"Wannabe's"

Hillary attended a gaming convention recently and it sparked some thoughts she wanted to share here.

On memorial Day Weekend, my husband and I attended Play On Con, a local gaming and fandom convention here in Birmingham. We even managed to get some Fame out of it. This picture was on the front page of the "local" section of our area newspaper. I thought it was great that we were in the paper, and great that the convention got coverage, but feel thtat the news could have approached the article differently.

I wrote a letter to the editor because I Felt that the convention was not fairly represented in the article. I have always felt strongly that being different and having diverse interests is never a bad thing--it shows up in my hairstyles, my art and everything I do. I felt it unfortunate that the news chose to use words like "wannabe" and "wierdos" in their article.

In truth we are all wannabe's of sorts. We all want to be accepted. The convention was a whole weekend of people hanging out with each other and accepting people for who they are. However, for some reason, the news chose to highlight the differences between participants and whomever they percieve the rest of the world to be occupied by.

In addition to their unfortunate choice of language and tone, They completely missed the boat on highlighting some independent artists, dealers, and, even a local board game company. The open gaming room featured representatives of game companies including Tony from The Birmingham Gameological Institute, a local company producing great games more or less out of a basement. The dealer room had vendors and artists who depend on people coming in and buying things to pay the rent. Not to mention, there were some very talented crafters and artists in the dealer room including a woman who knit pacman hats, someone who made beautiful, complex jewelry and a chainmail artisan. I regret that I do not have their names to give you now, although I will try to get those as well as a picture of the gorgeous, eclectic looking and utterly cool chain mail necklace I bought there.

I have always been proud of who I am-- an artist, a dancer, a crafter, a nerd, a wife, a hippie, and a dog mother. If you're a musician, an engineer, a number cruncher, a geek, a jock, or whatever, you should be proud. I just wish the Birmingham News had chosen to help us be proud of who we are without having to fight stereotypes and misconceptions. I know who I am and I know that it's beautiful, but I shouldn't have to be nervous about co-workers seeing my picture in the paper next to an article about a gaming convention. It's just the type of article the news chose to write that causes those little butterflies everytime I tell someone that I'm into video games or board games.

One more quick note on the subject, I would like to give kudos to CBS42 here in Birmingham, who ran a great segment on the convention, highlighting some of the more fun events of the weekend without any judgemental language or tone... In fact, they made it sound like it might be fun for the general public! Big thanks goes out to them!

Whatever it is you have planned for the week, and whoever you are, have fun and be proud. We'll see you next week.