/cgl/ - Cosplay & EGL

[Anonymous No.10822016]

Why is it that con panels today are either
>video essays that can be/are on youtube
>returning panels from last year, because it was so popular they hardly changed anything
>some guy just talking about his shit opinion and may let the audiance chime in on theirs, all equally uninteresting
>celeb guest q&a circlejerks (ironically the best quality of panel so far)
>some amateurish game show that is fun until one of the panel hosts do something incompetent or get pissed for various reasons, ruin the game, and your win didn't count
Did social media and the advancement of the internet kill the con panel? Meeting stars and creators is just about the only thing you can't do anywhere else. Sneak peaks are all leaked or broadcasted online, special event merch and giveaways are shitty, and you almost pray for some retard to think eating a cake baked by a congoer who gave it to you is a good idea and throw up on stage just to make things unique.
I still love cons but every year I find myself more and more selective about panels because I keep finding so many stinkers. Idk if they're getting worse or the rose tinted glasses are just off.

[Anonymous No.10822020]

Give an example of a good panel

[Anonymous No.10822032]

>>10822016
IFK, I still get a couple interesting ones. Kumori had Anime soundtracks at 33 1/3 RPM which was all about anime OSTs on Vinyl. There was another that talked about oral tradition and how nordic practices resemble modern fandoms, only problem was that it wasn't broad enough and the poor girl needed more rehersal before she did it for real (and her cultural disclaimer was cringe af)

I've been thinking about doing one for JDM car imports one of these years but public speaking, while not a fear, is something I don't have a lot of practice in.

Have you tried going to the panels not in main auditoriums?

[Anonymous No.10822055]

>>10822016
You have some good points. But you have to understand, fan panels are sort of a roll-over from before the era of youtube. You'd go to a con and go to panels to learn new things or get exposed to stuff you usually didn't see, including people's presentation videos.

At ALA two years ago, someone had an awesome Japanese hair metal panel that was really cool. Could it have been a youtube video? Probably. But it was fun to interact in person and ask questions. It's part of the socialization aspect of cons.

I also really like "how to" panels that teach you a technical skill.

I would say the worst panels are usually the "LGBT in fandom" or equivalent panels that seem to propagate everywhere.

[Anonymous No.10822142]

I agree, some very valid points there. As a former panelist and a con old fart with 10 years of con going its kinda sad. The quality of panels is undeniably getting worse. There are various factors that contribute to this and it really depends on each con.

Most of the time its a lack of quality control which is typically the case with smaller cons that cant get enough submissions to fill the timeslots for all the available rooms. They just take what they can get and assign the panelist a room, a time and move on regardless of how the panel is laid out or how incompetent the panelist may be.

For bigger cons with plenty of panel applicants its a mixed bag. A lot of the time panels will simply be booked for the sole purpose of pandering to popular fandoms or interest groups. This insures that attendance is guaranteed to be at least decent. Plus it can be used as good advertising for say someone who has little to no con experience and is looking at the events schedule for things to do. Again this doesn't take into consideration the quality of the panel or panelist. It only takes into consideration the attention it's subject matter can generate.

Another thing I've come to learn and experience with big cons is internal politics and nepotism almost always come into play when it comes to selecting panelists and that definitely plays a role into why some incompetent panelists end up being booked every year to do the same sad panels. I've witnessed an experienced and popular panelist who does awesome interactive panels on obscure video games get their panel yanked because the events coordinator's girlfriend last minute wanted to do a panel on cosplay makeup tips from ticktock.

I have also seen over the years a lot of subject matters and panel styles be banned for better or worse. This is of course due to venue's updating their policies. Colleges banning panels with pornographic material/hentai. And convention centers avoiding liability with physically involved panels

[Anonymous No.10822144]

Also like to add that panels in general are getting stale cause its hard to be innovative when just about everything has been done before. If you've been going to cons for years you're bound to have seen just about everything and it gets a bit boring. Guests who do panels tell the same old stories over and over cause they do more panels in a year then their job in entertainment and it indeed just devolves into a circle jerk. If you've never seen it before it might be interesting or fun. But, after hearing the same schtick over and over its kinda a waste. Law of diminishing returns.

It's probably a bit of both panels are getting crappier and you may have done enough panels to the point where you've hit diminishing returns.

Seems like the best things about cons these days are the interactions with other con goers and crazy bizarre shit you see and experience on a regular basis. Like when a guy jumps off a balcony onto an inflatable cow below or when you see a dude dressed as Santa dragging around naked chicks with reindeer antler headbands on leashes. People hiding in hotel shrubbery after launching fireworks in the parking lot. And a good ol public cake fart session while someone plays tribal bongos.

[Anonymous No.10822153]

>>10822032
Went to a Kumori panel about yokai which was pretty decent too.
Panels are hit or miss though and half are just “black queers in visual novels”

[Anonymous No.10822162]

You're getting older and more discerning and the internet has made most of this available outside of a con. So you end up with younger people doing panels who are unprepared and unexperienced and probably don't know as much as they think they do about the subject.
Particularly with cosplay the speaker can only speak about their own knowledge and skill set so when someone asks how you would do X and it's not something they've done their response is going to be questionable at best.
Then there's the arrogant people who think people want to hear their thoughts, opinions and stories. They should be talking to their friends. Not hosting a panel. Something tells me these people don't have a lot of friends which is why they need to seek a platform.
I know a lot of these people want to add something to the con but they could better spend their time as a volunteer rather than as a panelist.

Game show panels are a mixed bag especially when you get into niche subjects. Some people have encylopedic knowledge while others only know only basic things and if the panelist only wrote a list of what they thought were good questions without having a back-up bank of harder or easier questions in case they get those kind of people then the panel is just going to be shit.

[Anonymous No.10822209]

>>10822162
>Then there's the arrogant people who think people want to hear their thoughts, opinions and stories
Why these get accepted is beyond me. "Let's read my list of PRESELECTED bad fanfics ONLY" I can slightly understand since it was general and at a small con. "MY convention horror stories" at one of the biggest in the country? Zero excuse. When I hosted my panels, I offered people the chance to chime in, but it's so niche no one ever did. Kinda weird then, that they got a good turnout.

[Anonymous No.10822253]

Depends on the panel - we want to a panel by a copyright lawyer talking about fair use, copyright, lawsuits etc. It was informative and the next year she ask has anyone been to her last panel which luckily the small group most people went to the panel from last year so she move on to next tier stuff and has more information.

[Anonymous No.10822286]

You guys are going to panels?

[Anonymous No.10822313]

>>10822055
>"LGBT in fandom"
There are like five of these stupid things at every single con now and I highly suspect that if I actually went to one it would just be some autistic white girl claiming to be bi or nonbinary before spending the whole time sperging out about yaoi boys.

[Anonymous No.10822373]

>>10822286
I once got drunk and went to a crossplay panel to laugh at ugly trannies. Also once got drunk and went to someone's actual wedding which for some reason was a panel?? If you're going to panels for things you actually care about you're doing it wrong.

[Anonymous No.10822374]

>>10822373
seconding this anon. getting smashed and going to random panels is the best way to spend con downtime desu

[Anonymous No.10822667]

>>10822016
>returning panels from last year, because it was so popular they hardly changed anything
Don't look at me, I host a "name that vidya game tune" panel every year with entirely different music tracks each time. [spoiler]With prizes, like vidya soundtracks.

[Anonymous No.10822980]

>>10822016

My mistake was trying to give an LGBT cosplay panel a chance when it seemed to at least imply the pretense of discussion because I really wanted to see how wacky and critical it could get but it just ended up being a lot of crying and personal vloging.

[Anonymous No.10822994]

>>10822162
ya the arogance is something else..... I went to only one panel at colossalcon, half of it was the panelist shilling her and her friends twitch streams. some of the information in the panel was wrong or glossed over so it was clear she didn't care, if you want to self promote don't do it at a panel that is supposed to be informative. should have just drink in the hot tub like everyone else instead of wasting my time.

[Anonymous No.10822996]

>>10822994
>should have just drink in the hot tub
That was me, and I fried my brain without knowing why. Two drinks felt like eight in a row.

[Anonymous No.10823001]

I like panels that are like Ted Talks. Went to one that was basically the history of memes and how they influence everything from pop culture to politics. It even went into dadaism and how modern memes are so inbred that they are basically impossible to understand without a PhD in internet culture.

Also went to one about lolicons and the history of lolis in anime and Japanese media. They also brought in a Japanese immigrant to speak up on more culturally nuanced points and how many native Japanese people see it.

[Anonymous No.10823032]

>>10822313

My buddy and I went into one of these as a joke at colossalcon east. It was nothing but trannies asking how to shove things in their asses and the 50 year old women host telling them its normal and how to do it. We stayed for about 3 minutes then left. Shit was gay.

[Anonymous No.10823285]

You know what my favorite panels? The ones with weird meaningless titles and have no description to give context. Those are always awesome.

[Anonymous No.10823362]

>>10823285

Colossalcon used to have one like a decade ago just called "colorful" were you'd watch clips from the panty gag anime colorful and in between they'd have the audience tell lewd stories involving panties and give them a pair for sharing the story. Then they'd have all the people who won panties put them on and form an ass pyramid. Panel got canned after only 3 years.

No context panels are the best.

[Anonymous No.10823363]

I remember a colossalcon panel a couple years back. Where it was like a boob bait panel and it was this father daughter panelist duo from West Virginia and she took her top off and started shilling her nude cosplay while her dad walked around with a binder full of her dildo pics to sell.

[Anonymous No.10824080]

>>10822055
nothing like an "lgbtlolrca+44 brony fandom" panel at a sci fi con

[Anonymous No.10827842]

>>10822016
Different people and different interest. Trying to appeal to zoomers and normies

[Anonymous No.10827917]

>>10823032
Was this the “Hentai is not Anatomically Accurate” panel or just another retarded tranny panel?

[Anonymous No.10827935]

>>10822286
Let me guess, you spend the whole time at cons in your hotel room banging hot babes...right?

[Anonymous No.10828719]

>>10822286
Hentai panels are fun

[Anonymous No.10829261]

>>10822016
I think Covid also was a huge factor for this.
Some people realised they don't need to go to cons anymore after being forced to sit at home and seek other hobbies online.

[Anonymous No.10830051]

what sort of panels where there pre internet?

[Anonymous No.10830055]

>>10827917
does it matter? they're ran by the same people