Work in Progress

I have never seen or heard so much hatred and rudeness toward such a diverse group of people in my life. That’s just putting things simply.

So to explain… a Jewish youth convention (BBYO) was going on at the same time this year. 1st day wasn’t bad overall, with the exception to the Katsucon staff not knowing anything about what they actually rented from the hotel until everyone was already there from all over the country so they had to make last minute announcements of not only a dress code (people make cosplays MONTHS..if not years.. in advance), but also that a very popular photo area would not be accessible due to it being rented to the other convention as well. So blame 1 goes to Katsucon. Overall the kids were not bad for the most part and just simply took pics with cosplayers and interacted with them inside and outside and even in their convention hallways as well but when the night rolled around things started to take a turn for the worse.
The youth convention started to enforce the idea of “this is our space so you can’t pass”. This isn’t so bad until you realize that they are blocking elevator and emergency exit access and this is our secondary issue with everything else going on because we’re now forced to use elevators that are quite a long distance away from our room. This doesn’t sound so bad if you’re in comfortable clothes and shoes, but when you’re cosplaying, you’re quite the opposite a lot of the time. So after having to wait for the 7 elevators(on our side of the hotel) to transport close to 10k people up and down over 20 floors (which was normally in the ballpark of a 10 minute wait at times), you can see how this was a huge issue for our group overall. But our PRIMARY ISSUE is how the adults of the Youth convention were acting and treating the other con goers. In our group alone, one of us was grabbed by the arm in a forceful manner after getting out of the elevator and giving a fist bump to kid that wanted one because we “were antagonizing the kids” and then escorted to the general area. I was even yelled and grabbed at by an adult in their group after being allowed to pass (only allowed at this point if we were going to the exit, and not the con) with the last bits of our stuff. My reply to them was “I’m going home!” as I kept walking towards the exit.

 So here I am, at home, over 12 hours before I planned to, because of all the stress and drama that was inflicted upon my room mates and I because of people being hyper critical and just plain old rude to some pretty outgoing congoers (pics to come!). Some of these congoers i saw (I’m guessing) are already made fun of in their normal lives for their believes and interests in their favorite shows/books/animes/etc. so paying money to go to a place where you can openly be yourself and interact with others to only face a lot of the same bullying behavior some have to deal with at home is just wrong. Especially when i’m hearing rumblings of bans being implemented to people for calling congoers “heathens” for their cosplays and their cosplays and clothes being ripped off in protest.

Just because someone doesn’t believe what you do, doesn’t mean you’re better then them and can act like a total idiot in an attempt to prove your point. I understand defending your views but belittling someone in an attempt to do so is the opposite of what you should do. Always take the higher road people! Trust me, you’ll feel a lot better about yourself knowing that you did the right thing versus bringing yourself and others down with you.