/cgl/ - Cosplay & EGL

I've been going to cons on and off for about 15 years now. I never really browsed this board but I've always occasionally lurked. And yeah the culture changed a lot.

You guys might be too in your insular bubbles to be aware, but Discord killed a *lot* of communities and forums. Many groups even converged from Facebook onto that platform, and it has zero searchability so nobody is really aware of what's out there anymore. It's really hard to find and connect with fandoms more than ever before, ironically.

Overall I think cons "peaked" a little bit around 2009-2011. It was less corporate and more merchants and fans making things up. More cosplay and show variety. Now there's heavier money into it. I think publishers and distributors like Crunchyroll and Aniplex will flex their will at a regional con and try to gatekeep what's allowed. It definitely got 'normified' with the advent of streaming essentially eliminating a lot of content arbitration between what's available in the west and what was popular in Japan. Japan has become way more accessible now. Trends and fashion also changed.

Still, there's a lot of positives. Overall I've seen artists get more attention at cons now. Pretty much every con I've been to here in the U.S has a way beefier artist alley than ever before. There's still a lot of 'soul' in international cons like in EE, Romania, Italy, SEA, etc. Smaller, more dedicated, less financed fandoms.

I don't think having a quieter, slower paced board is bad. It changes the signal to noise ratio.