In the past five years, PAX East has become an unfamiliar space for me. I know, you’ve read this essay before—written by me, even—but it’s worth reiterating, one more time, that I don’t recognize myself when I’m there. I don’t see the other attendees as “my people,” and I don’t automatically assume that they are. I’m not sure I ever did, but at least I remember wanting to.
I skipped last year’s PAX East, which was a real delight, except for the part where half of my colleagues kept asking me why I wasn’t there. This year, the other half asked me why I was there. Why the division? Well, PAX’s two co-founders have made some pretty significant mistakes in the past, such as mocking rape victims in 2011 and mocking trans people in 2013. Most people aren’t over it, including me.
In what I believe was an attempt to amend these errors, all the locations of the Penny Arcade Expo now include a “Diversity Lounge” featuring booths that are devoted to educating attendees about the experiences of marginalized folks. From a corporate standpoint, the introduction of this lounge makes sense. Penny Arcade has been in bad need of better PR, and the lounge helps with that. Also, since 2010, the con itself has de-emphasized the original cult of personality surrounding its two co-founders; Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins have halved the number of Main Stage events that they host since the first PAX East in 2010. The first year of PAX East, the duo used the massive theatre to host two Q&A panels, a Make-A-Strip panel, and a screening of their documentary-style web series about their lives, which is no longer in production. This year, the pair hosted only one Q&A and the Make-A-Strip panel, placing both in morning slots as opposed to prime time positions like 4 PM.
It’s not that folks aren’t still star-struck by Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik, even though the gaming consciousness since the early aughts seems to have shifted away from webcomics and towards YouTube commentators and Twitch streamers. The legend is the same, though: you, too, could become rich and famous from your bedroom just by making stupid jokes about videogames. PAX seems to have done away with this “everyman” flavor entirely, though, relying instead upon a different lie: you, the gamers, are part of something large and important and magical.
I can see the dark side of both lies, though, so the whole thing doesn’t work for me anymore.
As I walked to the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center early Friday morning, I said to myself, “Even though I don’t respect Penny Arcade as a company, I am going to be honest with myself and my readers if I end up having fun.” I went in with as open a mind as possible.
I couldn’t help disliking the convention’s hosts, though, nor could I help having had bad experiences at PAX in the past. Previously, I’ve compared PAX to theme park rides, “from the high ticket price, to the long walk from the packed reserve parking lot, to the overpriced food that won’t sustain anyone for long, to the time invested in long lines that may or may not have a fun pay-off at the end.”
Unfortunately, taking a year off from PAX appears to have hindered my opinion of the convention rather than revived it. I shivered my way through the outdoor bag inspection line—a new development, which I assume is courtesy of Gamergate, but who knows? [Bag checks apparently started at PAX East 2014.—Ed.] Once I got inside, I waited in line to pick up my pass, listening to the two guys behind me drooling with anticipation at the Guild Wars trailer cycling on loop on the huge billboard above our heads and elbowing each other over the cute cosplayers passing us by. One of them told his friend excitedly that he “felt like a kid again,” and his friend agreed. “PAX is the place where we get to be kids.”
I listened with a sense of sad desperation, trying to understand or remember how these guys felt. I remember attending my first convention as a teenager, the joy I felt about cosplaying Yuna and rifling through anime and pocky in the dealer’s room. Why had I felt so happy? It wasn’t because of videogame trailers or cheap imported sweets—it was because I had felt like I finally belonged somewhere, like I was finally going to be able to make some friends. It wasn’t wanting to “be a kid”—it was a desire to be loved for the weird adult that I was becoming, a desire to find other adults who felt the same.
When one of the guys quipped to his friends that he just saw a girl who was “wifey material,” I cringed, remembering the real difference was between me and those guys. For them, this was a place to go and be entertained. I wasn’t one of them—I was part of the “entertainment.”
It’s not just the gender thing, though. PAX is a deeply unfriendly space for many of the exact people it purports to embrace. As I descended the escalators to the dealer’s room, I could feel my social anxiety kicking in, and I made it across the hall for about ten minutes before taking a sharp left towards the restrooms. I sat on the floor behind a booth for several minutes, talking myself down. Throughout the weekend, I asked friends of mine how the show floor was treating them, and got reminded again and again how many of my friends are on the autism spectrum and/or have social anxiety and/or panic attacks. I overheard someone talking about seeing a fan vomit from panic while on the show floor. People who have these types of disabilities tend to gravitate towards virtual spaces because they make us feel safe and in control; the PAX show floor does the exact opposite. So why is this supposed to be a safe haven for videogame fandom, again?