Comic-Con spending

This blog post is in response to an article in the paper.  For those with limited time, it's about Comic-Con attendees spending as little money as possible or, at least, much less than the national average of convention attendees... which annoys corporations wanting to capitalize on all those potential wallets with legs.

My gut reaction is this: corporate america can't have it both ways.  They can't subjugate their employees with depressed wages, fewer benefits, and laying off workers while, at the same time, complaining that young adults aren't spending enough money on their expensive products.

Maybe there's a larger issue here.  A reason why fans of Captain America and Spider-Man aren't also fans of State Farm and Chrysler.  Generic blanket advertising doesn't always work.  According to corporate america, people are consumers; but geeks are geeks, thinking for themselves, adhering to whatever it is that turns them on specifically.  They're not credit card carrying zombies, mindlessly buying whatever's in front of them.

The old model is dying.  I believe we're in the midst of a paradigm shift.  Progress.

Money, that valuable resource upon which the world turns, is no longer the ultimate goal.  That's reserved for the creation of something truly awesome.  I'm talking bout Subjectivism: the opposite of Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged - artists, visionaries, and creators are doing their thing in spite of greed.  Their efforts will be compensated; not just by trickling down from corporate overlords but empowering themselves, individually.

This isn't art for art's sake but the kind of recognition that comes from realizing a vision rather than being subjected to regulation by soulless industries and politicians.  That kind of appreciation is worth more than a million impressions of a product that has nothing to do with Lovecraft or Doctor Who or Dungeons & Dragons.  Respect emanates from aesthetic integrity.


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