At the sci-fi and fantasy con we organised at university (Picocon, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Picocon) we had a regular slot for ‘turkey readings’ where people would read notably bad prose and take bids to stop (or continue) reading. The proceeds went to charity.

I had to read a page of AI slop ‘fiction’ this morning and my first thought was that it was so bad, it deserved to be in one of those turkey readings.

Picocon - Wikipedia

@davidjamesweir
#Finncon used to have an event where people donated stupid sf merchandise for destruction in innovative ways - anything from chainsaw to crushing to chemical explosions. Things then turned into bidding wars for charity, where someone would pay to save that Jar-Jar Binks bubble bath bottle or whatever, and someone else paid more to see it destroyed.

In 2009 George R. R. Martin donated his flat cap.

@MerjaPolvinen @davidjamesweir I entirely and completely stole the Destruction of Dodgy Merchandise from Picocon when I brought it to Finncon as Tuhoa Turha Tuote.

@eemeli Here is a photo of yours truly participating in the DoDM at Picocon https://www.flickr.com/photos/cowfish/393387370/in/photostream/ (the object in question is this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amstrad_E-mailer)

I think the previous year I had actually rescued something from destruction, but I can't now for the life of me remember what it was, and luckily there are very few ICSF members on fedi 🙃 (paging @davecl42)

Understandable that from a safety point of view the DoDM is nowadays hard to do at Finncon...

@MerjaPolvinen

#icsf

This is for cutting into Apple's profits in the 80s

Flickr

@eemeli (yourself excepted, of course; I was a couple of years after you, from what I recall)

@MerjaPolvinen