Author Archives: Ava DiGioia

Easter weekend of this year, I suffered a hip injury that qualified me for disabled status at Dragon Con. I was not at all prepared for the reality of navigating a con with a disability — even one, like Dragon Con, that offers a high level of disability Read More

Another Dragon Con has come and gone by too fast. Seems like each year, there’s never enough time to see/do all the things one sets out to do or spend enough time with friends only seen in person that weekend. For my friends and me, the convention Read More

September is an exciting month to me for several reasons. One of the most enjoyable of those reasons is my annual excursion to Dragon Con, held in Atlanta over the Labor Day weekend. I attended a few times during the early years of the convention. In Read More

The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies concludes the film trilogy, based on the book The Hobbit, and is the sixth movie for the Peter Jackson-helmed Middle Earth saga. The 3-Disc Blu-ray/DVD Combo package contains the movie in Blu-ray and regular DVD Read More

An oft-quoted proverb is “Only three things in life are certain: birth, death, and change.” This cycle is also true of social cultures. New ones are being born. Established ones are changing. Older and rigid ones are dying, especially if they are closed Read More

Although mainstream media and pop culture view geek/nerd society as male-dominated, there’s a long history of female involvement in fandom. Women have played an original or integral part in significant scientific and technology related discoveries and Read More

In Western culture, certain traits and skills are associated with those categorized as geeks/nerds: high IQ, excellence at math and sciences, devotion to and skill with technology, passion bordering on obsession for certain types of pop culture — comic Read More

Over the past couple of years, a certain portion of the geek/nerd community has decided the culture has been invaded. These invaders, like space aliens with malicious intent, are able to blend into the realm of geekdom and pose as ordinary geeks/nerds. Read More

Cosplayers — fans who express their fandom by “dressing up” as various characters at conventions — choose this form of performance art for a variety of reasons. Receiving attention from non-cosplayer convention-goers is at the bottom of the list. Some Read More

The popularity of conventions in the nerd/geek community is due in large part to the freedom participants feel to express their particular fandom with enthusiasm and devotion in an atmosphere that is comfortable and safe. For cosplayers, that safety has Read More

Cosplay is a way for people to express their fandom by costuming and performing as their favorite characters. This process requires dedicated research to a character’s background and the details of their appearance and mannerisms. Cosplayers spend many Read More

Spandex-clad superheroes, armored Stormtroopers, uniformed Star Fleet officers, sonic screwdriver-armed Doctors, mail bikini-sporting Leias, blaster-toting Captain Mals and hat-wearing Jaynes, shield-bearing Links and Zeldas, plus a host of other Read More