(no subject)

[olivermoss]

I keep wanting to write about how this pandemic situation is likely the end of several hundred small businesses (mostly side hustles, not ones that employ people) that make geeky stuff and the impact that is going to have on fan art. But, every time I write about it I think about how small a concern that is compared to all the other Covid-19 fall out and I erase it.

I basically look at my own write up and go 'I sound like a terrible person with no perspective.'

But I put too many of my experience points into convention running and I can't seem to reset so I can spend them on something more useful. Nope, I thought spending a few years running cons was a good life choice.

Burning Cat has also been cancelled and yes, I did have a ticket to go to that silly, overpriced event. Bitchin' Party is not currently cancelled or postponed, but at this point I expect it. Meanwhile, Italy is quarantined and the US is fumbling it's response.

Comments

[dine]

given its location, I keep expecting an e-mail from the BP ConCom any day now.

[olivermoss]

Breaking hotel contracts is a whole big mess. I would not want to be in their position.

[james]

I keep thinking about small businesses and family-owned restaurants and the like. If people don't go out for a couple weeks - those places can't pay rent. I work at Target and no one has been shopping in our stores for a week and we're missing sales, but the company isn't going to have to close our store after one bad month.

But the tiny cookie place downtown, which is already struggling a bit? If everyone works from home and isn't even in the area to stop by for a coffee and cookie, what do they do?

So, yeah. Lots of bad things are going to happen.

[olivermoss]

Food carts are Portland's pride and joy. This could nuke a lot of them.

covid-19

[oldtoadwoman]

I think it's natural to worry about "bad thing that is almost guaranteed to happen to people I know and large numbers of people in general" versus "worse thing that is happening to a small number of people that I don't know."

When something is happening outside your sphere it feels unreal and abstract. I keep expecting work to slow down, but my town hasn't hit panic mode yet (despite a couple of local schools being closed) and it's been as busy as usual lately. We'll see if that changes in the coming weeks.

Re: covid-19

[olivermoss]

This is going to take a giant bite out of PNY culture, geek culture and the queer crafting/maker scene. I just feel like it's going to be one of those things where people don't get how big a bite it is until a year or two down the road.

Re: covid-19

[oldtoadwoman]

We were crazy busy at work today so people clearly are not staying home locally. Then I stopped by the grocery store for milk and apples and it seemed about as busy as usual. The only thing that was odd was that the toilet paper aisle is down to just a handful of packages. It made me wonder if I should by more (even though I'm stocked up just fine so I decided to leave them for people who might be more desperate) and I can totally see how the panic-buying gets triggered.

Re: covid-19

[olivermoss]

The only reason I got an extra pack of TP is because I knew we'd have a run on TP here, and we did.

[highlyeccentric]

I dunno, in some ways that's a much more... human-facing problem than 'the stock markets crash'.

[olivermoss]

It's PNY culture, geek culture and also the queer crafting/maker scene and it's about to have a giant bite taken out of it. It's not the worst part about it, but it does suck.