Problems with non-con goers harassing con-goers

[siredgar.livejournal.com]

Were there any this year? We've all heard or seen the problems in the past few years that prompted the heightened badge checking. This year I haven't heard of any conflicts, which would be great if true. Anyone?

Comments

[elvishtard.livejournal.com]

I didn't go outside the hotels much, so I can't vouch for morons on the side of the street, but inside, the football fans were barely noticeable/weren't rude.

I saw and encountered a few day-badgers that thought it was ok to get plastered then come up to girls and touch their costumes in the wrong places. This happened on Friday night with 2 friends of mine and myself. It was a girl and a guy and they were awkwardly filming us. They went up to a friend of mine, and the girl ran her hand down the front of my friend's costume -_-. The other guy kept checking out my friend's butt in her Wonder Woman costume and commenting on it. Just general rudeness from crude people.

Other than that, I saw more pettiness from fellow "cosplayers", commenting on other people's costumes and inaccuracies. Unfortunately, no one will ever be able to stop that level of stupidity -_-. That runs rampant in places such as Dragon*con. I'm tired of elitists that think it's ok to come up to someone and tell them, "You did the sleeves wrong on that, you know."...Right...cause I care that you care that I did something that you didn't see fit??

People gotta get over themselves. -_- Other than elitist garbage and drunken tards, I sincerely hope no one got into any altercations.

[bcgphoenix]

Yeah, I had another Korra cosplayer complain to me that nobody was getting the hair wraps right, then give me guff because I didn't straighten my hair. Dude, I have huge, bushy, curly Merida hair, and I like it. I am not wasting two hours of my con life gooping enough product on it to make it behave.

That was pretty much the extent of any rudeness I got that weekend, though, for which I'm exceedingly grateful. Insults from fellow cosplayers are beyond petty, but I can deal with that much more easily than any wandering hands.

[hollycomb.livejournal.com]

I was only uncomfortable at one point when we were in a crowded elevator in the Marriott with some people (maybe 5-6 guys and 1 girl) who were very drunk, loud, and didn't seem like they were there for the con so much as to get wasted in public and be as obnoxious as possible. In general Saturday night had kind of a weird vibe for me ... I heard people were throwing beer bottles down into the Marriott lobby, but didn't see that personally. Other than that, no problems.

[doctoraicha.livejournal.com]

I had to eject a very large number of bro-dudes who invaded my party. I don't think they were paying Congoers. I was pretty disappointed in the Hilton for not only allowing them in, but also somehow allowing them onto 28!

[rap541.livejournal.com]

The stairwell doors weren't locked. All people had to do was walk up the stairs. I had a friend on 17 and she had no problem simply walking up. However I was on 28 too, and there were some serious party people who were staying on the floor

[encarmencita.livejournal.com]

I wasn't bothered except by one guy at the Yule Ball who was a four-day badge and seemed to think he didn't have to ask before dancing with me and putting his hands on my shoulders. I was able to rid myself of him quickly and that's the first time in nine DragonCons someone has touched me without my permission. One of the things that made that situation not as annoying as it could have been were people around me making sure that he didn't return after I told him to back off and not touch me.

I didn't witness anybody being bothered and actually overheard a lot of the people in the hotels there for football saying how cool this con was and that maybe they should buy a badge for next year. :)

[sensitivinferno.livejournal.com]

I didn't experience anything sordid this year. I was just on the elevator once with a couple of football fans, and the woman said that she found this convention weird. I told her that I find football weird. [shrug]

[nippyfrog.livejournal.com]

HA!

[cavaticat.livejournal.com]

My boyfriend and I were walking around the Marriott lobby Saturday night in our Journey costumes. We'd occasionally kneel down in "meditation" like they do in the game, and people would ask if they could sit and have their picture taken with us. Sure! Except, after one guy sat down for a shot, his noisy, DRUNK-ass friend literally flung himself down in my lap to pose with his beer or whatever -- didn't ask, didn't warn. He and his brahs thought it was pretty funny until I pulled off my hood and told them NOPE, we are DONE here. He looked surprised to discover there was an actual person under there. A whole line of picture-takers went, "Awwww," and I heard one person bemoan, "Great. And once again, one guy ruins it for everybody."

We went back to the W not too long after that. I'm all for a raucous Dragon*Con lobby party, but Saturday night definitely felt out of control. Sunday night was way more manageable, as I think most of the sports fans and frat bros had left town.

[morganskye.livejournal.com]

What costume/game are you referring to? *curious*

[eloren.livejournal.com]

I encountered none personally. My only annoyance was the apparently somewhat over "lubricated" dude next to me at the Cruxshadows concert *very* enthusiastically grinding against his (I hope) girlfriends' butt the whole time. I had to fend off the flying elbows a few times. For the first time, I did have several people ask me to take *their* picture, or for information. Maybe as someone dressed in civilian clothes and without my poor hubby, who was laid up in the hotel room most of the weekend feeling terrible, I looked like a safe option? I did have a couple who I suspect had been in town for a football game ask me about the con and how to get badges - which I did tell them how to get - but I guess they had been by and tried already since they said they couldn't get them. I did hear later that Saturday day passes sold out.

It was a less fun than average year for me though, cause of not getting to enjoy most of it *with* my SO :| There's always next year tho!

[obscuranox.livejournal.com]

Ugh, this happens to me EVERY year at the Cruxshadows show, and I end up just leaving early because I can't stand it. Last year a group of people smashed in front of me and made out the whole time while screaming drunkenly and pushing people. This year I had a really drunk guy (he had a Cthulhu shirt on (should be ashamed to wear it) and wasn't your lubed up guy, I don't think) waving his drink around and grinding on his girlfriend as well, and he kept smacking my two guy friends in the back of the head with his elbows. They were going into rage mode so I figured it was best to leave before something happened. I just hate when people ruining everything for everyone else :/ You don't have to sit there and be quiet, but don't be a complete asshat.

[carsonok.livejournal.com]

I had a couple of incidents Saturday when going to/from restaurants or people asking for badges. Mostly along the lines of "where can I get one", although the question seemed to imply "can I have yours". Since this occurs off D*C grounds little can be done.

[halafax.livejournal.com]

I ran into some really odd people that were not your typical con goers. I was talking to one lady dressed as the monarch, her costume was really well done. We were talking about cosplay and the odds and ends involved with cosplay. Like how much fun it is to get in and out of costume when you are taking a break and then getting bum rushed for pictures. Then a guy comes up and asks for a picture, no big deal, then he sat there for a moment, and says "This is my first Dragon*Con, and I like it." He stared at the girl waiting for something. When the silence dragged on he looked perplexed and wondered off. At that point the girl decided to leave due the guy hanging around a bit down the way. He kept staring at her. I will not lie and say she wasnt attractive, but the guy was being creepy.

[second-batgirl.livejournal.com]

Only problem I had was with someone WITH a badge. I would have given anything to have seen someone with a backup ribbon while that was going on.

[halafax.livejournal.com]

what happened?

[danabren.livejournal.com]

Only issue I remember having was Thursday night, when a guy at Pulse informed the women I was with at the bar-table that he "was an asshole and proudly got away with it whenever he wanted to". And then he grabbed my head and shifted my wig back and forth.

Yeah, that didn't last long, I grabbed his wrist and informed him that he wouldn't be doing that again. Our group of women made it clear that we were escorting each other back to our rooms, and he shrugged and wandered away.

WTH dude, don't mess with the wig, seriously. Or grab a stranger's head. Or brag about being an asshole who gets away with it. THAT WILL NOT GET YOU LAID.

[halafax.livejournal.com]

believe it or not it works for some reason. I dont know why or how but it does.

[raidingparty.livejournal.com]

"What the heck are you supposed to be?"
"I'm a fan!"
- transcript of my only encounter with a person wearing a football jersey near D*C2012.

[lomer.livejournal.com]

This is the first year in ten years of attending DragonCon that NO ONE grabbed me inappropriately or said anything crass to me. Obviously other people will have other experiences, but I was really happy with the lack of harassment this year.

[delle.livejournal.com]

my biggest complaint was the photo-bombing. I was one of the Hocus Pocus sisters and people's reaction to us was *incredible* - until the asshats decided they needed to photo-bomb our posing. Waldo, OK, I can kinda-sorta see why having a random Waldo might be funny, but the weird dude munching his pizza slice (open mouthed? GROSS) that wandered up to join us? I actually told him to bugger off. Have no idea if he was wearing a badge or not.

[deborak]

I found a pic of you guys that is "photobombed" by Nixon's head-in-a-jar.

[gypsywitch.livejournal.com]

Only had one real problem myself, and the guy had the bad luck to try it Saturaday when I was in my Jackal costume with my two rather imposing male counterparts. Guy blatantly reached out to cop a feel. The guys stopped and turned to see why I stopped and three 'creepy' looking angry Jackal gasmasks staring someone down apparently makes them rethink such a position. Not sure if he had a badge or not, I didn't see one.

I was also sick and stuck in my hotel room for Sunday and Monday, so it cut down the amount of time people could bug me I guess.

[danabren.livejournal.com]

Your jackal outfits were incredibly cool. +1!

I commented to a female friend of mine "I dunno what they are but they are SEXY!"

[captainweird.livejournal.com]

I have to say I saw the Marriott stopping a herd of drunk bros that were trying to get into the con without badges on a few occasions. Props to them for that.

Although the Baptist convention that followed D*C made for an interesting mix of people on the day after the con.

[pockyraider.livejournal.com]

Yep. I stayed until Tuesday and had one of the people that arrived for the Baptist convention try to lecture me about my tattoos. But other than that, they were polite.

[saynotoinertia.livejournal.com]

I didn't run into any actual harassment personally, but I did have one particularly amusing run-in with one of the football fans who had imbibed a little too much. I was at the Hyatt waiting for an elevator with about a dozen other people one evening (can't remember if it was Saturday or Sunday). A guy wearing a football shirt walked into the elevator area on his cell phone shouting at full volume. It went something like this:

Guy (to Random D*C attendee): "WHAT BUILDING IS THIS?"
Random D*C attendee: "The Hyatt".
Guy (into phone): "DUDE, I'M AT THE HYATT. AT THE ESCALATOR. ESCALATOR! WAIT, ELEVATOR!"
*pause*
Guy (into phone): "ARE YOU AT THE ESCALATOR?" *looks around* "ELEVATOR?"
*pause*
Guy (into phone): "NO! I'M AT THE ELEVATORS, ON THE PHONE, LOOKING LIKE A TOOL!"
Guy (to another Random D*C attendee): "WHERE ARE WE?"
Other D*C attendee: "The Hyatt Lobby".
Guy (into phone): "NO, I'M AT THE HYATT, BRO."

The whole time, I'd been exchanging looks with other people in the area as we all tried not to bust out laughing. When he got to "I'm at the Hyatt, bro", a few of us couldn't hold it in any longer and started to chuckle. Luckily by then the guy had moved on.

[extremis.livejournal.com]

I don't know if it's technically harassment or just creeping but my friend and I had on sexy-ish military-style costumes Friday and Saturday night and were accosted several times when outside the hotels by non-badged drunken fratbro-types asking for pics with us.That would normally be ok if they were still polite except they talked into our cleavage and one always wanted to be in the photo so they could pull us tight against them. Didn't really have issues with creepers when inside the hotels though.

[glasscannon.livejournal.com]

Didn't have any harassment issues this year, didn't see any frat boy types at all, but I did notice something Thursday night I thought I'd point out. I'm going to try not to use stereotypes to describe what I saw (and apologies for the frat boy comment too), but something about this group was distinctly Not Right.

Thursday is really getting to be the new Friday, and as such there's a lot more people doing serious costuming Thursday night. My husband and I grabbed dinner at the Marriott and then were looking at costumes afterwards when we noticed a group of people coming up the escalator together, one guy with a posse of rather hot, very tanned, likely-surgery-enhanced, thin, scantily clad women. The whole group had a vibe of Not Here For The Nerdy Fun, so we got closer to try to see what was up with them. At least one woman I saw was carrying a huge stack of postcards advertising for a local tanning salon, though I didn't catch the name nor take a postcard from her.

Maybe 20 minutes later, we saw a woman that I'm almost certain was from that same group taking photos next to the Atrium ballroom with a professional photographer. The photographer had his back up against the wall, in a bit of a corner, and was taking pictures of her facing out towards the rest of the Atrium. About ten feet away was this rather awesome group (http://i193.photobucket.com/albums/z82/ryottelora/thursday.jpg?t=1347310394) doing some really impressive poses. People started gathering to take pictures, as they do, but everyone taking pictures seemed to focus mostly on the really cool group and ignore the random chick in tight jeans doing a photoshoot right beside the group. Several times my husband and I heard the photographer tell the woman to scoot back further into the Atrium, while obviously checking out the crowd that had formed and trying to get the crowd to notice the random chick.

Her poses, I should add, were not at all family friendly (though granted it was almost 9pm). At one point she had several inches of ass crack hanging out the back of her very tight jeans, with said ass facing towards the crowd and the rest of the Atrium, while she squatted and crawled around on all fours and struck other sexy poses for the camera. The crowd of con-goers, I'm happy to say, thoroughly ignored her until her photographer called her over under the pretense of looking at the pictures he'd taken.

Like I said, this whole group had a vibe of Not Right to them, and I can only assume this was someone local hoping to get the attention of con-goers by staging a "sexy girl takes sexy pictures" sort of photoshoot right in the middle of the Atrium lobby, probably to advertise for a local business. And they did it Thursday night, because the rest of the weekend that area would be shut down to them.

So nothing creepy or dangerous or what I would call harassment, but I would love for hotel security to start checking for badges Thursday evening, or at the very least have a few extra security people walking around to make sure Thursday-is-the-new-Friday isn't attracting more unsavory types, especially as Thursday continues to get more and more busy.

[ickletarakins.livejournal.com]

the only issue I'd have with them checking badges Thursday is that some people don't arrive early enough that night to pick them up...i.e. I had a friend come to ATL after work Thursday night, he didn't get there until like 10:15. he met me out at a party in the hyatt (he wasn't staying at a con hotel, either)...he wouldn't have been able to do that if they'd been checking badges because they stop pick-ups at 10 PM, ya know?

[pocky_slash.livejournal.com]

Most of the football crowd that I encountered this year consisted of families and couples who mostly asked polite questions about the con. My friends, however, did have a run-in with some bro-type assholes while they were in costume, but unfortunately it was at a restaurant off-site, so the lack of badges was rather moot. They were at the Mexican place across from the Westin on...Friday night, I think? And some dudebros thought it would be fun to heckle them while they ate :\

[cairparavel6.livejournal.com]

There was a group of 4-day badge dudebros camped out at karaoke at the Hilton Friday night, and being that we wandered over there from the zombie prom, my boyfriend and I were all zombified. Dudebro grabs my arm (I have no idea why), gets blood on his hand and proceeds to hassle me about it the rest of the time we were over there. Other than that and a pair of SERIOUSLY disgustingly creepy dudes (one of them trying to "have sex with anything that is willing,") at the ABC party whom I'm not entirely sure were there for the con, didn't witness too much in the way of harassment.

[ickletarakins.livejournal.com]

ohmygosh I think I ran into the same creepy dudes at the ABC party! ugh :-/

[nyssa.livejournal.com]

one guy asked for a picture while I was fairly scantily clad, and when I agreed, he knelt down and grabbed me around the knees and hoisted me into the air. a little personal-space-invasive, but ultimately harmless. in his defense, I think he tried to ask if it was okay, I just couldn't understand him so I'm not sure. honestly I was more offended at the amount of sweat he managed to get on my costume than I was at being picked up. :/

one woman asked me (when I was in pasties) if she could squeeze my boob, to which I replied, "lolno", and that was that.

overall, no real complaints.

[iheartmyblog.livejournal.com]

For the first time in my four years of going to Dragon*Con someone made a comment on my boobs (they are large). I usually wear covered-up costumes, but this year I had a costume with a low-ish cut top. I was walking back to my hotel Sunday night, through the Hilton habitrail, it was maybe 1:30ish-2:00ish? I had my boyfriend with me. Anyways, an older, late 30s/early40ish dude, with a badge, and tons of nerdy Con stuff (not in costume), commented on my costume saying that he liked the theme choice (it was from Portal), and then he yelled "NICE BOOBS!" It didn't bother me too much because he was good-natured about it (I mean, as good-natured as one can be--I'm sure many people think "wow that girl has nice boobs," but most keep it to themselves), and he kept walking and he didn't stop to chat or bother me or try to get handsy...but, again, it was the first year anyone has said anything about my body other than "Hey, great costume!" And, again, it was a Con-goer who was clearly there for the whole weekend, not a one-dayer or sports fan.

So, can we stop stereotyping sports fans yet and can we stop the us vs. them mentality maybe? Yay?

[raidingparty.livejournal.com]

Nevarr! You can only be a fan or a fan! You can't be a fan and a fan! You're either with us or against us! Don't cross the streams!

[puzzleoflight.livejournal.com]

I didn't witness or hear of anything from my fairly wide circle of friends this year. It seems like security has really stepped up their game. Props to them.

[timeywimeydiary.livejournal.com]

I didn't encounter any problems. Any non-con people in the hotels were just intrigued (or bemused) and often wanted to take pictures :)