We went to the Wondercon Talk Back panel to see if we could talk about it but found that they had ended it early on Sunday :/

This is kind of inspired by the Cosplay Repair Guy and also by the very cool pranks of the Yes Men where you just make the world you want to see, (altho this was considerably more lofi than Yes Men productions. I agree so hard that any con that does this officially would be super cool

I think we just accidentally triggered some con rules meant to protect paying vendors that keep cons solvent- the con and ops doesn't really have rules that had pranks like this in mind. It was nice that individual staffers took us in and gave us a spot

I think it validated the hypothesis that con people still have anxieties about public health, and so they will react favorably to the presence of groups working on it, even at a geek con

They found us a good spot that was right next to the entrance but technically off-grounds and our visibility was actually way better there!

We inadvertently triggered a rule against handing things out on con grounds since it competes with exhibit hall people. The security was very apologetic and said they thought we were doing a good thing and they knew we weren't actually trying to compete, but they had to enforce rules

If there's a con coming up in your area, please consider becoming Con-Crud Busters for your con! Just 1 member means you're already a Division

Big thank you to members of @CleanAirLA, Clean Air Claremont, and Mask Bloc North Hollywood for supporting this experiment with materials and logistics help

We came with two huge heavy bags of stickers, 300+ masks and 300+ tests thinking maybe we wouldn't manage to give away much of it, but this was the bag at the end! We found an interested Wondercon staffer who wanted to redistribute to their team. Glad to have a bit of impact beyond the con for staff

It was also an opportunity to meet working folks where they were at and give them tools and info too on PPE usage and how to adapt that for their situation since they might not otherwise have time to hear about it. (Plus also include them as people of con too.)

I think con security liked us because we were like the polar opposite of angry church groups that show up - instead of condemning ppl to guilt, death and hell, we were like: you're cool and you're gonna live! Thru science + the tools we brought!

Never give up! There's going to be cool people out there who get your vision! What an adventure!

After moving around like a reverse bandit giving away free masks and tests all weekend at Wondercon I inadvertently learned so much about con operations and security haha

You never know what cool people you have yet to meet!