when the weekend had passed.<\/span><\/p>\n

However this year, I felt no FOMO at all, and I simply didn\u2019t care that didn\u2019t go.\u00a0 I thought maybe it\u2019s because my weekend was so booked up was why I felt that way, but as I said, there\u2019s no guarantee that I would\u2019ve gone in the first place even if I had the free time.<\/span><\/p>\n

What I\u2019m getting to is that I think I\u2019m over conventions again.\u00a0 I say again, because for those who\u2019ve known me for a long time, might remember a stretch of time where I was kind of burned out on conventions, and I really stopped going and actively sought out alternative things to do during them so I could deliberately distance myself from them.\u00a0 There was part of me that was just being a hipster about things growing in popularity, and there was another part of me that was growing jaded by the increasing notion that conventions were turning into vehicles for attention-starved narcissists to be fake, and some really unsavory clique culture forming.<\/span><\/p>\n

I eventually got excited about them again, because I had a lot of friends who started becoming the people that ran them, and gave me a little bit of preferential treatment if I showed up to them, and that I also had other friends who were very inclusive of adding me to their costume groups and gave me real drive and objective to wanting to participate and attend.\u00a0 For a couple of years, cons were fun again, and I was enjoying them again.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

But then much like the first burnout, it started happening again.\u00a0 Either friends were too busy running their cons to be present to hang out with, or the ones I\u2019d group with, our likes began deviating and we\u2019d have little to no reason to group up with.\u00a0 The narcissists never went away but began becoming more prevalent and obnoxious, and the bottom line is that I just wasn\u2019t having fun at conventions anymore.<\/span><\/p>\n

Dragon*Con 2018 was kind of a litmus test to see if I could find enjoyment at all, and it was unfortunately a bust.\u00a0 I haven\u2019t even touched the photos I took there.\u00a0 I blissfully ignored when 2019 rooms went on sale, and as I\u2019m typing this, I have zero inclination to go, as I have no registration or a room booked.<\/span><\/p>\n

As this past weekend soldered on, I was curious to know if I were going to feel anxious or FOMO for not being at MomoCon.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t.<\/span><\/p>\n

I thought about if I were there, I\u2019d probably be in an agitated mood having to either deal with traffic to get there to pay $20+ to park, or pay an egregious amount for an Uber or Lyft.\u00a0 The weather was steamy and hot, and I\u2019d inevitably want to be outside because I like taking pictures.\u00a0 But then it\u2019s dawning on me that as I get older, they all stay the same age<\/a>, and by they I mean the attractive girls or talented costumers whom I typically gravitate towards taking pictures of.\u00a0 I\u2019m 37 now, and all these talented and attractive costumers are barely in their 20s, and the bar is getting higher and higher, and the culture between people having fun costuming versus those who are trying to really market themselves as talented hardcore fabricators grows, and it\u2019s just an awkward scene of divisions and cliques, when they once were just one giant mixing bowl of counter-culture and where the nerds came together in more harmonious ways.<\/span><\/p>\n

So I ask myself, am I aging myself out of being able to find enjoyment at conventions anymore?\u00a0 Is there no coming back from this, this time?\u00a0 Or should I just say never say never, and perhaps this just another passing phase of being a smarmy hipster?<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MomoCon was this past weekend, and I didn\u2019t go at all, even despite future wife and I having free badges, courtesy of a friend who worked for the con.\u00a0 We had a lot of wedding decorations to do over the weekend, which consumed pretty much the entire three-day weekend, but the thing is that even … Continue reading I wonder if there\u2019s any coming back this time<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[128,108,133,18],"class_list":["post-46588","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-brog","tag-conventions","tag-cosplay","tag-old-man","tag-photos"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46588","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=46588"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46588\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46589,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46588\/revisions\/46589"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=46588"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=46588"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=46588"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}