Even though I’m now a small part of the AI-revolution (see my announcement about joining Strudel AI two weeks ago!), I was reminded last weekend that in-person events are still pretty much the best things ever. Social media has been tricking us for years into thinking that we’ve got vibrant friendships and lives, even if all we do is engage with people via a heart or a like. But given how quickly AI is permeating every aspect of our online lives these days, I find myself craving humanity — real humanity. And I found it last weekend at GameHole Con, the largest gaming convention in the Madison area.
AI Voice Clones
On my way home from the convention, I listened to a This American Life podcast episode entitled, My Other Self. In it, Evan Ratliff creates his own voice clone. Then, he starts to unleash it into the world as if it’s him. Phone calls, meetings, and responses to scammers and some very interesting things happen. I won’t ruin the episode for you but suffice it to say, the AI version of him didn’t exactly measure up to the real thing. And the reactions of the people who needed to interact with it get…emotional.
This is the world we’re headed into and it seems like such a juxtaposition to the one I just spent four days enjoying.
Gamehole Con
I have been playing board games since college, but until last year, I’d never attended a convention. Why should I go play games with a bunch of strangers when I could play those same games with friends? Well, it turns out, there’s a lot more to these kinds of in-person events than I thought.
At Gamehole Con you can do all kinds of things. You can play organized games, attend talks, meet game designers, shop nerdy small business’ shops, and play games with your friends just like you would at home. Last weekend I played six organized games (four of which were new to me and all of which were played with mostly strangers). I also played nine games with my friends (four of which were new to me). All the while I saw many, many friends that I hadn’t seen in a long time.
Bringing Friends Together
Many of the friends that saw at this convention are people who live over an hour away in Milwaukee. That doesn’t seem very far, but it may as well be across an ocean when you throw in full-time jobs, kids, side gigs, vacations, dating, and just plain real life. It’s an understatement to say that it’s tough to carve out the time to see each other. And yet, for four days this fall, we all made the time to be together. It wasn’t that we came just for each other, but we all came. We were at the same place at the same time and we all got some real facetime.
I’m no expert on the subject of the quality of time spent with people online versus in-person. I don’t need to be to know that I have a lot more fun with people in real life. When someone beats me to the move I was planning next online, I feel pretty bitter. In real life, I do to, but I also see the smirk on that person’s face, we both laugh about it, and then we move on. It brings us closer together. Online, I have to admit that there are times when I’ve been awfully mad at people for days. Typically, these are people I don’t know well and when I get to know them in person I realize that the resentment I felt towards them has completely melted away. Oh, this is a real human, that I actually enjoy. Note to self: don’t be so hard on people online anymore!
Meeting New People
My last game of the convention was an older game that I’d always wanted to try: Power Grid Deluxe. We had an excellent host who was an amazing teacher. We enjoyed the other players and eventually a friend of mine noticed that the guy across from us had a “special guest” badge. It turned out he was Rich Baker, board game designer and author who worked for Wizards of the Coast and wrote over ten Forgotten Realms novels. I had no idea who he was, but I found him to be an incredibly nice guy with a job that sounds exciting and fun. We would never have met if I hadn’t sat down to try out a new game with strangers.
I also met mom from Middleton who has a daughter in my daughter’s grade, a 15-year-old from Minneapolis who skipped school to play games with his dad and sister, and quite a few other very fun individuals. Sometimes I forget that there is a whole world of people out there who are interesting, like the same things, and really are worth knowing.
Bringing the Joy Back
Many people left the convention Saturday to join the $7 million other people at the No Kings protest. Some of my friends who haven’t made it out to protest yet got out there. That’s another place where our shared experience and humanity really shines through. When you’re online, you’re at the mercy of the algorithms. Everything you see is calculated and served up for you by a machine. When you’re in person you’re marching in the same direction. You realize that despite what some mainstream media companies tell you, there is a whole lot of people out there that really care and want to do the right thing. That’s the power of in-person. Nothing can replace the humanity of human-to-human interaction and nothing ever will. Sorry, AI.
And that’s why I didn’t name this article “the 10 best things about in-person events” or anything like that. This is not a grab for views, it’s simply a statement about how grateful I am to have spent the weekend with my fellow humans (and a couple of elves, kings, and dragons — it was a gaming convention after all). Nothings beats these kinds of gatherings and now, more than ever, we should absolutely make time to get together with our fellow humans.