The last few days of #coronachaos have involved watching the events go down like dominos. No Eroticon, no ETO Show, no BBB and, at the time of writing, Lamchester and LAM are considering their options.
So, thumping great mess. Unprecedented (ish) extremely volatile situation. Right now the most important thing is not to make it worse, and see if you can make it better. Some suggestions follow.
- Don’t be a dick to other people. Neither ‘WAAAH SHUT EVERYTHING DOWN NOW’ nor ‘Stop fussing, it’s only the flu’ are helpful positions. It is perfectly reasonable for low-paid workers and small businesses to want to carry on working until forced not to. It IS still unclear as to whether mass shutdowns are the right choice – it might stop people catching the virus, but you can still die of poverty. Plenty of people have been doing that for quite a long time. A lot of people are having to consider whether poverty or plague poses a greater risk to them and their families, and screaming and howling at them because you made the opposite choice is really unhelpful and unnecessary.
Even more so, don’t be a dick to event organisers. Everyone who had an event booked this spring is in a horrible, horrible position where, no matter what they do, they can’t be sure it was the right choice. In some cases, organisers have to cancel at very short notice because the situation is changing all the time, and what looked feasible yesterday is suddenly not feasible any more. And, in some cases, organisers’ insurance policies won’t pay out if they cancel *before* a government directive to do so.- Spend your money with the indies and small businesses, if you can. If you have some spare money at the moment, think about passing it towards the small businesses who are going to suffer a lot. You may not have spare money, of course, but if you can do your *necessary* spending with your local small shop rather than a big chain, please do. The smaller businesses are less able to take the hit than the big chains.
- Especially when it comes to kinky/sexy businesses. Nearly all your favourite fetish market traders depend on events, and are about to take a massive hit. This is the trader list for the BBB and this is the trader list for LAMchester, and here is the LAM site.
Tell the people you love that you love them. It might be time to make up with the person you fell out with over something silly. (Of course it might not: don’t feel you have to be nice to people who behaved horribly towards you.) If you can’t spend physical time with someone, spend virtual time with them: message, videocall, email, phone etc.- Have a wank. A good wank often makes everything seem a bit less awful, including something like #coronachaos. Several studies appear to have found that masturbation is good for your immune system. Maybe that’s why everyone’s gone berserk for bogroll…
Oh, and if you’re going to be at home for a while and want something to read amidst the coronachaos. books can be sent to your door…