somewhere a girl scout camp is missing an events director

[davemerrill]

I've been watching videos of these wonderful outdoor love fests called

"GLOMP CIRCLES " <3

People spin bottles in the middle of a huge circle and run over to hug whoever the bottle points to while at the same time doing some call n' answers of "guess what?" with the crowd.

This looks looks extremely fun. We should have this at Anime North! The free hugs line is tame as a bunny compared to this.
Let me show you a example of Sakura-Con 2010 glomp circle right here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_x5Hx6glzFA

Sakura-Con had 18,000 attendees in in 2010, but they've been running the glomp circle for years now.
This is how the glomp circle looked like in 2008 with 13,600 attendees.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQo35B4V7k4

Come 'on, Anime North! Looking at the attendees trend, we're going to get 15,000-16,000 people this year. Let's bring the glomp circle to Anime North too!

Would you like to come play in a glomp circle?

Now I'm wondering, how do we physically start one and get everyone excited for it? Perhaps we can take a photoshoot group of an popular action anime, convince everyone from the people from the free hugs line and get a few peeps begin the circle with a few exciting "guess what"s?~ Ideas? Possible restrictions or legal hurdles to jump? I'd love to have your input!

http://teahouseofthemaplemoon.yuku.com/topic/2765

Yeah, let's do this! In fact I'm going to help make it happen - I will PERSONALLY drive the bus downtown and get ten or twenty of the smelliest, most-in-need-of-a-hug street kids and make sure that they are part of all the glomping fun in a big way! Then we'll gather around the campfire and sing 'Kum By Ya' and then it will be time to do each other's hair and give each other makeovers and tell secrets about who we have crushes on.

And then, the Hells Angels will make their grand entrance.

Sheezus, people. Sheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeezus.

Comments

[hooverdam.livejournal.com]

I watched about thirty seconds of both videos and was disappointed nobody came out with a firehose.

[davemerrill.livejournal.com]

Last I heard it is actually supposed to rain the Saturday of Anime North, so maybe their parade of non-sexual touching will be called on account of inclement weather. Or fire hoses, that's a good idea too.

[hooverdam.livejournal.com]

I mean...just...I mean, I know candy raver kids who'd think this was the stupidest thing they'd ever seen. I was in drama club in high school and the hardcore drama club musical theater kids there would've found this beneath them.

[dave-iii.livejournal.com]

I dunno, the makeovers sound fun. I can bring my fashion magazines and my "Mystery Date" game.


Seriously, points for wanting to create a social activity and share it with others, but there's all kinds of ways it can go horribly horribly wrong. Hell, Magic cards are a better idea, and that's going some.

[sixstop.livejournal.com]

don't look at us, its your country now. -_-

[dwinghy.livejournal.com]

Skip the makeovers and the street kids, just put the Hells Angels into the glomping circle. I'm sure they'd love to hug some 20 year old catgirl who's starved for physical affection.

Stuff like this sometimes makes me worry that when the current generation of congoers gets a little older, anime cons are gonna turn into "Open source boob project"-accepting dens of iniquity that would put DragonCon to shame. Once these kids get articulate enough to make their terrible ideas sound like "social experiments", all sorts of trouble's gonna break loose. Fortunately, as of right now none of them could string two sentences together to save their lives so it's OK.

[dwinghy.livejournal.com]

Uh, no, SakuraCon's in Washington state. The "glomping circle" has not yet made an appearance at Anime North, and probably won't, judging by the reaction on the message board.

[sixstop.livejournal.com]

uh, well, if you read the context of his post, he didn't even need to mention Anime North parts, i mean the videos are pretty clearly labelled Sakurakon, and the behavior speaks for itself in those videos.

Unless he was pointing out that its trying to 'spread' to Anime North, in which its perfectly relevant to point out that he shares air more closely with the persons who's trying to get this going. ;p

[sixstop.livejournal.com]

That would require an attention span longer than a gnat. ;p

[davemerrill.livejournal.com]

"He"?

[tochiro998.livejournal.com]

Oh, god. Please tell me this is actually a super deep 'inside baseball' gag, huh?

I assume the callback for 'guess what' is still 'chicken butt'. Oh, that's not at ALL as annoying as 'marco polo', huh? AND it gets around any banning of 'marco polo', right? right? It's not at ALL the same thing!

So, like, the crowd has demo-shifted even younger? It's now all pre-teen girls?

Shoot me.

[dwinghy.livejournal.com]

I still don't know what your point is. There's like 2 people on the AN message board trying to get the glomp circle going at Anime North, as opposed to the several people who presumably did get a glomp circle going at Sakuracon. So saying "it's your country now" makes no sense, because the USA, where Sakuracon and the actual glomping circle takes place, was always Dave's country. So saying OH THOSE CRAZY CANADIANS honestly makes no sense at all in this context. Maybe if they'd gotten the idea from another Canadian con...?

[sixstop.livejournal.com]

Okay then. Not really looking to draw alot of effort out for a bit of jesting when the response isn't exactly...well you know.

[tochiro998.livejournal.com]

Let me try.

I think the "it's your country now" wasn't meant on the glomp circles that have happened, it's for the potential that this will be allowed at AN because of whatever reason that defies common sense and any rational thought.

Or not.

OK, I got nothing. I don't get it either. I surrender.

No, wait, that's France.

ZING!

[davemerrill.livejournal.com]

See, I didn't know what you were trying to say, either, it was pretty clearly some Sakura-con somebody trying to start something at Anime North. Nationality either way didn't really have any bearing, whatsoever.

I did notice on the AWA boards a few people saying "Well, Sakura-con has skits, we should do it at AWA" or "Well, Sakura-con has Cosplay Chess, we should do it at AWA"... it seems to me that somebody at Sakura-Con feels they've invented a better mousetrap and is trying to pitch it to the rest of us.

[sixstop.livejournal.com]

well, like I said, it wasn't supposed to draw that much effort.

of course we've all seen weird young-fan behavior stuff like this. Of course we've seen the "they do that, we should do that" type of egging on at meetings and on message boards.

Its not like everyone reading/posting on your blog doesn't have a block of con experience over the past 20 years or so already, or anything...so it was more of a belaboring about seeing stuff like this coming back up in your neck of the woods than anything.

wasn't supposed to be any deeper meaning, and certainly didn't expect such a spiky reaction, so.... yeah...

[parasitegirl.livejournal.com]

I was 13 a thirteen year old girl once. It sorta sucked. No thanks.

[gyopi.livejournal.com]

So spin the bottle has taken yet another disturbing turn. Its time to change completely over to drink boxes, I think.

hey I get to use my "ew" icon

[gallo-de-pelea.livejournal.com]

"Open source boob project"

This was the first thing I thought of.

[sobieniak.livejournal.com]

Lord knows the games kids do play today aren't nothing like the ones we did. This whole thing is like one big cry out to our lost kindergarten days we should not have to be reminded of!

[spacemantis.livejournal.com]

Some vapid moron at the Anime North Forum wrote:

"its a choice to enter the circle. eg its a choice to play hockey and get hit in the face with the puck and loose a few teeth."

Well, poop- looks like my Anime North Hockey League idea is a non-starter.

[tochiro998.livejournal.com]

Oh, go for it! I want to see people trying to get their costumes over the pads!

but otherwise...huh. really? Hockey = tweens and teens screaming , yelling and glomping strangers?

methinks someone took a flying puck to the forebrain which knocked the spelling out of them. :)

[hooverdam.livejournal.com]

That'd be much more interesting to watch.

(Of course, what this clown doesn't realize is that anything more organized than a neighborhood pickup game involves waivers and insurance, so that if you do get smacked in the face, legal liabilities are covered).

[tochiro998.livejournal.com]

Not to mention, ya know, SUPERVISION-Referees, an overall Commission to oversee the application (and punish the violation) of rules, etc.

[coderjoe.livejournal.com]

What? Rules at an anime con? no way!