Tag Archives: pandemic

Blog

Why I’m Not at Gen-Con This Year

I’ve been a staple at Gen-Con, a massive four-day gaming convention in Indianapolis, for a decade. I’ve tabled in Authors Avenue in the vendor hall since 2020, but even then, I taught a pair of online panels in the free online version held during the off-year. I’ve networked with many authors there, sold hundreds (if not more) books there, expanded my readership there, and met some amazing friends there.

But this year, I’m staying home. In fact, I canceled my vendor hall table in June.

Why? I’m not allowed to be there. Not because of something I did, but because of something I didn’t do.

This year Gen-Con required COVID vaccination cards to get in the door. This decision wasn’t finalized until two months before the convention. I’d reserved a table in February. I only got half of my money back when I canceled—because I’d chosen not to get vaxxed.

Before I continue, let me make several things abundantly clear:

  • I am not anti-vax.
  • I am not anti-science.
  • I have simply chosen not to get the vaccine. I’m admittedly a little hesitant with how fast the vaccine was produced, but I’m incredibly healthy and hygienic. I’ve gone for 2 ½ years without getting COVID (unless I was asymptomatic).
  • I’m not here to argue about the medical science of COVID and the vaccine. That invariably turns into a quagmire because everyone can site sources that seem to back up their position. Honestly, the science is immaterial to the issue with Gen-Con.

What I will argue is still potentially dangerous. I could lose readers and/or friends over it. (Welcome to the world we live in). It might even be considered grounds for “cancelation.”

But I must speak up.

This vax card requirement by Gen-Con makes no sense. The COVID-19 pandemic is over, for all intents and purposes. In my home state of Indiana (where Gen-Con is held, in case you forgot), we have returned to what feels like 90-plus-percent pre-2020 normal. Last year, Gen-Con held a half-size show while the pandemic was ongoing but subsiding. Precautions were taken, such as requiring masks. It was “diet Gen-Con” in many ways, but I can vouch for it being a success. Heck, I made more money in Authors Avenue than I ever had before! I expected Gen-Con would relax their restrictions in 2022.

Instead, they’ve done the opposite.

Why?

I suspect politics.

It’s no secret that Gen-Con’s management are leftists. In 2015 when then-governor Mike Pence signed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, the CEO of the convention threatened to break contract with the city of Indianapolis and move the show out of state in protest. Thankfully, that didn’t happen, but it showed the organization’s true political colors. Now politics are influencing how they manage their business. It’s at best misguided virtue signaling and at worst a thinly veiled attempt to identify the political demographics of Gen-Con’s customer base and, I would argue, bar some from attending based on those politics. The problem is some people—such as several members of my family—haven’t gotten the vaccine because of their politics but because of pre-existing health conditions that would be aggravated by the vaccination. Why should such people be prohibited from attending Gen-Con along with the “evil” antivaxxers if they want to be there?

This decision makes Gen-Con an outlier. While I’m sure there are other cons that have such requirements now, I can’t think of one. (Feel free to mention any in the comments below). This year I’ve attended both Indiana Comic-Con (which is in the Indiana Convention Center, the same venue as Gen-Con) and G-Fest (which is held in Chicago, a city that only recently relaxed its stringent COVID restrictions), neither of which required vax cards. And guess what? Everything went fine. No one said anything one way or the other. Nobody died. The attendees just enjoyed themselves. Gen-Con could’ve compromised, as many venues and shows have done in the last year. A negative COVID test within three days of the con? Sure. A mask mandate? Fine. Social distancing and other precautions? Understandable. But a vax card requirement is a bridge too far.

I’ve debated if I still would’ve attended Gen-Con if I was vaxxed. While I can’t say for sure, I think I would’ve canceled on principle and as a sign of solidarity with friends who couldn’t or wouldn’t attend because of this decision.

After the success of last year’s Gen-Con despite reasonable restrictions, this vax card requirement is a baffling, presumptive, and seemingly prejudicial decision. It’s bad for PR. While I don’t wish failure on this year’s con, I do hope that the powers-that-be at Gen-Con corporate get plenty of pushback about this and drop the requirement for next year’s convention. I’ve spoken with other Gen-Con fans who’ve been unfairly excluded by this. We aren’t going to get a COVID shot just to participate in “the four best days of gaming.” There are other cons who don’t have these restrictions who will be happy to have our time and money. It’s not 2020 anymore. We’ve moved on.

Gen-Con should, too.

Blog

The Journal of the Plague Fortnight, Day 1: Reputation, Lockdown, and Excuses to Leave

The foggy scene outside my apartment on day one of the Indiana lockdown. (Photo by Nathan Marchand).

As I mentioned on my social media, with my home state of Indiana in lockdown and my university going to online only classes, I’ve decided to increase my creative output to entertain (and hopefully enlighten) all of you True Believers while in quarantine. We could all use some relief, and this is one way I can help with that.

When I wrote my blog last week, I hesitated to put in my political commentary. I make no secret of my political leanings (I’m a conservative), but I don’t make a habit of broadcasting them to the world because it always invites trouble. That’s the climate we live in now. But I left it in because it was part of my frustration. Predictably, I was accused of being flippant, propagating misinformation, and not taking the situation seriously. I ended up adding a “retraction” of sorts to the blog and posting it as an addendum. This came after I did some more reading and learned a few things I didn’t know before about coronavirus.

The criticism ignited an old fear that has dug deeper roots in recent years: perception is reality when it should be truth. In other words, the actions and decisions of others have more control over my life than I do. I could be objectively qualified for, say, a job, but the employer could still not select me. In the case of my blog, I didn’t mean to spread misinformation or offend anyone. Given that I’m something of a public figure (and the internet is vicious), damage to my reputation could cost me big time. I’ve seen the destruction wrought by gossip. I know firsthand how ungracious people can be. That’s why I went into “damage control mode” to mitigate the problem. I should’ve known everyone, including myself, is on edge with everything happening. It’s only natural to respond defensively. I stay up-to-date with the latest reports on the crisis, but there’s a lot of unknowns out there. Humans fear the unknown more than most things. That’s why coronavirus is terrifying but the flu isn’t.

Sadly, I saw the internet tear someone else apart this week over this. J.D. Lees, the editor of G-Fan magazine and the organizer for G-Fest, sparked the controversy of the week in the kaiju fan community when he posted coronavirus stats on the event’s Twitter page. Yes, it was a bad PR move, but I’ve rarely seen such instant hate in this fandom. People called him a “clown” and a “villain” and said they would cancel their magazine subscriptions and their G-Fest tickets. I know J.D., so I know he meant no harm, which is why I did try to stem the hate. That and my recent experience made me sympathetic to his plight. At least no one bit my head off for it.

So, now almost everywhere I would go is closed. School, the dance studio, bookstores. Heck, even my church had to start livestreaming services. To say I feel isolated would be an understatement. It makes me glad my brother Jarod moved in with me or else I would die of loneliness. I’ve distanced myself from online communities to focus on real-life relationships, and now they’re all I have for the time being.

At least I was able to do some work for InstaCart, and they seem to be staying in operation. At this point, I’ll take any excuse to go outside.

On my first day of quarantine, I drove to BioLife to donate plasma like I normally do. The stuff is desperately needed, and it’s good money. Appropriately, fog as thick as peanut butter blanketed the city at 9AM. It made me think of the people’s blindness and how fog would deter travel. Beyond that, I spent the day raiding my overfilled cupboards, watching UltraSeven with Jarod, doing schoolwork, catching up on my TV viewing, and gaming online with my friend Bill.

One of the goals on my whiteboard is, “Add more adventure to your life.”

That just got more challenging.

What are you doing to pass the time in self-quarantine? Comment below!

Blog

Coronapocalypse Now

EDIT: This blog has been edited since it was first posted. After some discussions on social media and a little more research, I realized it had some inaccuracies. The blog was also meant to be a bit tongue-in-cheek, and once again I’ve learned that doesn’t always communicate on the internet. The biggest deletion pertained to the hysteria being manufactured to hurt the Trump Administration going into the election. I had no idea this was something started by President Trump on Twitter. It was a conclusion I came to on my own. I am a self-proclaimed “Trump agnostic,” meaning I’m not part of either the Never Trumpers or the president’s cult of personality, which is why I tick everyone off. (I do think someone needs to take Twitter away from him, though). However, I do stand by my assertion that the media is stoking the hysteria because, as Tim Constantine wrote for The Washington Times, “fear sells.” Since this is new (“novel,” which means “new,” is part of the disease’s name, after all) and relatively unknown, people fear it even though there are diseases out there that are far more common and far more likely to kill someone. Humans fear the unknown. However, I also know human nature well enough to know that there will be those who will try to take advantage of the situation for their own benefit, and that’s especially true for those in power. That’s the big reason why I think the hysteria needs to stop, which is the point I wanted to make with this blog. We need to be safe and watch out for those who are the most vulnerable among us (my younger brother has a form of asthma, so I know), but turning the world upside down like the Black Plague has suddenly returned is an overreaction. My apologies for not making that clear in the first published draft of this blog. (EDIT ENDS)

For the first few months of 2020, the coronavirus (or Covid-19 as the media is now calling it) was China’s problem. It was nasty, but it was “over there,” to quote a goofy Superman comic. It was an issue for the elderly and immunodeficient (spellcheck doesn’t like that word for some reason), but so was the flu.

But like black mold creeping along your floor, the disease kept spreading until it hit the U.S. California, if I remember correctly. Then Washington State. I figured it would be contained. The CDC reacted quickly. But then it cropped up in other states. Again, I didn’t think much of it. Until a man in Indianapolis was diagnosed with it. Within a few days, another man in the county next door to me was infected.

By that point, as the old saying goes, all hell broke loose.

State and local governments started mandating that large gatherings be postponed. Restaurants and schools closed. Movies had their releases or productions delayed. Sporting events were canceled. People were told to stay home in self-quarantine.

Businesses are losing gobs of money—unless you’re Clorox or Netflix. They’re swimming in money. Hand sanitizer is liquid gold now. I saw a listing on eBay where someone was selling four 30-ounce bottles of the stuff for $500. If I’d known, I’d have stockpiled it and started a black market.

At least The Babylon Bee has had a heyday with this pandemic panic.

Not only am I going to Walmart and grocery stores and finding the shelves empty (thankfully, I have enough toilet paper to last a while), but it has affected my schooling and my job. My university has decided to extend its spring break a week and make all classes totally online for the rest of the semester. I’m taking two as a grad student and teaching two as a graduate teaching assistant. I’ve taken a few online classes before (and didn’t like it), but I’ve never taught one. Now I have to find a way to adapt for the last six weeks or so of the semester. And I’d just started to get to know my students and looked forward to seeing them. So, my extended spring break has become an extended working spring break since I now have to figure out how to re-jigger my classes. Meanwhile, I don’t know what the classes I’m taking will look like. One professor is totally old school, with the only online stuff he does being e-mail. The other professor has one foot in old school and one in new school. I’m more confused than a dog after he catches a car.

Elsewhere, the ballroom dance studio I attend has started making students not touch each other in group classes and has canceled their Friday night parties until further notice.

Now I don’t know if I’ll make it to G-Fest or Gen-Con this summer.

I thought my small church would be fine, but Gov. Holcomb has decreased the size of allowed public gatherings from 250 to 50. Now President Trump is recommending it be limited to 10. Even my church wouldn’t be able to meet if that was in place.

With all this mandated “social distancing,” I’ve joked this is introverts trying to get revenge on extroverts. Or its social engineering to wipe out extroverts.

You’d think I’d revel in that, but I’m a freak among the freaks: I’m an extrovert. I drive my fellow nerds and writers crazy.

Now when I make jokes about this or point out the hysteria, I get pushback on social media. Someone even said I was being flippant. All I could do was shake my head.

I’m not saying people shouldn’t be concerned. I’m not saying they shouldn’t take precautions. But this is a disease that, at most, has a 3% fatality rate (and that’s if you’re old or have an outstanding medical condition). If this was something both highly contagious and truly deadly, I could understand the fear, but people are treating Covid-19 like it’s the T-virus. I get it: hospitals could be overwhelmed with an influx of patients. However, I’ve heard most people who get it don’t show symptoms. That being said, it doesn’t justify all the freaking out.

Well, that’s enough of me complaining about my unimportant first world problems.

In the meantime, if you want some new books to binge read while in self-quarantine, I have plenty. They’re all on Amazon, which means they can be delivered to your door so you won’t have to go out. (Although, one features a bio-weapon plague, but maybe it will be cathartic for you).

Also, I have 12 episodes of a kaiju (giant monster) podcast you could binge listen. It’s called The Monster Island Film Vault.

Yes, I’m not beyond using this for shameless self-promotion. That’s why it’s shameless. 😛

What do you think of the whole situation? Is it legitimate or is it hysteria?