It Turns Out TanaCon Didn’t Show VidCon Who’s a Real VIP After All
There’s an episode of The Big Bang Theory where Sheldon, distraught that he can’t get tickets to San Diego Comic-Con, decideds to start his own convention and sets off stalking James Earl Jones in order to invite him to be a guest. In the end, Jones ends up being a bit wild and drags Sheldon out on pranks like playing ding-dong ditch to Carrie Fisher before inviting him and his friends to be his guests at Comic-Con.
In real life, Tana Mongeau actually went through with the convention she decided to hold because she didn’t get a “featured creators” badge for VidCon, a convention for fans to meet their favorite YouTubers like Phil DeFranco, Boogie2988 and Keemstar. One of those guys even has a name. She even called it TanaCon, because clearly, it wasn’t about the fans or the community, it was about Tana.
Let’s pause briefly so anyone who doesn’t know how this is going to turn out can guess. Lock in your answers, folks. Did you guess “This vanity convention slapped together by a lady who talks fast on YouTube in a few months is going to go exceptionally poorly?” If you did, you win a cookie. You’ll have to buy it yourself but no one can shame you while you eat it.
Some fans were angry on behalf of Tana, and that led to a very physical show of support at TanaCon. Other fans just wanted to get a close-up selfie with Dawson or Thorne. As the afternoon progressed, it became apparent to everyone that everything was getting out of control. Thousands upon thousands of unregistered fans showed up in the parking lot, and reports spread on Twitter that they tried to rush the door.
Pre-registered fans, people who waited in the heat for multiple hours, started yelling and complaining, demanding refunds for their wasted time. Mongeau used Twitter and Instagram to try to quell people’s frustrations, but provided few updates as things got worse, but it eventually all came to a head when they were told to shut down the event for the day. It became a major safety concern, Mongeau tweeted, and people were concerned that if things got out of hand, it could result in someone getting trampled.
I mean, sure, I’m making fun of Tana Mongeau because she threw a vanity convention because the YouTube convention didn’t treat her like a big enough deal, but she did get 20,000 people to show up to her vanity event, so maybe I’m being unfair. Of course, Fifty Shades of Grey sold 60 million copies, so having a large following doesn’t actually mean you’re doing something worthwhile. You could probably get 20,000 people to do almost anything. For example, the LA Clippers got over 17,000 at an average home game last season and some 14 million people saw that terrible Ghostbusters reboot in 2016.
At least Tana got to keep her dignity, unlike the organizers of Dashcon, who will forever be remembered for their sad little ball pit.
One year ago today.
Never forget.#dashcon #ballpit pic.twitter.com/L7IScm3KsF— FanCons.com (@FanCons) July 13, 2015
