JCC Obnoxious behavior by fans at sci-fi/comic conventions

I was listening to this comic book podcast this weekend, and one of the people on there told a story about how they heard a fan met with Jeph Loeb at a comic convention, and because he wasn't a big fan of his work, told him, right to his face, that he was glad his teenage son died.

I don't know about you, but that's uncalled for.

It just reminded me of stories I've heard over the years of how rude, obnoxious, and mean fans can be to creators at conventions. I've heard of stuff like:

-A "fan" throwing a cup of warm vomit at Alan Dean Foster

-At a Star Trek convention, James Doohan ("Scotty") met a fan who asked if he could take a vial of his blood. He understandably was creeped out, and said no.

-Babylon 5 star Claudia Christian posed for a photo with a guy dressed as a tribble (?), who then shot her with a gun loaded with blanks (Google "Jon-Eric Hexum" to see why this could be really bad). She only got a bad bruise, and understandably attends conventions only with security nowadays.

It's stuff like this that makes me wonder how people can do this to those they claim to like. It's like they think being a fan gives them some kind of entitlement to act like a jerk. It's stories like these that kinda makes me glad I've never gone to a convention, though I do kinda meet someone who was in SW.

I'd be nice, I promise.

 

1) How many of the above incidents were actually you, Danthe?
2) The term fanboy is, in the absolute sense, derogatory.

 

this is the problem with nerds.

 

The word "obnoxious" in the thread title is derogatory redundant.

 

Maybe creepy sociopaths are just drawn to sci-fi...

 

Never gone to a convention of this sort. Don't care to. I'm not sure (because I've never been to one!) that there's anything that would interest me. I don't care to meet anyone (creators or fans), I hate spoilers, I don't want to be packed in with thousands of nerds sweating in their costumes, stinking the place up....

Am I missing anything? Honestly, I have no idea what goes on at one of these things and I'm not watching hours of video to find out.

 

There are gonna be bad apples anywhere really. Thousands of people go to these things and the majority are respectful people but one or two people can ruin it.

And not only "nerds" go to these by the way. Sure they make up a portion but there are different types of people who go and not every one dresses up, this isn't the Big Bang Theory.

 

People, as a group, are full of idiots. Music fans like Yolanda Saldívar, Mark David Chapman and arguably Charles Manson, to movie/tv fans like Robert John Bardo and John Hinkley.

 

I was thinking of going to Portland's on Sunday.

 

I've been to quite a few, 99.9% of the attendees are decent people, but it's that 0.1% who give everybody a bad name. I worked as a guest escort at several Star Wars Celebrations and most of the guests were gracious and polite to the guests. I only encountered one who had an obvious hygeine problem (and to be fair to him, it WAS August in Orlando, Florida with an obscene amount of humidity) but I did encounter several oddballs:

One woman would find a guest who didn't have anybody to sign for at the moment and would then ramble on at them (not talking to/with them, but rambling on AT them without the guest getting a word in edgewise) and she wouldn't leave until the guest offered her a signed photo just to get her to leave. She had done this with quite a few guests and several of them whom she hadn't hit up were made aware of her shenanigans.

One guy and his son paid a ticket for an autograph, which meant that they had to have an item to sign or get a ticket to select a photograph which the guest would be signing. Instead, the guy hands a ticket for the autograph and while he's talking to the guest, serruptitiously swiped one of every photo from the stack until the guest's wife (who was there at the table) smacked the guy's hand with a flyswatter and told him not to do it again.

Also, there was a Trek convention I was at many years ago where a guy who was wearing a pretty good Data costume got pushy with a female walking by him and then shouted "Watch where you're going you (mother dog)!". That woman was Terry Ferrell of DS9 who then later refused to sign an autograph for that guy when he came up to her in line.

At another Trek con, a guy in line for Marina Sirtis' autograph was busted looking right down her shirt which was already pretty damn revealing. Ms. Sirtis spotted the guy in the act and told him "C'mon! That's what pictures on the internet are for!" It took all of us in line a minute or two to compose ourselves after laughing so hard.


These are the only exceptions I can recall. Everybody else who I moved through lines, snapped photos for, or took tickets from were far from rude and nearly everybody gave the stereotypes a run for the money. Sure, there were a few guys who's milk money never made it with them to school, but they were all pretty well behaved. It was the people who looked "normal" who were almost always the ones who had the worst behavior.

 

yeah i don't think it's the conventions. it's just fat, lazy, living-in-mamas-basement-at-thirty virgins being obnoxious in general. or okay maybe they get extra ticked off at famous figures when they "ruin" the one thing they've got in their life - sci-fi.

as someone's pointed out, i'm sure we're only talking about small percentages

 

You're right... most of the fans who attend the conventions are decent, however the ones that are the most trouble, at least in my experience, are not the ones
bothering the actors, but the ones soliciting the filmmakers. These individuals approach with a script, screenplay, storyline or synopsis in hand and expect you
to accept it, or at the very least listen to them go on at length describing it in detail. When it's explained to them that unsolicited material can not be accepted for
legal reasons, some of them either fly off the handle or else give you the evil eye. A handful of them are just outright stalkers... they send material to private home
addresses or even show up on location and have to be removed by security. Luckily, no one has been seriously assaulted at a convention, but with the rash of
shootings at schools, shopping malls, etc., you wonder when some disgruntled nutcase whose script has been turned away will pull out a gun or knife.

 

Yeah, like someone's going to pull a knife at a place where 5% have swords.
The most violent assault I've heard about at comic-con was the one guy that stabbed someone else with a pen.

 

Good "point". I hope the pen statistic remains that way for a long, long time.

 

It wasn't a con, but at the midnight opening of TPM, I did see a 15 year who wasn't able to get a ticket slap a cop who was telling him to go home. Cop planted that kid's face onto the pavement so fast the poor kid probably didn't know what had happened to him until he was being booked at the station.

 

When dose horny-ass cosplay beezies get all up on my jock and wanna bang while I be peruzing dem replica lightsaberz fo reezy ya feel me

 

I have heard a story or two of fans going off on each other Highlander style with real swords. Thankfully nobody lost a limb or a head.

I bet that made his parents real proud.

 

I don't have to wear deodorant if I don't want to!

 

A smashed face and night in jail would have been a more enjoyable experience than TPM. Kid did good.

 

Yes, conventions are the only place you get crazies. Just ask Monica Seles.

 

Or Nancy Kerrigan.

 

Or that actress who got shot in her own home by a deranged fan.

 

I've never gone to a convention, but when I go to Celebration VII next year, I'll be sure to wear body armor and a Judge Dredd helmet.

 

I've not seen any examples of fans being rude to attending guests at conventions, but they do have a habit of being rude to other fans. I find it especially in the cosplay circuit with people who take it all far too seriously. They seem to forget costuming is supposed to be fun and not everyone has the means to get fully accurate outfits, don't mock them for it.

That and stall owners who complain about how rude certain celebs are to them when they try to get autographs. Natalie Portman seems to be a pet hate amongst many of them given her apparent refusal to sign anything to do with Star Wars.

But most fans are great. It's nice to go to an event where you can just strike up conversation about stuff you like with people you don't even know.