Subculture Shock: Waltham Steampunk City 2012

Didja know that wristwatches were invented by Tiffany, sometime in the early 1900s, and that they are therefore inappropriate for a Victorian steampunk costume? Me neither, until earlier today when I went to the Watch City Festival – AKA Steampunk City – in Waltham, Massachusetts.

We here at Crisis On Infinite Midlives are not Steampunkers, we’re inveterate comics geeks. However, it is Mother’s Day, meaning that Amanda is laboring to make her mom believe she is still worthy of her meager inheritance, and I needed something to do for the afternoon other than go directly to the bar from where I am writing this (I said, “directly”). And since Steampunk City is literally a hop, skip and a jump from the Home Office, I figured I’d take a gander.

While not being a disciple of the subculture, I am aware that there are different flavors of Steampunk: Victorian, Old American West, retro modern, etc. And what I noticed was, based on today’s festival attendance, Victorian has won. Like, a Blitzkrieg-style victory. There were vendors selling things  appropriate for other sub-subcultures, but on actual human beings, well, let’s just say the scene was corset intensive. Which is a good thing if you are into boobs. So it was a good thing.

The downside to all this Victorian authenticity, what with its top hats and black vests and petticoats is that all those were on display on an 85-degree sunny day. The main vein of Steampunk City is on Waltham’s Central Square (think Central Park after Harvey Birdman villain Reducto got through with it), which is a nice place but hardly air conditioned. The giant, working calliope wasn’t enough to mask the sounds of modern ambulance sirens, presumably shuttling the heatstroked. Sadly, at this instant I am probably being more authentically Victorian, sitting as I am in a dim saloon with a high octane beer in front of me.

Make no mistake: Steampunk City is no SDCC; the attendance of the entire festival is probably smaller than that of the attendance of the Hall H line. And while there is programming (which I did not attend, since I would not have understood it), it somehow misses the Cultural Event feeling that Comic-Con gets when the venue stops being “Ballroom 20” and starts, instead, being, “The back room at the Irish bar at the bottom of Moody Street.”

But still, one must admire the dedication to subculture it takes to put on a black top hat before spending a warm Massachusetts spring day outdoors. And while I might not understand all the historical minutiae behind Steampunk (although I have discerned that, “You, sir, are no gentleman!” is the Victorian equivalent of the modern, “Bite my scrote, whichever douchenozzle that said, ‘Damn, those are some sweet Corset Puppies!'”), some things are consistent between the comic and Steampunk subcultures.

Such as: if someone is wearing a costume, they don’t mind having their picture taken unless they are sitting exhausted in the shade… which to be fair, was most of them. And that people who are that into a niche interest are more than willing to discuss it with a stranger who asks about it, as I did with the dude I met at the Waltham comic store, The Outer Limits (what? I needed to spend a little time on familiar turf, if only for balance), who told me that yes: there are people who are anal and adamant around the specifics of Steampunk culture (which is why I don’t currently own a clockwork wristwatch)… just as there are Continuity Nazis in the comics scene.

However, he told me that most people are just friendly and enthusiatic geeks who are out to have a good time, even if the cost is apparently heatstroke and leering drunkards who are just discovering they might have a thing for corsets.

Steampunk fan or no, Watch City Festival is a good time for any genre geek. Think about checking it our next year, if only as a fun and interesting excuse to blow off your mom.