It's easy to laugh at this, but the truth is these fan conventions or geek game tournaments tend to attract young men that lack basis social skills for reasons that aren't entirely their fault. Some might be on the autism spectrum, or grew up in an environment without conservative male role models. I used to go to things like this and bad ideas like transgenderism spread like a virus because they didn't know any better and were striving for some kind of social acceptance. It was just sad to see because once you got past whatever weird social awkwardness, a lot of these guys were just desperate to make friends. And maybe they were coders that didn't go out into pu lic often, or had a mental disorder and were living in their single moms basement.