The Failure of Dashcon: Q & A 

the fact that a gay mexican dude caught death threats from the crowd about his race/sexual orientation in a panel about prejudice on that very topic is mindblowing. it's priceless, really. "we understand the problem! we understand it, because we are it!"

Dashcon. Not the con that Tumblr wanted, but the con that Tumblr deserved.

A Reddit convention sounds like it would be the most toxic, insufferable weekend in recent history.

"By the way, this is a billion dollar company" This quote did not age well

dashcon took place like 8 minutes away from me, i couldve experienced history

"These hotels will book a BDSM convention next to a wedding. They don't care!" I'd watch that movie.

"I am internet historian, This is internet HERstorian" Subscribed

29:00 I used to work at a Marriott and I can confirm. Marriott seriously doesn't care what gets hosted. If administration contracted with a group of organizers then that was that. We had furries, pimp conventions, BDSM conventions, porn conventions, wrestling conventions. It was just another day in the hotel industry for us.

Actually, Super Who Lock is a combination of Superman, Horton Hears a Who, and the Hurt Locker

Why are you dating a 3D girl?

I mean, they never actually lied imo. They conned then dashed

Two years ago, a small town in North Carolina launched their own Bigfoot festival. They planned small and found they had something like 20 times the number of people show up as expected. They made huge bank and simply planned bigger and succeeded because of it.

Okay so I was an avid tumblr user back when dashcon was just a post saying "hey wouldn't a tumblr con be cool" (no), when it was being planned, when it was happening, and when it failed. Here are some things I remember that I don't think have been mentioned. 1. They wanted to represent every single fandom. Every possible niche fandom. So they had like "committees" on tumblr who were responsible for the organization of panels, booking guests, fundraising etc. Also, dashcon officials didn't vet their committee members so they literally had 13/14 year olds planning their convention. 2. They promised to give back money to people who donated the 17,000. There was a website you could go to and everything, but you had to prove it with paypal receipts. Also, if anyone donated cash during the con they were screwed, because money was collected in bags and no IDs were checked. So good luck on your refund. 3. There were a lot of panels. There were "adult only" panels such as the BDSM panel. Those were supposed to be 18+, but they weren't doing a lot of gate-keeping so a lot of underage kids got into the explicit panels. I remember eating up all the dashcon drama and just watching it all turn to shit over the course of that weekend and then reading up on all the discourse and horror stories that followed. I didn't think any experience could top that, until Fyre festival. I feel like I'm in a time warp haha

FYRE FESTIVAL IS ACTUALLY WORSE THAN DASHCON. HOLY SHIT WE NEED AN EPISODE ON IT.

I think the reason they never got sued is because the people who went to dashcon are the same people who are too nervous to tell a waiter that they brought out the wrong food to the table

I snuck into dashcon and I still feeled cheated. And it wasn't what I didn't pay for.

Dashcon 2: Shitlord Boogaloo

I attended DashCon. I have some videos from the big group stuff and one panel (My Wife's Panel on Star Trek Fashion). Her panel was very good and was supposed to be on the night when they pulled us all into the big meeting room. She had prepared hard for the panel so we went and commandeered a panel room and she did her panel for a few friends that had also attended.

The story I keep finding funny is how people who have been on tumblr since before dashcon talk about how it "killed" superwholock. Like Superwholock was by far the most popular fandom/community on the site back in 2012/2013. The fans dominated every conversation and inserted themselves into every discussion and post, talking about one of the three shows, even when posts weren't about superwholock at all. For normal users superwholockians were the most annoying and infuriating part of the site. And then... it just vanished. People say that the fandom, and the general toxicity and policing that was associated with it, was practically wiped out by dashcon (even though it totally still exists), because these naive teenagers and young people saw for themselves, in real life, just how insane and toxic their community was. Toxic and policing fandoms and communities still exist on the site; Steven Universe and Voltron are the worst offenders (at least from more recent years). But nothing comes close to how pervasive and monolithic Superwholock was at its peak.

To answer the question "how did they come up with the topics" they're everything that was popular on tumblr. Superwholock, WTNV, homestuck (the people dressed up as "devils"), and LGBT. I wasn't shocked by the selection but then again I use the hell site. You also forgot the screenshots of how dysfunctional the staff were and how they fell apart long before the con started

Would you rather go to Dashcon or RainFurrest 2015? RainFurrest was a furry convention (which already sounds like oodles of fun) that slowly broke down over the course of a weekend while attendees documented its decomposition at the Seattle Airport Hilton. It started out like any normal furry convention - you know, adults who identify with animals and dress up in giant animal suits just hanging out with each other. But then the fur parade began. Proud furries showed off their carefully-crafted costumes for friends and families and hotel guests, a colorful march of foxes, wolves, lions, tigers, bears, and rubber horses dressed like gimps with ball gags and straps. "Think of the children," saner furries tweeted, but they were too late, for one of Hell's gateways had already been opened. The babyfurs appeared - not babies dressed like baby foxes, but grown men and women who identified as animals and babies. They wore their diapers like a badge of honor. "We are part of this community!" they proclaimed. "And we will march with pride with our brothers and sisters!" The Hilton halls were filled with the sound of crinkling diapers and furious tweeting as the RainFurrest took to their phones to feebly and passive aggressively try to control the situation. The babyfurs had different standards for public conduct. They began to defecate freely in their diapers, discarding used ones, preparing new ones, showing more hairy skin than a five-year-old should see before he discovers the internet. Diapers littered the floor and grounds; go ahead and try to clean them up, but you may find out too late the lonely diaper you've found has a surprise inside. Slowly, madness took its toll. The pool was closed - someone had shit in it. The hot tub was closed - someone had stuffed towels into its jets, breaking it. The lobby bathroom flooded. Someone carved a glory hole into the stalls. Someone pulled the fire alarm. The exhausted hotel staff demanded the convention organizers seize the reins. Someone pulled the fire alarm again. Some furries began to cry, lamenting their home and refuge and community could let them down so much. Some furries laughed. Many got drunk. Many got high. And deep within those halls, in the corners so far the shrill alarms were only a soft buzz, primal sex devoured bed sheets and table lamps and naked flesh. The hotel did not invite them back for 2016

Its only been a few weeks and you already got a sidekick

no wonder he has a girlfriend. anyone could want a guy with a voice like that!

Anyone who thinks a collective sigh is a sufficient explanation and reaction to organizer incompetence, should not be organizing anything bigger than a bowel movement.

I disagree that the con wasn't the fault of the staff. The board were absolute incompetents and actually _defended_ staffers as well as attendees for sexual assault, drugs, and anything else. They refused to be transparent with anybody and refused to kick anyone from the con, no matter how atrocious their behavior.

I pissed in the ball pit.

so I was a vendor at dashcon - and I can confirm that there was not a ton of cash donations. They literally had a hat/bag going around (I didn't donate, they already got enough of my money) and it was NOT full. And yes, during the convention there was not a lot of truth happening, and the only link we had to what was happening WAS the staff/organizers.

As someone who hangs out on tumblr mainly for fandom stuff I never fully understood why tumblr has such a reputation. After watching this Q&A I went "Ah. Now I get it."

ask her for marriage already ya nimrod

Really appropiate timing with Fyre Festival a.k.a. Dashcon 2.0 being fresh in everyone's heads

I agree with the Historian at 4:50-ish. If they wanted to run a big convention and had no experience, they should have worked their way up first. Get their feet wet by trying to run a small local con first, see how it goes, get a better feel for how the logistics of it works.

For those who haven't seen, the girl who originally had the idea for Dashcon made a video about it. So to answer the cash donation question there was 3000 dollars according to her donated in cash. She was the one who carried the donation bag and she counted the money, and it was around 3000 dollars. However the organizers said that they reached the 17,000 dollars before they had counted the money, which means they must have already had 17,000 in online payments combined with the money they had before counting the money in the bag, however the donation list says the cash donations was where they made most their money. This would then be completly impossible. 'Cause if you make most your money in cash donations, but haven't counted the cash donations; how do you know you've reached you goal?

wait fuck that's his real voice? i thought he was a text to speech program this whole time

You two are oozing with white privilege.

Modus Operandi is latin for "manner of the doing," "mode of operating." You can have an MO for something you do only once. Colloquially, it means a specific plan for a specific situation, whether the situation is expected or unexpected.

if harold ever appears in a movie i dont want his real voice, i want you to voice him cause now that ive watched you a few months long i cant imagine someone elses voice with that face

Fun Fact: Harold lives in Hungary

just in time for fyre festival lol

funniest thing to me is that the fanbases didn't even ruin the con, the hosts did

shoutout to night vale for doing some stuff that was promised without payment that was promised to them, and being the better people when the dashcon committee tried to throw them under the bus and forced the bill onto them

a bunch of 17-19 year olds ran a small convention in my city as a fundraiser for gay pride and it turned out way better than dashcon 😂

Ball Pit and Bouncy Castle? Who were they appealing to, kids who just got out of pre-school?

“The hotel is racist” **pauses video during a shot of the sea of people** 🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔

I am an Australian lawyers about 10 years in. An agreement can be formed without a title Contract. Reduces to writing is easier for evidence (eg emails). Immediately enforceable is usually what I am looking for (ie no more negotiations without new consideration). Love the content. Xo

Wait, isn't emoticon just the old term for emojis? I grew up calling them emoticons and still do so out of reflex to this day

I really like these Q&As, they make the original vids much more interesting

M.O. is short for "modus operandi" which is defined as: "a particular way or method of doing something, especially one that is characteristic or well-established." When describing how one could get piss into the ball pit undetected, Mr. Historian used "M.O." correctly. It would not be anyone's specific M.O., just one that would achieve the goals as assumed.

That craigslist lady did a good job pretending to be your girlfriend/wife.

Jesus, a meme/internets high-grade shitposting channel (no offense) does better investigation and journalism than the average news website.

Oh hey, that me! Yeah one of the things that happened is that.. I think a webcomic artist(cant remember her name for the life of me) was also abandoned and couldn't find a place to stay, so she stayed with the WTNV people and had a blast with them. Next talk about Las Pegasus Unicon. Please, that's the bigger shitshow. pleasseeee. Aand another edit: It was in Evansville, Indiana for emoticon, my friend almost went for shits and giggles.

28:19 - watching this video over again, this detail explains the Mockingjay salute and “Les Miserables” singing. No wonder people gave so much money if they had been led to believe that the hotel was being bigoted. I hope the folks involved in this con feel some remorse for appropriating real world pain for their personal gain. In any case, well done making this video and appreciate you being thoughtful in how you present the facts involved.

im a huge fan of WTNV (i saw them live for my birthday a few years ago) and they all seem like such nice people! i feel so bad that they had to go through that shit, they were clearly being super generous and trusting and were screwed over.

Internet Historian is my waifu.

>be me >sees new Internet Historian vid >gets excited >clicks >its not about fyre festival >sadface.jpg >its about dashcon >feelsgoodman

I'd pay to get a tanacon video from this channel

The backround song is Say Good Night - Joakim Karud

Have you tried to contact the photography group that filmed the convention to get the footage?

Dashcon needed a dash cam

What happen: A group of people that have never had to be responsible of anything thought it would be easy organize a convention. They were wrong and like the house of sticks and of straw it blew down with a gentle breeze. The end.

Imagine if the Historian and Herstorian had a kid. The voice would rule the radio stations.

Could have sworn "Emoticon" is what they used to call Emojis on the old MSN messenger

I swear you guys went to the same boarding school as clown. Where they teach you to sound old and distinguished af

I honestly find it disturbing that no charges were ever filed over this. At the least, the thirtysomething should have gotten nailed. The way they handled the money… I wonder if that would qualify as embezzlement? Buying fancy lunches for themselves, unnecessary trips…

0:16 "she's not a looker" what the fuck bro, look at that million dollar smile

I'm sorry, but this little exchange at the end about who's doing what is really cute. And the whole video is interesting too, no doubt about it.

The way he says cash is fantastic.

This guy has the mystical ability to make literally anything sound super interesting and engaging

To this day, I have no idea what the fuck "Welcome to Nightvale" or "Steam Powered Giraffe" is.

you might be interested in gamer con. It was a game con hosted by gamestop that completely flopped

I really hope you make a Fyre festival video soon. I had some Dashcon flashbacks when i first read about it. Might be interesting to hear you talk about it

In my opinion every convention/event should always be booked next to a radically different one. A wedding and an anime con.dnd and cowboy square dancing. That sort of thing.

"everytime something went wrong they immediately deflected blame into someone else". Whoa, that doesn't sound like a Tumblr user at all!

Unsurprising that people addicted to immediate social media dopamine hits assumed it would be an instant success without question.

How has it already been 6 years, and at the same time, how has it only been 6 years?

Not sure if it's as uncommon as I might think, but I've been deeply involved in the planning of a convention before, working as the right-hand to the organizer of an anime convention. I wish I could say I actually did a lot, but it was more like I watched a lot and played fill-in like flex-seal or something when he couldn't manage something himself. During the convention that was usually the case, as the various forms of talent often needed his personal involvement, so I helped manage anything that popped up or went wrong. I was present for various negotiations and he explained the finances to me quite thoroughly. While it was years ago, I can say that at least in this area, a convention venue for about 2,000 attendees cost about twenty grand, maybe thirty if you account for all the extra expenses on top like food, rooms, guest appearances, and so on. Probably more once all of it's said and done, plane tickets get wacky, more expenses pop up, etc, meaning we typically barely made any profit by the time we were done, and that's with a ticket price of about $20 with a few special packages (which were always honored, heh.) What this means is that none of us ever got paid. Not the guy running it, not me, not anyone. Everyone paid for their own stuff except rooms by in large. We knew this going in, of course, and we had no issue with it. I slept on the floor most of the time since we just couldn't spare the money for more staff rooms anyway. The virus killed this convention sadly, the financial ramifications ruined any chance of it continuing. Anyway, my point is that Dashcon is not just a normal convention taken to an extreme, it was already abnormal in the first place for being based so heavily in profits rather than passion for the subject at hand. Don't get me wrong, the plan is always to make a profit, but it shouldn't come at the cost of the experience of your attendees and whether they're happy with what they got for the money. Normally, cons operate on a neutral or even negative budget for the first few years to build up, then graduate to larger venues, bigger guests, and so on, until they're actually making a profit year over year (rather than direct reinvestment into the next year) and are secure. I'd be happy to explain more in detail about how a (or at least our) small con typically functions, from planning to negotiations and so on, but this is already a bit long-winded, so I'll reserve that for if someone actually asks for it.

From what I have seen on Tumblr from being on that hellsite for a good 5 years now, it's safe to say these people were at the head of the bigger fandoms like SuperWhoLock and Homestruck etc etc and I can't really imagine those people having any useful real-world skills let alone the knowledge to organise a con

Are you going to do a video on the Rainfurrest drama?

These Q&As are awesome.

This dudes voice is so buttery. I love these channels. Very rewatchable videos ! Waiting for a new Internet Historian video!

COMING BACK AFTER MANY YEARS TO OFFER INSIGHT: Class action lawsuit is what would have (should have) happened. It's the exact legal proceeding designed for this sort of thing.

I was on the hellsite that is Tumblr around the time of Dashcon and I'm still an active user. Although the culture of the site has changed quite a bit and I don't think a convention would be a viable idea now (regardless of the Dashcon incident), a few years ago a Tumblr convention honestly made sense. Yes, there are many different smaller communities on the site and not everyone has the same interests, but during this period Homestuck and Superwholock along with some other fandoms brought a majority of the site together. At one point a post was going around that basically said the "incognito" way to ask if someone has a Tumblr irl is to say "I like your shoelaces," which a complete stranger said to me once and we both knew what it meant. It's cringy and weird, but Tumblr really did have a very close-knit culture of like-minded people for quite some time and to an extent still does. From my experience at anime conventions and ConnectiCon (which is also really broad in it's target audience), most of the people there from 2012-2015 were the same types who would likely go to a Tumblr convention if it wasn't shit.

i was on tumblr for dashcon,,,, i remember people getting hyped for it, and afterward I scrolled though someone's blog who had went and liveblogged the whole experience. I remember a post that was just, in a all caps, "THEY'RE ASKING US FOR MONEY NOW??!"

Just recently found this channel, and the internet historian channel, and I absolutely love it. The woman is great, hope she's in some future ones that I'm about to watch next!

What confuses me is what a Tumblr convention is, every fandom on Tumblr has their own conventions so all these people are all going to a con based on the fact they all use the same social media

When you talk I imagine Nigel Thornberry

22:31 This the the DVD question you came for

I love how these two talk to each other! You can hear Herstorian's eyes roll about the acronym, and how they share the "electric boogaloo" joke! Wonderful stuff 😄

"Called it 'emoticon', which sounds like something out of Metal Gear Solid." Emoticon is the real word for "emoji", "emote", "smiley", etc. "Emoji" always sounded weeaboo-ish to me when I first heard it, the people I knew growing up called them "emoticons".

Because you asked: MO stands for Modus Operandi, Method of Operation in English. The meaning of the term is "How something works" or "How a specific thing is done". Cop shows have made the term popular, often referring to serial killers and such, but it's not specific to something that is done several times.

Modus Operandi is what MO means. It means Mode of Operation, or how somebody does something. Doesn't have to be repetitive action

"emoticon" was what they were called on internet BBs and forums before apple/google/whoever made them stupid, WAY less expressive, and changed the name to "emojis"

20:56 A troll in 2014. A hero in 2023. “Well, well, well…how the turn tables.”

Dashcon? More like Dash-CON....get it?.....because..... they- they conned them? Because they pocketed like 9000 dollars Forget it

A Q &A video more than 3x the length of the source material... That's how you know the video is good.

I love the content both of you guys keep up the great work

your voice is wonderful lady historian. A happy couple always brightens my day so thank you.

It really was kinda a very small niche convention. There were about three main things. The big left lgbtabc123 community, which lets face it had bigger and better events, conventions and movements. Drwholock fandom because at that point even the harry potter fans were kinda over it and had their own bigger and better events. And sorta homestuck...which was sorta still a thing but slowly dying. It was mostly the rabid, shipping, sexually repressed women of these groups who were generally unable to communicate or function in a normal fan group. The kinda people no one really wants at good conventions...Thats all it really boiled down to. Hell even bronies were functional and started with meet ups, small local events and then very small exclusive conventions that blew up into large scale.

45 fucking years? Geez how old are the two of you? Edit: 4 to 5. I may have misheard that as 45 years.

Love these Q&A's.

I love how all his history videos (the main channel) are so well with thought out. It must take him so long to do the research.