Assia Loutfi
Compared to a few years ago, the geek culture has become more and more mainstream. Superheroes movies are everywhere. Even though you might not be interested in the geek culture yourself, I am sure that you know someone who is. The ‘stereotypical geek’ is no more and more and more geeks are ready to show the world their passion.
Even though this movement – the uprising of the ‘wannabe geeks’ can make ‘real geeks’ frustrated, it has some advantages. You can be proud of passion and it makes greater production possible.
The peak events for geeks are the Comic Cons or geek conventions. At geek conventions people from around the country meet, talk about their fandom, cosplay – the practice of dressing up as a character from a film, book, or video game – their favorite character and get autographs from exclusive guests.
In Saudi Arabia, the first Comic Con was organized by a local company, after a lot of demand of the inhabitants of the country. For a first edition there were some great guest: Charles Dance and Julian Glover from Game of Thrones, Giancarlo Esposito from Breaking Bad, Mads Mikkelsen from Doctor Strange. But the event made also place for some local artists.
Besides being the first comic con in Saudi Arabia, this event was special because in Saudi Arabia men and women are usually segregated in public. At Comic Con men and women co-mingled at the event to live their passion and enjoy the event. Comic Con had over 20,000 visitors and was a great success.
