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Weirdo Convention: Writing About Subcultures

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Michael Y. Park is a freelance journalist living in Brooklyn, N.Y.

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The city was invaded by over the weekend when a convention landed here, drawing fans of .

, otherwise known as a -year-old software engineer, was dressed in as he waited in line to pay the $ fee to carouse, enjoy , and discuss with others drawn to this, the greatest spectacle in the tri-state region involving .

“This is it. This is the Olympics of ,” said , a -year-old video-store clerk whose mother drove him here all the way from for the event. “Everyone who’s anybody in the world of would give his left to be here with his co-equals.

“I spent the last 10 years of my life making sure I had every last , watched for hours this week and spent $ having my mom sew up this costume—all in preparation for this,” he said. “This is the most important thing in the world to me for reasons that will make absolutely no sense to me once I get a girlfriend. Unless, of course, she’s into this, too, in which case I’m going to become really weird.”

The co-founder of the event, , a -year-old -store owner, said the event would also feature and a tarot-card reader.

“The rest of the world could really learn a lesson from this,” she said. “I mean, where else can so many different people of different backgrounds get together so peacefully and have a good time like this? Except for the and .”

While taking a break from , addressed the mainstream criticism of fans as socially inept people who use their obsession with an inconsequential and unconstructive esoterica to escape from reality and avoid dealing with the challenges of improving their own lives or the world around them.

“We’re not geeks or ,” he lisped. “We may be , but we’re also human beings. If you prick us with a , do we not bleed? We’re not here in this soulless, overpriced and plastic-smelling convention hall just for the amusement of the quote-unquote mainstream with their 40-ounce beers, cheese-flavored , and quote-unquote normal sports franchises, like r the amusement of the quote-unquote mainstream with their 40-ounce beers, cheese-flavored in a bowl or in a cage. We’re here to be with other people like us, other people who are scared of the real world like we are. We’re here to be the mainstream for a brief few hours before we have to go back to a real world that relegates us to the fringes. Here we’re not freaks.”

With that, lifted up his and disappeared into a crowd of .

—Published May 8, 2007

Monday, October 6, 2008