Notes from a panel at Capricon 45, Chicago, Feb. 8, 2024. Any mistakes are mine. The panelists are not responsible for any errors here.

Shaun Duke (moderator), Alia Federow, Janice Gelb, Sarah Hawkins, Will Saddler

Once up on a time, it was a sad and lonely thing to be a geek. Science fiction conventions were started to enable people who might have been considered nerdy outcasts to find each other. But guess what—we won! Science fiction now dominates mainstream media and being a fan, geek, or dork is cool. How has this changed the idea of a geek, and how has this impacted people who otherwise might have fit the mold? Is this change for the better? Where do you see mainstream Geekery winding up?

In some ways this was the flip side of The Folklore of Fandom.

• Geekery is accepted because we geeks have money.
• The big change was the appearance of Star Wars in 1977. Since then corporations have understood that people like SF.
• Fandom as we have known it is less necessary. People have other ways to find geekery.
• Movies: LOTR, Harry Potter.
• Some old-timers feel left out. There is too much crap now [but there was always a lot of crap].
• No longer a common frame of reference.
• “Don’t harsh somebody else’s mellow.”
• Zoom vs. in person meetings.
• Jerks are everywhere.