WisCONline Report

[forestofglory]

Last weekend I attended WisCONline, the online version of Wiscon! It was a lot fun, though still really missed getting to see people in person! (Hi new people who were there!)

A few days before the con I mentioned that I was sad that I couldn’t read on my flight to a virtual con. So R suggested that I take a pretend flight to the con. I ended up doing this -- though not sitting in the back seat of the car. Instead I upgrade myself to the sofa. I sat and read for two hours! R even brought me an “in flight” snack. It was a lovely way to start the con.

After my flight I logged on to the con Discord for the first time. It was my first time using Discord and I found it overwhelming -- though it got easier to use with practice and learning how to mute channels. I ended up spending a lot of time chatting in the Discord. I hung out a lot on the xianxia channel where we talked about various Chinese media -- I think we convinced people to try both Guardian and Nirvana in Fire and one person started watching The Untamed! I have a list of new stuff to check out too!

I attend several zoom meetups over the course of the weekend. Two were planned before hand to replicate meets with online friends we would have had if we could have been there in person. So we had a group meal -- the theme was all day breakfast though I think in the end I was the only person who ate breakfast food. And we also had BarCon. It was lovely to see everyone’s faces! The xianxia channel also had a meet up which was super fun!

This year’s wiscon panels were much shorter than normal 45 minutes instead of 75. I attended a few but found it challenging to keep up with both a video stream of the panelist and the discord chat happening at the same time. I was also on a panel myself -- focused on cities. It was a lot of fun, but harder to interact with people afterwards even when they made good comments in the chat.

The online format was much more of a challenge for me to manage in terms of my auditory processing disorder. Some of that was just me not having as much experience pacing myself in that environment. Doing con stuff and also home stuff is a lot. I ended up really overdoing things on Saturday and have to rest and miss events on Sunday. Hopefully if I do another online con I will have a better sense of what I can and can’t do.

Overall I really enjoyed the con! I got to chat with a lot of interesting people. I found out about new things that I want to read and watch! I learned how to use discord. (I’m Forestofglory#4726 there if anyone wants to say hi) I was sad not to be able to hug my friends in person, but I’m really glad we were able to have an online event. Thanks so much to everyone who made it happen!

Comments

[clevermanka]

Love your reading "on the way" to the con.

[lunabee34]

I'm so glad you had a good time. I love the flight idea!

[hamsterwoman]

Instead I upgrade myself to the sofa. I sat and read for two hours! R even brought me an “in flight” snack. It was a lovely way to start the con.

That is adorable and a great idea! :D

Glad you had fun at the virtual con!

[satsuma]

I enjoyed hanging out with you in #Xianxia! & in Writer's Octarine since the end of the con :D

& it was good to hear your thoughts during the Cities panel! That one was super interesting

[forestofglory]

Yes its been fun!

I'm glad you liked the cities panel! 45 min really was to short so I'm glad people continued the conversation in chat.

[satsuma]

Yeah i get why they cut the lengths, but I spent the whole con feeling like we were getting cut off half way through haha

[dolorosa_12]

I'm glad the virtual con went well. I had been considering signing up (since it was the only way I was ever going to get to attend WisCon), but had somehow misunderstood that the entire con was going to take place via chat on Discord, thought that sounded bad, and didn't therefore sign up. A mixture of video streams plus chat makes much more sense.

The pretend flight to the con is adorable, and a genius idea!

[naye]

That sounds fun but also I am getting exhausted just reading about trying to keep up with panels and a Discord chat, and I don't have any auditory processing issues. It's just a lot. Glad you made it and got to hang out with people though!

[jesse_the_k]

Discord is .... hard. Just hard.

Part of me wants to write, “the distracted person’s guide to a Discord” and the other part wants to never boot my computer again.

Glad to see you, however briefly. I didn’t try to watch and read at the same time. I read the chat, then watched the panel, then wanted to go back to argue, then got lost because So Many Channels!

I think I should follow your excellent example and take a slow boat back to my house—no net, just my ereader. If only there was an ocean between me and the con!

[lokifan]

Awww how lovely of R! And yay for a kinda-wiscon.