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We live inside the expo hall.
What once was a once-a-year pilgrimage (badges, panels, swag bags) has metastasized into the way every institution communicates. Tech companies don’t just ship updates, they host “cons.” Even the most banal update needs a stage, a trailer, a fandom.
The logic of the convention collapses context. A product launch, a budget hearing, a labor strike all flattened into content. Everything becomes cosplay. Everyone runs a booth. And underneath that spectacle, here’s the kicker:
It’s clear we’re not in the reboot of the ’90s, but a retrenchment to the Gilded Age where a debt-soaked chaos engine chews through the remnants of last century’s public infrastructure R&D spending to stuff pockets one last time before the bill comes due. The lie we’re sold is that nobody owes anybody anything least of all civic society. Institutions are hollowed out, replaced by grifters selling scams that promise you’re just one hit away from being where they are. This is worse than nihilism, because it abandons even the idea of a moral stance.
This is what Comicon logic masks: governance by hype cycle, media as content farm, elites hoping to cash out before anyone notices the rot.
The convention floor is permanent now. The lights never turn off. And when every crisis or launch is staged as a fandom event, the real work (repair, care, civic responsibility) gets reduced to panel fodder.