I shall whisper it to my horses and see what they think.

Get ready for a treat, dear readers. To follow are PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS and AMAZING INSIGHTS from the mind of the author, in regards to issues of AGE, HISTORY, and CULTURE. These shall be in the rarely used FIRST PERSON, enabling the reader FULL IMMERSION into the life and thoughts of the author. The journey begins.

Hey guys, during/after Brickcon I've been thinking a bit about age, and about the online community, and my own interaction with the community over the past 9 years.

When I first discovered the community in 2000, the online fora (basically Lugnet) were almost exclusively populated by adults. After lurking for a while, I decided that it would be better to never mention my age, and through my writing and building allow people to just assume I was an adult. I had seen some comments on Lugnet about models being "good, for a kid" and I did not want the same. My models were to be judged on their own merit, not on some adjusted kiddie scale. It worked; I was accepted, and my models were praised/critiqued just as any other.

In 2003, at the age of 16, more out of random coincidence than merit, I was asked to participate in the creation of a new site to replace "Castle World" and lugnet.castle. I thus became a founding admin of Classic-Castle.com. In 2004, still 16, when I informed my fellow admins of my age, they did not think any less of me. They had been "fooled," Lenny especially, who thought I was 24 or something. (I arguably acted less mature after revealing my age. I got into a fair bit of internet drama when I was 17.)

All this is to say, kids today have it lucky, and should be grateful. I missed con after con, spending those weekends desperate for any picture or tidbit of information. I arranged a college visit in DC on the same weekend as Brickfest 2004 so that I could go to the Sunday public hours.

Today, every forum is full of kids, and cons have a good contingent of underagers who convinced their parents to come. At Brickcon I ended up leading a whole group to dinner, and I was the oldest of the bunch. One was a freshman in high school! The times, they are a-changin'.

And now, the real reason I told that whole story: kids that use their age as an excuse. I find this completely unacceptable. If you post a model online, you should be ready for people to critique it as if an adult made it. Inversely, you shouldn't feel obligated to hold back criticism because someone is underage.

If someone is too young to handle what goes on in the community, they shouldn't participate. Simple as that. This is an adult community, and you should be prepared to both act as an adult and be treated as one.

Did you learn something, dear reader? Surprised to learn of the exciting past of your favorite author? Does Keith Goldman look like an idiot for being Nadroj's white knight? Is Kevoh a total bad-ass? The correct answer to all 4 questions is "yes."

7 comments:

  1. I fully agree with you about children hiding behind there age and also noted the exponential increase in underage kids at the con. I've heard rumours about stricter reinforcement of the no children unattended rule.


    -Aaron

    ReplyDelete
  2. to clarify, all of the under-18 people I've met at conventions have been quite nice.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hehe, nice one.

    I wish I had chatted with you twees more at BrickCon. I think I only briefly chatted (read; exchanged ~6 words) with you when you were taking pictures of operation bricklord... Next year!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Seriously though, you do make good points, and even I (being barely 15) agree with them. I do think there is a good number of TFOLs who are as much a part of the community as any adults, partly because of their skill at building things but also because of how they act - both online and in person.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I fully agree, until it was brought to my attention I thought both Dr. X and David were at least 18 as you both conduct yourselves with maturity and use proper grammar and punctuation. I was also relieved to find out that X isn't a hamster.

    -Aaron

    ReplyDelete
  6. I learned you're a douche.
    -Keith

    ReplyDelete