A negative comment about a party at Arisia

[xiphias]

Far as I'm concerned, you can EITHER have an invite-only party OR you can advertise your party.

But it's FUCKING RUDE to advertise your invite-only party.

Don't mind invite-only parties. Don't even mind invite-only parties who, apparently, were going around handing out invites only to women who were dressed slutty. Heck, if someone took that to the extreme, and walked around the con handing out slips of paper which said, "You're sexy. Come to my room at 11 pm," that wouldn't bother me. And if he or she got people to show up, more power to him or her.

DO mind people who do that and also put posters up in the stairwells advertising their party. It's fucking RUDE to do that, then set up a velvet rope outside, and do the "club" thing. Dunno about you, but I go to cons to get away from that kind of dynamic.

Yes, I'm pissed off at not being pretty enough to get into that party.

Comments

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

You're making a number assumptions about me, here.

Some of them are probably accurate. But let's look at them.

Is the problem that I didn't get in and feel pissy about it? Somewhat, yes. But that's not the WHOLE story.

Because, when I get upset and pissy, I try to figure out why. I try to figure out whether it's something internal to me, or if there is something external which is actually wrong, which needs to be fixed.

And it was clear to me that, in this case, there was a little from column A, and a little from column B.

Yes, this hit a number of internal buttons of mine -- I'd just come down from working a bunch of hours, and had seen a fair percentage of the people I came to the con to see walk into the party, and was turned away. Yes, that hit a whole lot of internal stuff that is not the responsibility of the party organizers, and that's what started to get me thinking.

So I had to ask myself -- are my reactions entirely because of my own shit, or is there a portion of this which is external?

Now, triggers about exclusion are a significant thing -- and I realized that the part of the situation which WAS external was precisely what I posted here: that a private party is okay, and an advertised party is okay -- but a private party which is advertised attempts to be in two categories at once, which is inappropriate, and that the fact that this event DID push my buttons was, obviously, because of my buttons, but ALSO because that "category error" was a Wrong Thing.

So -- your assumption that the "advertisement" thing is a strawman -- that's wrong. Because that genuinely is the thing about which I am upset that I think is external to me.

Had I gotten in, would this exist? Probably not, that's true -- but it nonetheless SHOULD. However, as I would personally not have felt like there was something wrong, I wouldn't have sat down and tried to figure out what it was. So, you are probably correct factually -- but that doesn't change the ethical situation. It merely means that I wouldn't have been aware of the problem since it wouldn't have affected me.

[dda.livejournal.com]

So -- your assumption that the "advertisement" thing is a strawman -- that's wrong. Because that genuinely is the thing about which I am upset that I think is external to me.

I'm sorry but I'm not buying that in the slightest; from reading the rest of this thread, it was the fact that they didn't let you (and others) in that bugs you. The fact it was advertised was what drew you to the party but at least on the poster I saw, it never said, "Come find this party so we can turn you away, xiphias!"

It didn't give a room number and did heavily imply (if it didn't say outright) that skanky clothing was the way in. You had to go do something to find it and then to be upset when you did find it seems a tad, well, petty.