Last weekend was the annual AnimeNext convention. For those of you who don’t know what this is, it’s a convention held in New Jersey where all the nerds come and meet other nerds. My husband and I were part of this kingdom.
My husband was Krieger from FX’s show Archer and I was his virtual wife.
Now, before you judge, there are some hot, and I mean, HOT nerds who cosplay.
Courtesy of Cosplay Deviants
I try to be one of them. I had went for the three day deal so I dressed up Friday, Saturday, & Sunday. Along with cosplay, they also have panels and because this convention celebrates Manga, Anime, and the Japanese culture, I decided to attend a Japanese Horror vs American Horror panel. Now, I may have gotten the name wrong but holy shit, this was the least professional bunch ever. The panel consisted of three people: the token girl, the guy who should have been in charge since the laptop was in front of him, and the douche who thought he was the cool guy. Let me list the ways they sucked:
1. They read the power points. What do we learn first in school? Never read the power points. They are there just to summarize your most powerful points. Thus, POWER POINT, not, power paragraph. The panel read the entire Power Point and it drove me just to fidget in my seat like a grammar Nazi would if they had been reading a terrible essay… (or my blog :D). I felt as if I was watching a group project presentation from my classmates who waited until the last couple of hours before class to pull their shit together.
2. No energy. I get it was Sunday and it was the last day but c’mon. People came to see you guys teach us something. My husband and I were probably the second group in line and there was a HUGE commotion on the 50+ people line to see them. People were really getting upset that they weren’t going to be able to see them and these guys just lacked sympathy and interest. They spoke softly, lightly, and almost computerized… maybe b/c they were reading off the screen… It was such a shame and, frankly, kind of disrespectful. You have all these people here that wanted to come to this interesting event and you guys weren’t ready, looked like you didn’t care, and basically failed to deliver.
3. Speaking of learning, the crowd had more knowledge than they did. The three amateurs had listed a few American horror movies. They added “Nosferatu”. One knowledgeable gentleman rose his hand and corrected them by letting them know it was German, not American. What did the panel say? Good question, they kinda rambled. They also seemed to only know the mainstream horror movies but not others such as [REC] (this movie actually inspired the remake Quarantine). I know these aren’t American but still, they should have more knowledge about horror movies in general. It seemed like they only prepared themselves for just this event.
4. SO unorganized! I would never be one to say, “Hey, Stacey, you called me sassy during work hours today and I think that was highly unprofessional,” but if you signed up for this, this is your job, this is your assignment – be ready! Their PowerPoint was all over the place, they didn’t have their next clip ready, they would be taking about one photo clip but then reference the other. There were awkward pauses that made you cringe and just left you hanging. They clearly did not rehearse this. The douchbag to our right was just sloppy with his leg over the arm rest, dude, you’re not at your bro’s house talking about horror movies, you’re engaging an audience. Thanks for sucking.
Courtesy of KnowYourMemes.com
These guys (and the token girl) really ruined what was supposed to be an educational and FUN time. The only thing that was actually fun was the trailers they played off YouTube. To summarize the hour (or however that hell took): grab some buddies, watch some mainstream popular movies (Evil Dead & Insidious), watch the remakes of Japanese remakes (The Ring, The Grudge), and just talk about them. That was it. That is what literally happened. This trio thought they were bad ass and knowledgeable about horror but were shut down once the audience clearly wiped the floor with their shit. You know it’s bad when your audience is teaching you things instead of the opposite.
Organized Chaos 