#convention behavior

Including one who was trying to tell his security guard how to do his job and that he really should have tackled this guy on a motorcycle who turned up outside on of his plays in the west end and neither John or his security was bothered by it but she was went on about it and then looked like an idiot when it turned out to be his husband who had come to pick him up on his bike...I have friend who is the good version of Larry... She got onto all the Star Trek and Babylon 5 sets and was there with the cast and she worked at the conventions but the difference was, she never said anything... She was doing something for one of the fan groups when it was a closed set for the wedding of Jadzia and Worf and she never said a word that she was there until afterwards... But the cast and crew like her and she never took it for granted or bragged about it...I have never seen the second kind because basically with the ones I know, if anything like that did happen, it was reported... I have seen reports about Lana crying at cons because she was so exhausted. There were on one of the forums conflicting reports around the Brazil convention where something went on on the Friday and there were mixed reports about her trying to get into the car and fans not letting her and she was crying and saying she was feeling really sick but couldn't move...But them some were saying oh no she was fine and then they were rowing over it. But then she sent a tweet out apologising to the fans for not being able to meet all of them because she felt really unwell and had been unwell all night due to jet lag and that seemed to confirm one set of reports... I dislike that... If a star turns round and says I'm really tired or they feel unwell, etc, leave them alone... Their human too... Just because they are famous, doesn't make them yours...

A continuation of the overcrowding Barrowman and Lana conversation.

I don’t know the truth behind any of the rumors about Rio.  I do know that she has been driven to exhaustion at cons though, not at the fault of any one fan, but we were all at fault.  I’ve said it all... too many people wanting a bit of her turns out to be a lot of her.

But there are also some fans determined to crush a narrative that there is anything wrong.  When I first wrote that post after Regal Con I was told that Lana was just fine and not at all uncomfortable cornered by fifty people.  Except I was there.  She tried to move out of the corner and the entire crowd just moved with her.  She told someone she really needed to talk to other people and the person didn’t move.  And just a few weeks ago I saw a person on twitter saying that someone should stop a particular fan from sending Lana gifts (which Lana was acknowledging and thanking the person for on twitter) because she was creepy.  Except the person saying it was the one who has become so touchy at several cons that Lana has had to put her foot down at several of them with her security.  Now I don’t know that the person she was complaining about was innocent but it was literally like watching one stalker complain about another.

Many of those people who cause the need for more security will join in these conversations about people doing bad things.  In my defense, Lana wouldn’t know me from Adam if we met.  I’ve only spoken to her in an autograph line for about 90 seconds.  I just have eyes and have been in fandoms long enough to have seen this happen before.  To Mulgrew, Barrowman, and Mary McDonnell just off the top of my head.

The problem is two fold.  There are a segment of the fandom so desperate for acknowledgement by Lana and who she has acknowledged in fan interactions that they have decided that they are insiders.  I’m sure these people would say that I’m jealous that i”m not.  But the thing is I don’t think we’re talking about actual insiders.  Actual insiders don’t have their interactions at cons and at the set lines.  And Lana’s memory for people she’s met before is mistaken for intimacy.  The Regulars are why she needs to withdraw from more one on one interaction with people (and has) or they’ll eat her alive.  But there is a broader problem in the entire fandom of much smaller scale lack of self restraint.  It’s the crowd behavior.  It’s spending 10 minutes at an autograph table with a gift.  It’s following her (and her family) into bathrooms.

I feel so sorry for the fans who haven’t had the full experience with their favourites because of these fans. It’s such a thrill to meet your favourite and to have it ruined by some fans is just horrible. I met Kate Mulgrew at a con in England, the first one she did and none of the fans had a long time with her because she promised on the Friday that she would sign an autograph for everyone at the con and there were 4000+ fans there and she did it, everyone got an autograph.   But nobody bothered her or complained, we were just thrilled to be able to see her and met her… That is how it is meant to be… Not standing there as a fan watching certain fans behave in certain ways and thinking what the hell is wrong with you… I also don’t like it when it is obvious that the star is tired or they are with their families/partners and they still think they have right to them… Leave them alone, they are allowed to do other things besides catering to you…

A continuation of the Barrowman conversation.

I know of a case involving Richard Dean Anderson where fans broke into his hotel room at a soup opera convention and he refused to do another convention for about 30 years.  Another case where an actor with very young children shooting in Vancouver went to a Vancouver con and had fans ask him if the power came back on the night before.  Because they had been sitting outside his house in a car all night.  He moved his family out of the city within months.

I honestly think that the fundamental problems are among two social dynamics.

“Regulars”: people who go to set or go to enough cons that they feel like they have a personal relationship with the actor.  Especially in the case of Barrowman and Lana they both do this “I know you!/I remember you!” thing with people they’ve met before.  Suddenly these people decide they belong in a different class of people then the herd.  Suddenly the boundaries don’t apply to them.  

The prime example is not cons but set spotters on Once.  The entire fandom retweets and follows Larry.  We all know who Larry is.  Larry has become more and more aggressive with the cast both in person and on twitter.  He routinely ignores security on set and badgers actors to sign things for him even when they are sick and even though he’s had a billion things signed already.  He’s now to the point where he is openly bragging about how much Jennifer Morrison hates him (I’ve had multiple friends recount him doing this with them).  Several of the cast at this point now wont come to the fan lines if he’s there… and he knows this so he often inserts himself into groups of out of town visitors counting on the idea that the cast wont want to let them down.  Yet the fandom continues to feed his ego for information.  The cost of those filming reports is our support for his behavior.

The second dynamic is that fans in groups, even when there are sane people among them, don’t tell their friends “that’s not cool.”  When the West Wing was filming there were spoilers in the fandom and no one could figure out how this group was getting them.  It turns out there was a group that was breaking into Martin Sheen’s trailer and stealing things.  They were openly talking about this.  Dozens of fans knew about it.  Finally someone called Warner Brothers but it was years.  In another case I knew of a group of middle aged fans who decided to give their underwear to teenage actor to sign.  You can’t tell me no one who that group told before hand wasn’t thinking ‘that’s craycray’.  But fans never put the breaks on behavior they see as wrong and sometimes we’re the only ones who will know ahead of time.

Most of it is down to his popularity at cons and he has really long lines but some of it is down to some fans who took things too far… I think one of the worst I heard was at a Torchwood convention and this group of fans would not leave him alone, they literally stalked him round the convention to the point where, he was supposed to be hosting a fan dinner with the cast, he couldn’t come down to it because they wouldn’t leave him alone…

I came to Once fandom after having burned out in Doctor Who fandom.  Honestly I think there is a similar sad situation with both Barrowman and Lana in that they had very few boundaries with fans originally.  But fans will take and take and take.  Actors need to set limits or they will be eaten alive.

@oparu

In light of Fairy Tales III coming up next weekend you can expect me to start posting about convention behavior and my ongoing concerns about how we all behave with actors and around Lana in particular.  

The hashtag I’ve used for this in the past is #thequeensguard because I was advised that branding is important in getting a message across.  The point of #thequeensguard is about moderating yourself and your friends at conventions.  It is not about trying to police those you do not know.  

In particular in the past many Swan Queen shippers at conventions have been made to feel like they are unwelcome or even in personal danger.  SQ shippers in line with SQ related things for actors to sign have been told not to show “that lesbian shit” to actors.  Here is an example of “that lesbian shit” a friend of mine was attacked in line for wanting Lana to sign...

... that my friends is an official episode still released by ABC.  Not some sort of painting of a naked orgy.  I personally witnessed an SQ shipper being told not to embarrass the fandom by asking a question at Dragon Con.  I was not in the fandom at the time and it made my skin crawl and made me feel uncomfortable.  Others have been booed and hissed.  Someone at Regal Con tweeted about wanting to “cut” people for asking SQ questions at a panel.  None of them remotely inappropriate.

It is not your job to protect the actors from other shippers.  It is not your RIGHT to tell other fans that their shipping is wrong or something that should be kept away from the actors.  And what’s more, the actors would certainly not thank people for playing #nohomo gatekeeper on their behalf.

Inappropriate questions do get asked at panels.  The most famous examples have been from shippers of the canon heterosexual ships asking about sex and kissing, and once requesting stories about Ginnifer Goodwin’s pregnancy.  The best way you can stop those kinds of questions is to not ask them yourself and make sure your friends know it’s not cool.

But once you make it about policing the people who are not your friends?  That’s when you go over a line.  

Waving and saying hi is totally within bounds of convention etiquette.  Even the filming of Lana walking that showed up early yesterday totally fine.