Don’t judge me, I was really bored last night.
I don’t know how – I think I saw some headline in some dingy back-alley deep within the technology section of some website I was on – but I ended up watching videos of Minecon 2012 on YouTube.
MineCon is an annual convention for Minecraft. Minecraft is a strange game that nerds play that allows them to live in a virtual world and do whatever they want, provided they’re OK with doing it all in terrible pixellated 1980’s graphics and they’re OK with having no friends. I don’t really get Minecraft at all, but then I’m not a shy, awkward dork, or 11 years old, so it’s not really aimed at me.
To be honest, I was watching these videos with the hope of seeing some real super-hardcore nerds and hearing the crazy shit these dudes lay down. I didn’t get that with the ‘MineCon 2012 Opening Ceremony’ – I just got some super lame video summarising the very short journey the game has taken to where it is today. Seriously, they made some film of the main Minecraft dude walking around the box-world, showing an example of every single update and improvement that had ever been made, as they took the viewers on an awe-inspiring voyage from Minecraft 1.0, to 1.1, to 1.2, to 1.3 and finishing epically at Minecraft 1.4. There was like 10 minutes of this mind-numbing crap. Then there was a boring introduction to the convention by this boring woman called Lydia.
Then there was actually a pretty cool video that the creators had made. It’s called ‘Minecraft Style’. I think you can guess what’s coming. It’s one of those things that’s like, yeah, the guys that made it are really nerdy and lame and it probably took them weeks to make it and I’m sure you would all rather shove your foot in a blender than hear Gangnam Style one more fvcking time, but this is actually pretty awesome so put your prejudices aside and check this out. Oh yeah and there’s lots of cutaways of the nerds getting out of their seats to do the dance, looking like they’re actually not having a fun at all and it just looks really awkward and horrible. Except for that one girl in the yellow hoodie – I want her dealer’s number.
25:20:
[yframe url=’http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03JQuse_gGU’]
But this next thing is what I really wanted to show you.
You think you’ve seen awkward? Let me tell you somethin’, you ain’t seen nuttin’ til you’ve seen the MineCon 2012 Costume Competition.
Oh god I can actually feel my back tense up as I’m watching these people step on to the stage and then have to fumble and stutter through mindless small talk about their how long their costumes took to make and where they’re from and what their name is. It’s fine with the kids, I understand that. For the 11-year-olds, it’s just like a costume procession at school or something. Do they have those? I dunno, but it’s not weird.
It get’s weird when the fvcking adults get up on the stage. They’re exactly the same as the kids – they have a stupid box on their head and they’re really shy and awkward or really strange and they can’t get enough of Minecraft. The difference is that they’re fully grown adults, and they should get a job.
And the hosts don’t help. I mean Lydia’s alright, she does pretty well to keep it upbeat and keep it moving with this stale bread she’s got to work with. But the rest of them are just awful at making conversation. There’s a dialogue at about 5:20 between the guy in the beanie and a man who looks roughly the same age as him (I’m guessing obviously because he has a fvcking box on his head), and it goes a little something like this:
“Hi. Who are you?”
(lifts box) “Nick.”
“Where are you from?”
“Err, I’m from London.”
“And… what’s the costume?”
“This is my in-game character…”
“…”
“…nope, that’s it.”
“Ah, it’s really cool… yah.”
*applause*
And this goes on for half an hour as weirdo after weirdo comes up onto the stage with a fvcking box on his head.
The audience all sound so bored, just applauding each awkward guy that spent 5 minutes painting a cardboard box and then put it on his head. And it looks like this is all that MineCon is – just a Minecraft assembly where Minecraft fans sit and watch Minecraft things about Minecraft, and talk about Minecraft.
I bet they all really regretted going, because for all the time spent watching and talking and listening to stuff about Minecraft, they had to go two whole days without actually playing Minecraft. I bet it was absolute torture.
If you think about it, it’s actually exactly like a massive AA meeting. But one where they pretend that alcohol is a good thing that should be celebrated. But you still can’t drink any. They could have done the costume competition much quicker if there was just Lydia on the stage, and all she did was hold the microphone up to each persons’ box-covered face so they could announce to everyone, “Hello, I’m Nick, and I’m a Mine-aholic”. And then Lydia would go, “Round of applause for Nick!” and everyone would applaud. It’s basically the same thing as what did happen, just much quicker and less awkward.
Highlights include:
- 1:40 – A freaky Eastern European girl (and not the good kind) with black teeth. And a box, obviously.
- 5:20 – Nick.
- 7:54 – “It’s a chicken.”
- 10:53 – Robot cat fail.
- 13:27 – Beanie guy is terrified by this middle-aged woman dressed as a pixellated pig dancing around the stage and he freezes like a rabbit in the headlights. It’s like Dr. Frankenstein when he first realises the scale of the monstrosity that he’s created.
- 16:55 – One of those annoying dorks that is really confident and loud and proud of the fact that he’s really awkward and weird. He tries to be funny and it falls completely flat and no one understands him and everyone just nods and smiles and can’t wait for him to fvck off. He’s also really ugly and bald and creepy.
So there you have it, MineCon 2012. Fun times.
Maybe next year we’ll send Batman_LDN down to scope it out properly, see what’s what. Maybe it’s an absolute riot and all this boring stuff is just an act for the cameras to keep the riff-raff out. They don’t just hand out convention halls at Disneyland Paris willy nilly, you know.
