Dr. Emily FriedmanThere is something very grounding to be among people who’ve known you your whole adult life, to still be a bit of the “young one” even as you & your peers grapple with what it means to be The Ones In Charge (or feel unmoored from that idea for many reasons), to be among generations & long memory.
#asecs26 was different— virtual last year, & many losses since we last met. After 50 years the Women’s Caucus contemplates a name change — & its role in a time where clubbable cranky old masculinity has largely retreated. The Board unveiled redistributed power in org chart. I have hope.
I write to (at least) two audiences here: the 18C folks who have *no idea* about the weird posts I make that are deeply inside TTRPG baseball, & TTRPG folks who may feel similarly about when I speak about the weird workings of an academic conference of less than 1000 folks.
I do so anyway.
I was only a few blocks from where PAXU meets every year. I found myself wondering — not for the first time — whether anyone who goes to PAX (or GenCon, or GAMA, or GDC, or Metatopia, etc) feels like they get to be part of a multigenerational community, like they have senior colleagues, mentors.