mixed Wiscon reactions

[jinian]

Seeing people I like lots and rarely get to see: Very good.
Finding someone new to fangirl over: Very good.

Programming: Generally very good.
Programming in which I am basically told to shut up due to not conforming to fannish norms: Bad.
Irony level regarding which programming that was: High.

Increasing familiarity with Madison: Good.
Personal ruling in finding the yarn store and how to get there by bus: High.
Success of Indonesian restaurant expedition: Middling.

My appearance at parties: Very good.
My ability to talk to people at parties, even when I have something to say and totally want to: Very bad.
Making haiku earrings with people: Chaotic but fun.

Arriving on Thursday: Fair.
Leaving on Tuesday: I guess we'll see.

Comments

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

Which panel were you told t shut up on? What happened?

[beaq.livejournal.com]

What she said! Also, more reports plz! I'd have liked to be there, but I'm not feeling as left-out this year.

going on about my woe

[jinian.livejournal.com]

No one actually said that, but I did feel defined out of existence.

In the processing post-panel discussion after the cultural appropriation panel, someone mentioned early on that it's possible the syndrome of authors wanting to know how to write other cultures the right way, which is so annoying when they can't let go of it, has something to do with some of us having a geeky/scientific mindset in which there has to be a right answer and we want it. Nothing really came of the first person's comment, so I brought it up again later, saying that I am also a scientist and want to have a right answer. A major figure of Wiscon replied that fans always want to be corrected if they're making an error, but that cultural stuff is different and fraught with doom for everyone.

It's not very inflammatory when I write it out, but at the time I felt, and still kinda do, blown off. My experience is that I do not want to be corrected, even about seemingly minor issues like word pronunciation. I want to be right in the first place. Now, if I am not, I appreciate corrections (assuming the corrections are themselves accurate, which I can't most of the time) and try to be gracious about them, but I feel embarrassed and unhappy about it. If I hadn't already been feeling like an outsider here, that would've done it. I am not the standard fannish person, and I knew that, but can't I come to the con and still have a perspective anyway?

The fact that the panel was all about how to respect other cultures would crack me up if I didn't feel so hurt and mad.

(But I do now have one of Hanne Blank's smoked-rosemary caramels from Elise's earring party last night, which OMFG yum. And soon, the mad scientist cafe.)

Oh, I forgot the part where someone -- "jokingly" I am sure -- responded to my same comment by saying that science was supposed to be all about deciding what your finding was and falsifying data to fit it! Flummoxed, I settled for saying, "oddly, that doesn't happen in my lab," but what the fuck? Did this random person have something against me in particular, or did a scientist bite him as a child?

[jinian.livejournal.com]

Wrote whine story above.

I have some panel notes, but mostly just stuff that was new to me. Will write some up eventually.

If you go next year, you have to promise to write whiny, attention-seeking posts like this one, so I can participate vicariously.

[marzipan-pig.livejournal.com]

I didn't think of it as whiny and attention-seeking at all, I thought of it as 'you saying what happened'! *hug* I want to think abount and respond to your comment above. PS nice hair!

Re: going on about my woe

[marzipan-pig.livejournal.com]

The 'joking' person may have been flirting with you in an incredibly ineffectual way. I don't know why people are sometimes weird and hostile about science, where sometimes the data change the model and sometimes the model changes which parts of the data is worth looking at. Maybe there is a poor understanding of the 'curiosity about the world' or the 'creating knowledge' elements of science?

I am thinking about what the 'cultural appropriation' panel might have been about; authors maybe being too specific about cultural experiences that aren't their own and coming under fire for it? I'm not sure that's about being 'right' or 'wrong' about the details as much about people's feelings about representation (and wanting more books written by people who have had a wider range of cultural experiences themselves?).

Or am I misunderstanding?

I'm sorry you felt like an outsider, bun.

[jinian.livejournal.com]

There is a hair-braiding guy at the Gathering, the first Wiscon event (sort of like the tiny fairs elementary schools sometimes have), who does really neat work. I kept that braid in from Friday afternoon until Saturday after all the parties, and was recognized by it as a Wiscon person in the main part of town. :)

Re: going on about my woe

[jinian.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's basically what the appropriation stuff is about. There was a very large interblog discussion of doom (http://www.livejournal.com/tools/memories.bml?user=oyceter&keyword=Great+Cultural+Appropriation+Debate) about it last year, because some actual people of color talked about last year's panel afterward.-

I really wish I were any good at calling people on their crap in the moment. I think of what to say afterward. And just now I was trying to interrupt someone who wouldn't shut up at a panel when people having a different perspective were trying to talk, and I couldn't interrupt at all, my conversational pause even under pressure was too long. Grr. Sigh.

Re: going on about my woe

[marzipan-pig.livejournal.com]

Wow. That oyceter sure rocks. Thank you for the links!

Sorry you couldn't channel my Interrupty Girl tendencies when you needed them!

Re: going on about my woe

[oyceter]

Doh! I'm sorry I didn't see this till now. But yes, I personally don't much like being corrected because of the embarrassing aspect, and also, I think the desire to have a "right" answer is very much not just a science/geeky thing, given the number of people who want metaphorical gold stars.

And I'm sorry I didn't say anything too.

(repost oops)

[jinian.livejournal.com]

You were quite sufficiently awesome this weekend. :)

Yeah, I don't know how much of needing to be right about this stuff is about needing to be right in general, or how much of needing to be right in general is about what I tend to attribute it to. I'm still annoyed that the response to me comment went "<faulty assumption>! And it's as if <little thing> is different from <big thing>!" But I am crabby as hell this weekend, so that may be a big part of it.

(Actually I wanna go home NOW, and I don't think I can.)

Re: (repost oops)

[jinian.livejournal.com]

Hilariously, it would cost $720 extra to go home this afternoon.

Re: going on about my woe

[firecat]

Belatedly:

fans always want to be corrected if they're making an error

I don't, either. I mean, I do want to learn the correct info, but I pretty strongly dislike being corrected in public and I have to apply all sorts of filters to it ("they weren't trying to make you look like a fool, they were just...")