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                                Party People!
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Many and varied  are the types of humanity, and loosely related primate species,
that attend a typical large demo coding convention. Now I, in a desperate bid to
fill a last  minute hole in the pages of UCM, put on my anthropologists hat, and
set off to identify some of these diverse life-forms.

It's amazing how  much mileage I've managed to  get out of events with the names
"Mekka" and "Symposium". Does  this count  as some kind  of ongoing  post-trauma
therapy? But  then again, this  article could  be relevant to  any large  PeeCee
orientated demo party now or any time in the future.

Here they are, the people that fill the corners of the party hall...

Organisers:- This is the first tribe of  the party people. They have  the power!
They tend to be uniformed to some degree, and may, or may not choose to exercise
their powers in a quasi-fascist manner (fascist lite?!). Equally, an  inept band
of organisers  may find themselves  being constantly  outwitted  by some of  the
other more  cunning groups  within the party. If they are any good at their job,
they will be fresher looking than the rest, owing to their manipulating sleeping
and sanitary resources in their favour.

Soundbite:- "The 64ktro competitions  will be delayed further, until we find out
who was sick behind the stage!"

Exhibitionists:- As far as I know, there are no actual nudists among this group,
but you never  can tell until it  is too late. These are  the people who tend to
play  dressing-up  games. They  think that a  comedy giraffe  costume  will draw
attention to them as the coolest dudes at the party. They are sadly mistaken.
After a couple  of days of running around  to the heat generated by two thousand
Pentium powered cookers, they are the sweatiest!

Soundbite:- "Mmmffmmmffff!" - If  you  are  lucky, the  costume  prevents  clear
speechmaking!

Noisemakers:- Coming just  after the  drunks, and  possibly just  before? as the
most irritating group in the party. They are often  interchangeable, related to,
tied up  with, and one  and the same  as the drunks. These can be relied upon to
show zero  consideration to anyone else at the party. Rather depressingly, there
is a whole thread  at pouet.net dedicated to the noise that these creatures make
called  "Things to shout at a demo party." Here's  my  suggestion,  "Shut up and
fuck off, you morons!" They  will also  tally  forget about keeping a respectful
silence when the competitions are running.

Soundbite:- "ROOORAAAAH!" - "LAMERRRRR!" - Too many sadly.

Drunks:-  These  can  either  be  very  annoying,  or  pure  comedy  gold. I  am
hypocritically  leaving  myself out  of the  reckoning  here, as I only ever get
amusingly drunk, in a way which accentuates my cool person status, of course ;-)
- Drunks come  in several flavours and  textures, from those that peaked way too
early, like 15.00hrs on  the first  day, through to semi-coherent,  unconscious,
messy, and  so on. First  impressions  are deceiving, most  of these people have
actually been away from home before, they are just
retending to be fifteen years old and stupid ;-)

Soundbite:- "GETOUTOFTHEWAY! ROOOORAAAAGH!! - Sorry mate!" (Or the German/Polish
equivalent..)

"I don't think we  wanted to be here?!":- Individuals or small groups lured to a
big party on  false pretences. Often  fans of minority computer formats, used to
smaller  and more  intimate  gatherings. They  tend to  find the  shouty  noise,
bustle, harsh  barnlike atmosphere, and discomfort offputting. There are not too
many of these, as one experience of a big party ensures they don't come again.
To the unfortunate  lone Atarian reading  this, after going to Breakpoint '04 on
his own by mistake, TOUGH SHIT! You shou have kept up with today's news!

Soundbite:- None, just a grim determined silence.

The Clan:- These are the  people who travel  as part of a tightly knit  group or
national scene  community. They look  forward to  going to  an event that  joins
together  thousands  of  sceners from  all corners of  Europe and  even  further
afield. Then when  they get  there, they  don't talk to  anyone  else outside of
their immediate  peer group for the whole duration of the party! These are often
interchangeable with the outdoor-loving 'Happy Campers'.

Soundbite:- Something in  their own local  language or  dialect which  acts as a
deterrent to outsiders making casual conversation with them.

Gamers:- I've not had  any experience of  these from  the limited  amount of big
parties that I've been to, but these are the most numerous group in many places.
They overrun  and transform the  nature of a  lot of demo parties. They  are the
human equivalent of  the 'grey goo' which would be made by rogue nanobots trying
to coat the  Earth's surface! Often, special measures are taken to keep them out
or segregate them.

Soundbite:- (Said of the  demo competitions) "These slideshows sure are  pretty,
but when can we get back to Fragmeister 3 on the big screen?"

Girlfriends/Mascots:- An increasing number of females are growing to accept, and
even  partake of the geek  lifestyle. This rules! Mine wasn't one of those :-( -
You are  more likely  to find  these in  those  parts  of the  party, where  the
computer hardcore  attraction is  less obvious, such as the happy campers living
outside, or in other  places which aren't the main hall. Don't rule out the  odd
dedicated crew  member inside  the hallt though. The real breakthrough will come
when we start seeing female coders in action..

Soundbite:- This is  conjectural, so bear with me please.. "So when am I getting
that new pair  of shoes / designer jeans / car / house, for  going to your party
with you then?"

Happy Campers:- People who are possibly among  the longest established, and most
hardcore  demo sceners. These  come to  a big party, then  take one look  at the
entrance fee  pricing, shudder, then pitch tents in the surrounding  grounds and
woodlands. Some people  may end up not seeing anything of the competitions? They
tend to be  clannish in  temperament, sticking  closely with people they already
know. They can  also be identified  by the faint  odour of woodsmoke coming from
their  clothing after  the  first  night. So of  the bigger  and longer  lasting
outdoor groupings  have evolved  into  full-blown  nature-worshipping  religious
cults, possibly...

Soundbite:- "Where's Mr Wood! Need to set fire to WOOD !"

Grand Old Sceners:- These are  the tribal elders who have  been around since the
year dot, or  1987 to be  more precise. The  ground they walk on  is worshipped,
their opinions  breathlessly  sought. They will be seen at  competition viewings
furrowing brows  and trying  to work out  how a particular new school effect was
done. Then  they break  into an expression of smug satisfaction when they do so,
in a way  that puts  a spin of oldskool superiority on matters. Often  these old
men are  cosmically bored  with the current  progress of  the scene, and  can be
found with  the happy  campers  outside, effectively  ignoring  the rest  of the
party.

Soundbite:- "We could do that, standing  on our  heads, with  NO extra hardware,
and all in 1 vbl !" (But not without many fits of senile drooling perhaps?)

Leeches:- The closest  mindset to the  average non-demo  scene user  or 'luser'.
Here to grab  whatever they can in a vastly expanded version of the sort of user
group which spends  most of its  time disk copying. These tend to be  explicitly
banned from  most demo  parties, but that  does not rule out large scale trading
and swapping.

Soundbite:- None, for they have no power of speech.

Thieves:- The larger  demo party provides  many opportunities for the occasional
larcenous  scumbag  who  tags  along. Unfortunately, in  the  vast  porridge  of
expensive computer gear and  personal effects which is stirred around over three
days, something  quite valuable  always goes  missing. Out  of all  the friends,
neighbours  and internet  buddies meeting in the flesh, there is  always someone
who just  wants to be a  complete stranger and piss in your sleeping bag through
this sort of action.

Soundbite:- Hopefully a  rash of screaming when one  of these  people is caught,
and ancient biblical  punishments with  a modern  twist are  revived. Stoning to
death with externally cased bulky 5.25 inch SCSI drives might be appropriate!

Improvising sleepers:- Towards  the end of  the  party, those  people  unable to
adapt to  the piss-poor  ensuite party  sleeping  facilities  literally start to
drop. The main  party hall  might be  in total uproar, like  a nuclear bomber on
full  afterburners, but  there is  always a  selection of poor  exhausted  souls
scattered around, face-down on their keyboards, and dead to it all.

Soundbite:- "ZzzzzZZZzz! *Snurk!*"

Cool Dude:- Usually  your  mirror-image, the  friends  you  are  with, and  less
egotistically, the  person or people who manage to come up with a really awesome
competition entry, in spite of all the crap going on around them at the party.
Or perhaps  they did  it all before  coming to the  party? Which would make more
sense...

Soundbite:- None, lets the work speak for itself!

And here endeth the  tour of the many species that might fill a demo party hall.
Some of  them are truthful, many  of them  are  rumour and myth, and I'm  sure a
couple of these  are lifted purely off the back  of my deranged  imagination! By
way of stimulating  debate, has anyone  else spotted any other distinctive party
people types that I might have missed?

Anyway, enough of this rubbish, and back to the rest of the issue!

CiH for UCM - 5.4.04

Chris Holland
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