Your Expo Icrontic 2016 story
primesuspect
Beepin n' BoopinDetroit, MI Icrontian
in Community
I'm often asked "What is Expo Icrontic?"
I'd like to hear it from you. If you attended this year, share your thoughts about what this event is to you and what it means to you.
5
Comments
Also, check your email for a very brief post-Expo survey!
Expo to me is being able to see in person my best friends of 15 or so years.
I'm currently struggling a lot with depression, anxiety and feel like I've been isolating myself from my friends. Expo's come and go and I always regret not going. Decided to attend this year and I'm glad I did. Hugged people I haven't seen for a few years but it felt like I had just seen them yesterday.
So this is my first technical expo. Last year I went but just as Perry's gf and it was still a great time. I was pretty shy and not all sure but very happy and knew I would definitely register next year. This year comes around and I couldn't be happier with how it turned out. Expo to me is a place to do things you enjoy with people who enjoy them. You can call it geeky or nerdy but honestly it is like the coolest family one could ever have. It is hard to put into words how much of a great time I had seeing everyone but I know that being away from everyone sucks so much. I wish I could see you all each month.
Every time I've stayed at ICHQ (especially this time for my first official Expo) I've come away with new friends. This community attracts generous, warm and accepting people. It really says something that they are not just willing, but excited to travel many hours, multiple times per year for the opportunity to be together.
Expo to me has changed over the years, because I don't play as many games during it like I originally did. To me, in 2016, Expo Icrontic is about experiencing new things with friends close enough to call family.
It's experiencing Detroit - the food, sights, and locations. It's about experiencing new things - activities, games, food and beverage, and people. It's about tournaments - giving it your best in everything from video games, to board games, to exploring and discovering. But most of all, it's about seeing my giant family for the one time a year I get to do so.
All those things combined make it one of my favorite experiences of the year.
Expo is Icrontic. It's games, food and fun. It's friends, memories and experiences.
I was so nervous upon arrival to my first Expo due to my history with not just the forums, but IRC as well. I wasn't sure what to expect due to my long hiatus with the community. There were new people, new relationships and new games even. I kept my distance, huddled in the corner of the basement of Tracy's Cafe, afraid I might say the wrong thing or someone might think I was still same kid behind a keyboard on IRC in 2002. I was met with great surprise when it came time to pack it all up and @primesuspect gave me a big hug goodbye and asked if I was coming to the next Expo. That Expo had a lasting impression on me. I had to go back.
I missed 2012. I had just started a new job and Expo wasn't going to be a possibility unfortunately. Since then I have made a special point every year to journey to Detroit, come hell or high water and spend time with the most genuine, loving and accepting community I have ever been a part of. 2016 was no different. Friends and family often ask me why I would drive that far, to that place every year, to play video games with people I met online. I always tell them, that they're not just people, they're the very best kind of people. Friends. I can't wait to spend time with all of you next year.
Expo is Icrontic.
Apparently its to show up on Saturday to make Pho and leave.
Expo is probably the thing I look forward the most each and every year. I've been to every one except the one that was a week after I moved to Florida. As others have said, Icrontic has become more than just friends it's family. Expo has changed over the years for me as well. From schleping my 1000 pound CRT monitor and tower into the basement of the Cafe in 2004 to starting to bring a laptop, to this year where I only played one game (and that was on a Fettbacon's PC when I led my team to victory in Overwatch.
)
People look at me like I'm crazy sometimes when I mention that I vacation in Detroit every summer, but I wouldn't miss it for anything if I can help it. I seriously considered not coming this year due to my wife being forced out of her job and worrying about how were are going to pay for things, but she insisted that I go and talked to some friends to make sure I had most of my expenses covered in Detroit. I am so glad that I came because it was yet another week of hanging out with some of my oldest friends and not worrying about the other things in life that have been stressing me out.
Saturday night just chilling and sitting around the table in the Mitey Worriers' Mead Hall until 4AM was the best night of the event for me. Several of us have been there from the beginning, but there were quite a few newbies or relative newbies, and we all fit together like we have known each other all our lives. We've gone from teenaged kids talking about Bible Music and Mantouch, to adults with families, careers and outside lives talking about work, life and Mantouch.
I miss you guys already and can't wait until next year.
This was my first expo, and I was very worried about showing up and no one liking me. I can be intense and a lot to handle, and I was worried that I'd only be around @GnomeQueen and @UPSLynx. But as soon as I arrived at ICHQ, I was greeted by smiling faces and hugs.
Icrontic to me means family, even if I am still a newbie, and this weekend, I felt vey at home with all of you, and I felt a big sense of belonging.
Thank you so much for allowing me to be a part of this community, and for accepting me into this fantastic, and fun family of friends. You all are amazing, and I can't wait to come back.
Let me set the wayback machine for way back when. Icrontic was my first web forum online community; I had done BBS and MUDs before that and really enjoyed the kinds of close-knit communities they fostered even though they usually petered out after a few years. I think it was right around 2000 that I joined Icrontic at the recommendation of my buddies @khan and @TheBaron. Quite literally, I found out about IC from whispered stories told in the middle of high school math class. I have no idea how they found this place; I was still rocking a beige Power Macintosh with OS 8.6, Yahoo was still classifying every website on the Internet, and AltaVista was the king of search engines. Growing up, telling your real name to people you only know through the Internet was just not something you did; traveling halfway across the country to meet said people was definitely right out. So, you can imagine how surprised I was when I asked for plane tickets to travel alone to SM LAN 2006 for my birthday and actually got them.
EPIC has meant different things to me at the different times I've come throughout my life but this year stands out to me as my best experience ever. It's difficult for me to put into words what it's like to have my job; it's very fulfilling and rewarding but also stressful and hard on interpersonal relationships. I'm already pretty bad at social things so it's not surprising at all that with as little as I've gotten out over the past two years that I have had an incredible case of tunnel vision. Coming to EPIC and spending all my time thinking about something other than work was incredibly refreshing and today at work was one of the best days I've had in awhile. EPIC is about meeting old friends and making new ones too, not remembering faces and names and needing to ask again (sorry if I did this to you), and just having a blast. The excitement of winning games or at least having a good show of it, the frustration of getting rolled, the sweetness of @primesuspect's salty tears, the feeling in my ass after 22 miles in a bicycle saddle; all part of the experience.
There is no doubt in my mind that I would not be where I am today if I had not had the privilege of knowing the people I met on Icrontic. Thank you for being you.
To me Expo and the events I have been to have been more of being able to drink and hangout in person with people I drink and hangout with online, and it's a lot more fun to do so in person.
This was my first Expo but my second event and this one was just crazy getting to meet people I hadn't met before and hanging out with everyone. Heck I even got to make guac for everyone and people didn't hate it which was awesome because I like making food and being able to have all my gamer friends try it and tell me it was too salty and or like it was even cooler than making it for myself when I sit at home eating a bag of chips and guac to myself.
There was always a lot going on, even though I didn't do any of the morning stuff (cause let's face it, I stayed up hella late and slept hella in) there was tons to do and take part in, or even if nothing was scheduled for a certain time, there was always a group of people that wanted to go off and do something, get food, drive around and get beer. Though, I secretly wished there was more scheduled video gaming to do.
I'm looking forward to next year and the next IC event and to the guac collaboration with @HumerusMeg.
you.... you monster
One of my fav little moments from my First Expo was Prime cursing at me from across the room. hehehe
I have been known to shout things like "FUCK YOUR FACE YOU SHITFUCKER" and "FARGE YOU FUCKING COCKMONGLER" and "DRAS YOU SHITASS FUCKWAD I HATE YOUR FACE" into the LAN room at Expo. Normal stuff, really.
Pretty sure everyone has yelled some sort of expletive toward @Rexxar at some point during a TF2 tourney.
Expo is getting to be the very best of who you are with the people who are not just friends or family, but people who truly love you for the person you are. It's about being with the people you want to spend time with in person because you have become so close to them through your online hobbies. We don't just play video games, we talk about our lives, our day to day, we watch videos and we enjoy each other. Expo brings us together so that we can do the same things in person. Only we can share the beer, or cigar, or yell across the room and not into a headset. We get to laugh and see each other's reactions and smiles. We get to joke, laugh and annoy each other in person. My very best friends may live too far away but because of Expo and Icrontic events I am not only able to see them a few times a year. It's these events and these people that make my days the best they can be. So yes I would give up my free time to come and visit every chance I get because there are not any other people in the world I would rather spend my time with. Some of you know that in the middle of Expo I lost a friend to suicide. I can honestly say that the love and support I received, along with all of the activities and people to distract me, was probably the best thing in the world for me. I truly felt that I had not just someone to turn to for comfort but many. Your hugs and friendship mean the world to me and I can't wait until October to see as many of you as possible.
My first expo was also my first experience with the Icrontic community at all really as I was invited by my friend Farge who was also meeting the community in person for the first time (we actually met each other in person that year too haha). I had played TF2 maybe twice and had joined the forum, Facebook group etc and a couple of Icrontians had introduced themselves but other than that I was going in blind. From the first time I walked up to the porch and was greeted by @primesuspect himself, I have never felt more welcome in a group of people. There is always something to do and people to do it with. Even when you're between events, you can literally step into a room and be a part of the conversation and the fun. There is this great sense of belonging and family that seems to be extended out to everyone, be they old-school member or total newbie. It is so much fun to hang out with people who share the same interests, to play games and do activities together. Now I look forward to Expo every year; I wouldn't miss it for the world. I am so proud to call myself even a small part of this community and so grateful to Brian, Nicole, Lincoln and Aaron for opening their home to us every year for this fantastic event.
I was taking a piss at home this afternoon while thinking about EXPO and then I remembered.
Does this cat look alive to everyone else? Cause I know it is at least oily.
Oily? I am missing this one.
It was a car ride discussion. I'm pretty sure his cat is stuffed.
It is a time, a place, an experience that I could live forever.
Someday, someday, I've got to make it to the Expo.
Icrontic LAN 2004 tickled a new hobby, LAN gaming. At the age of 30, I'd done a few 6+ hour LAN parties with maybe 8 people. It was fun so the opportunity to do a two day LAN with 30 people, AWESOME! WOW, I totally under estimated the fun I'd have and never imagined that I'd make life-long bonds with so many people. No, strike that... I made a bond with a community.
Over the next 12 years I came back each time expecting to have fun, rekindle friendships, create new friendships, and grow as a person. Each year is different but, in so many ways, the same. A new game, same warm friendly faces. A new adventure, same sense of belonging. A new person to EXPO, same realization that Icrontic is home. For most of my Icrontic life I've been a 1/2 generation older than everyone. I never got into console games. I didn't own my own PC until I was 21. I didn't play my first FPS until I was 22. But as EXPO evolved, I did too. I learned to love the new style of board games like Settlers of Catan and Carcassonne. I have adapted my PC game playing style to a support role. I played along in the fast twitch games like Unreal Tournament and Rocket League knowing I am not the best but in it to have fun.
So, I came into this year's EXPO the least prepared, the least aware of what was going on, and the least connected due to family, work, and life stress. I NEEDED EXPO more than ever. I needed to push everything aside for 5 days... just allow EXPO to engulf me. I did a lot of watching, a lot of talking with new members, a lot of time just being in the moment. I was free from everything, if just for a while. And in the end, Icrontic showed me how much I am loved and that mean so very much to me. Thank you for allowing me to be a part of this wonderful community. Thank you...