I think what you've picked up on is very much a strand of what's happening with Wiscon and which may possibly play out at the larger sf cons one day. The idolization of sff authors has become much less common in the age of the internet, when authors have the chance to show their asses, metaphorically speaking, 24/7, for anyone with an ISP to see, and when fans crucially have the same networking resources available to connect with each other. (By the same token, the ability to make "personal" connections with authors has granted a certain section of the blog-reading fanbase a new fervor in defending authors from perceived slights.) The younger, more irreverent, more likely to be non-male and non-white sff fans are ostensibly nowhere so prominently represented as at Wiscon, and on one discrete level revoking Moon's invitation was very much a reflection of a much different attitude towards what cons are and should be about.
no subject
to say the least! /snrk
I think what you've picked up on is very much a strand of what's happening with Wiscon and which may possibly play out at the larger sf cons one day. The idolization of sff authors has become much less common in the age of the internet, when authors have the chance to show their asses, metaphorically speaking, 24/7, for anyone with an ISP to see, and when fans crucially have the same networking resources available to connect with each other. (By the same token, the ability to make "personal" connections with authors has granted a certain section of the blog-reading fanbase a new fervor in defending authors from perceived slights.) The younger, more irreverent, more likely to be non-male and non-white sff fans are ostensibly nowhere so prominently represented as at Wiscon, and on one discrete level revoking Moon's invitation was very much a reflection of a much different attitude towards what cons are and should be about.