Dashcon
Dashcon, originally titled "Tumbl-Con" before tumblr staff rudely informed them of copyright law, was a weeaboo convention created by Tumblr users for Tumblr users to take place at the Renaissance Hotel and Convention Center in beautiful downtown Schaumburg, Illinois, spanning July 11th – 13th, 2014. Heavily criticized from its inception, the only people it didn't manage to disappoint were the people laughing at it from the beginning.
Humblr Beginnings
— Loose translation: Give us your money. | ||
The project started as an Indiegogo campaign, and because there's nothing Tumblr loves more than donating money to implausible causes, swaths of children and teenagers rushed to pledge their allowance money to internet strangers, setting the tone for events to come. Reward tiers ranged from "donate $5 and get nothing" (common Kickstarter practice) to "donate $100 and we'll put your name on a gold star and give you some tea". (Tea is symbolic to Tumblr in that drinking it makes you different from the other girls, and closer to the lord and savior Benedict Cumberbatch. Tea is also not coffee, because coffee is synonymous with heterosexual RAPE.) For $500 "admins will love you forever" and they will buy you some hand made trash from etsy. In the spirit of Kickstarter, most if not all of these prizes were never delivered.
The Indiegogo campaign ended without meeting its goal on March 14, 2013 and the con began July 11, 2014. This gave its admins 484 days to ignore the financial hint and march right on to fuck everything up. Registration for the con began months in advance and cost a hefty $65 for one full weekend badge, comparable to many large-scale established events. Attendees were expected to pay another $15 to meet the cast of Welcome to Night Vale for a live version of their podcast and an additional $5 for a ticket to see Steam Powered Giraffe, a steampunk gimmick band that no one gives a shit about. It took most attendees 4 weeks of chores to make that $65. Unfortunately, Steam Powered Giraffe dropped from the con only 5 days after the initial announcement of involvement.
Following suit with SPG, panelists for amazing panels such as "British Men with… CHEEKBONES" and "You’re Demon Hunting In… Stilettos?" dropped out of the con. Lochlan called to Dashcon's guests asking them to fill the positions, because it's not like anyone running this kind of shit is qualified anyway. Fortunately it seemed quality panels such as "Mental Health Support" and "Period Dance" survived.
The con recruited "committees" representing different fandoms to raise money for expenses by asking popular artists to create and auction off fanworks and donate the profit to Dashcon. These committees were run by teenagers and were expected to raise $5,000 each. Mods appointed to run each committee were either unaware of their duties or ignored the people working under them entirely.
An "art director" took command of the committees and wasted everyone's time and efforts on their own side project called "Tumblr University". The director attempted to divert funds and labor to Tumblr University before getting shut down by Dashcon admins. It is currently unknown if this person was a run-of-the-mill scammer, or a hero trying to stop the project in its tracks.
These committees were derailed by side projects, ignored by their leaders, and in the end dissolved into nothing. Yet despite the universe's most valiant efforts, the con continued to brew.
Meet the Admins
Underlings such as "16 year old girl with self diagnosed mental disorders that had her pulled out of a regular school and an unstable personality" and "14 year old contracted to beg for art from popular artists" were all working under a set of admins who were the real brains behind Dashcon. There were several other admins not listed here though the others did seemingly nothing and do not matter. Dashcon is owned by Roxanne Schwieterman (20, majors in "hospitality management", intends on professionally planning conventions and weddings, likes A Fault in Our Stars) who was helped by Megan Eli (aka Megg Eli, 32, degree in interior design and unemployed, listed herself as a Featured Artist for Dashcon), Cain Hopkins (20, wannabe cosplayer, lives in Ohio but talks with a fake British accent), and Lochlan O' Neil (17, cosplay "model", emotionally unstable, was paid $800 by Roxanne to fly to Dashcon from her home in Denver, CO).
It Begins
Here is the actual programming schedule for Dashcon.
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Friday
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Saturday
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Sunday
Noteworthy entries: "Changing the World", "NaNoWriMo and Original Fiction", "Video Making 101", "Can U Knot?: Exploring the Omegaverse", "Hay There Brony!", "Independant Authors Panel and Book Fair", "The Language of Tumblr", "Hateful Anons and Beyond: How to Deal With Bullies", "Homoerotic Subtext", "Such Karaoke. Very Sing. Much Wow.", "BDSM 101", "Ship 101", "Gender in Marketing", and "Sexuality in Genre TV".
Friday
Day one of the con seemed to start out okay. Despite expecting a 5,000-7,000 turnout for its first occurrence, attendance seemed to be around 500. There may have been about 1,000 people if you counted hotel staff. But crowds are triggering so this wasn't too bad. People attended "Youtube Livestreams" and "Depression and Anxiety Tools and Support".
$17,000
At 9PM Dashcon admins rounded everyone at the con up into one large room and gave them terrible news. The hotel cishet patriarchy was demanding $17,000 or they would shut the con down and kick everyone out. Everyone started to cry. Dashcon staff had a verbal agreement with the hotel that they would pay the remainder of their bill after the con and was very surprised that the hotel expected them to abide by their signed physical contract.
Dashcon admins and staff shook down attendees for donations by literally passing a bag around and posted a donate link on their official Tumblr and twitter. Dashcon's twitter also spammed this donation plea to the twitter accounts of Will Wheaton, Neil Gaiman, John Green, members of Welcome to Night Vale, and Gingerhaze probably to foreshadow financial situations to come. Lochlan tweeted a picture of herself crying to show how super serious things were. This gave word to Tumblr that this shitty con had no money and suspicions arose about the admins' competence and intentions with Dashcon. Rather than admitting this money was a matter of payment for debts owed, Dashcon admins stated that the hotel was simply demanding more money because they didn't like Tumblr people. Because that's apparently how business works. Attendees believed Dashcon admins and began to treat hotel staff very rudely as if they were persecuting them for being members of Tumblr. They stayed grouped in this room singing Queen songs, and tracks from Les Miserables in protest to their oppression. They tweeted at Misha Collins, Benedict Cumberbatch, and other grown ass men they had previously drawn in pornographic fanart to get the word out that someone needed to give them $17,000 to continue this massive weekend babysitting effort.
—Some 14 year old who secretly thinks Anonymous is cool | ||
An hour after this activist protest Dashcon deleted the donation request post and pretended everything was going to be okay. Dashcon admins addressed attendees thanking them for their love and support. "Cain was in tears because of you, because of how perfect and beautiful and generious you all are," said a Dashcon admin to woo more money out of the pockets of their attendees. A parent in the audience yelled back over the crowd "Yeah what's to stop you from doing this again ten minutes later? What if you want more money?"
Later attendees of Dashcon threw bitchfits on their/xir blogs when people with common sense called the con a scam, apparently unaware that the two are synonymous. They "called out" the "haters" by posting pictures of themselves having fun in poorly constructed costumes and covered in gray face paint for no apparent reason. Tumblr as well as those catty cunts in /cgl/ responded by reposing, editing, and shit-talking these pictures to no end. Who saw that coming? Later that night there was trouble as underage attendees were allowed into the "BDSM 101" panel as well as other 18+ panels. Some believe this was because no one attending was over the age of 18 at all.
Saturday
Saturdays are generally the most crowded and eventful days for conventions but as this day rolled in Dashcon was just as empty as before. Pictures of the registration room surfaced showing only con staff sitting alone at empty registration tables. The only real crowd witnessed was in the gaming room. Several teens were crowded around the room's single TV and a few others grouped at scattered laptops. Embarrassing cosplays and panels continued while excitement mounted for the guests Dashcon boasted. Several attendees were already disappointed that Steam Powered Giraffe was allowed to bail from the con while their Dashcon badges were nonrefundable but fans traveled from as far as Flordia to see Welcome to Night Vale.
Welcome to Nonpayment Vale
Many were excited that Cecil Baldwin and other members of the Welcome to Night Vale cast were going to perform a live radio show outside their regular scheduled tour just for Dashcon. Those attendees waited in line for over an hour to get their seats and taunted their online haters about being minutes away from meeting their internet idols. This was only until Dashcon admins told them all that the show was canceled. They did not have money to pay the Welcome To Night Vale cast. Well they HAD the money, stupid Paypal was just malfunctioning so they couldn't give any money! Gosh darn it Paypal! It is all your fault! After providing their own travel expenses that were no longer being reimbursed and not being financially compensated for performing at the con Welcome To Night Vale cast walked. They shopped around the Artist Alley and then left the con. Everyone cried again. Dashcon admins did they best they could to apologize for this mistake that was blatantly the fault of Paypal. Also it was Welcome To Night Vale staff's fault too because they didn't even want to get paid or something. Basically it was everyone's fault EXCEPT for Dashcon. Dashcon did nothing wrong. An attempt to apologize was made by offering these ticket holders entry to a raffle. This was not only a shitty consolation but the prizes were items originally purchased as rewards for donators to the original Indiegogo for Tumbl-Con. It seemed that admins never sent these rewards to their rightful owners.
The Ball Pit
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To save their ass, Dashcon admins did the impossible. They turned everything around and stopped Welcome To Night Vale fans from committing ritualistic cult suicide by allowing them one hour of free play in an inflatable ball pit. It is reported one attendee said "Fuck Cecil Baldwin this ball pit just made Dashcon worth a non-refundable $65 ticket" before settling bunself crotch-deep into dirty plastic balls. This ball pit, or "inflatable emergency raft patched with duct tape" as some may call it, was erected in a large empty room along with a bouncy castle. Dashcon admins kept this beautiful ball pit open for an entire hour exclusively for those who paid real, non-refundable money to enter the Welcome To Night Vale live show.
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This image looks like how growing up feels.
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All good things must come to an end and later that night the ball pit mysteriously vanished though it will live on in the hearts and skin infections of those who enjoyed its balls on their faces forever.
Rumors say someone from /pol/ pissed his pants in it.
Gingerhaze
Welcome To Night Vale were not the only people stiffed at the con. Artist Gingerhaze was told that her room would be comped by the con and it wasn't until her arrival that she realized this was not true. She moderated a panel she was only supposed to attend after the original moderator never showed up. By 6pm after witnessing how bullshit this place was she left. She tried guys.
The Night Vale gang and Gingerhaze made what they could of the night by getting dinner together and appreciating that they were no longer in Dashcon.
The Bakerstreet Babes
Some kind of Sherlock Homes-themed band or something, the Bakerstreet Babes were asked to attend the con as panelists and to record a podcast for their website. They completes both events but left the con when they realized that despite their hotel rooms being paid for by Dashcon previously, Dashcon had removed its credit card from their room. Without prior notice they were expected to foot their own bill. The Bakerstreet Babes left the con that evening having put up with enough bullshit.
After being threatened with legal action Dashcon said they were totally going to pay the Babes and that they were good for it.
Staff Underlings
The teenage gophers who oversaw the majority of Dashcon's operations while its admins hid behind curtains were essentially running free with whatever authority a plastic badge with "STAFF" printed on it could grant them. They also made up a security team to protect con attendees from their parents' shame and the criticism of their peers. These staffers were promised food by the admins but none was provided. Take the hint staffers oink oink.
Sunday
Predictions:
—/cgl/ | ||
The last day of a convention is always slow and this was no different for Dashcon. The majority of attendees, guests, and panelists bailed Saturday night or Sunday morning. Artists Alley vendors reported depressingly low sales due to the low volume and young age of attendees. The remainder of the attendees were happy to meet Doug Jones, the only remaining guest. It is unknown whether or not Doug was paid for his appearance.
To close the events of Dashcon a "feedback panel" was held in order for Dashcon admins to address how they did everything perfectly and nothing was their fault. In this panel they clarified how all fuckups were mistakes outside of their control and urged attendees not to search "Dashcon" in Tumblr's tags, lest they read 17,000 posts about how poorly they ran the con. Reportedly police arrived on the premises. (Don't worry about poor little Tumblr, they quickly purged most of the tagged posts. Nothing is ever Tumblr's fault.)
Sketchy Activities
As with most shitstorms the more that goes down the more people dig up. The galaxy pattern banner used on Dashcon.org was taken from a galaxy themed artist and repeated to disguise the original piece of art. DashCon also reportedly screened Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog despite not being legally able to attain the rights. This brought up questions about whether or not they had legal permission to screen Pacific Rim either. Volunteer panelists signed agreements that if they drew over 100 attendees to their panels their badges would be reimbursed yet no one was ever paid. Emails sent to Dashcon asking about these reimbursements were all ignored. For whatever reason DashCon felt the need to advertise on their blog that they are partnered with Random Acts, a nonprofit organization dedicated to creating fundraisers and spreading kindness. Upon inquiry, Random Acts said it has never made any partnership with Dashcon.
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Top, DashCon banner. Bottom, original art.
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What a HORRIBLE fucking plan.
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Attaching yourself to kind people in an attempt to look kind.
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Official statement from Random Acts.
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Con rules mysteriously edited after Welcome To Night Vale walkout.
The Aftermath
Out of pure shame and regret, Roxanne and Lochlan changed their Tumblr URLs. Lochlan later tried to remove her name and involvement from this article like everyone would be too stupid to notice. It seems they want nothing more to do with the con though their appearances will be immortalized forever in an Official Dashcon DVD that Dashcon will be selling for $20. The DVD's highlights include: empty hallways, full Night Vale panel lines, empty Night Vale panel rooms, angry parents, and more second-hand embarrassment than you can shake a ball pit at.
Orgy, Subsequent STD Outbreak
Throughout the years, many conventions have mentioned the after-con orgy as a joke. Tumblr, of course, being a ball-pit of retards, failed to recognize the recurring joke for what it was, and assumed that orgies were a necessary part of the con experience. As a result, freebleeding cunts spread their G.R.I.D.S. to other freebleeding cunts, thus ensuring the continuation of Darwinian natural selection.
The Internet Turns Against Dashcon
Dashcon's events were hilarious enough to turn it into a meme. Other conventions and social media experts quickly caught on to the trend and began mocking Dashcon immediately. Metrocon, a Florida-based convention hosted the same weekend as Dashcon, immediately rented a bouncy house for their convention rave, because real conventions have available funds that can be used at a moment's notice. Several attendees of Metrocon quickly cosplayed as Dashcon and posted signs begging for $17,000 on their artist alley tables. Several Twitter accounts joined in on the fun, including one run by the Texas-based anime convention San Japan and even Denny's official marketing account.
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Hopefully they hose it down when they're done.
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Even the fucking Bronies are mocking those morons for that fiasco.
Official Statement by Dashcon
—Gingerhaze | ||
4 days after closing ceremonies Dashcon issued a formal statement by making it the entire main page of their website. It was stated on their blog that admins needed time to get home, get their stories straight, and make up excuses to cover their asses before officially addressing the public. The statement reiterates how they did nothing wrong and all mistakes were done by imaginary people who have since been fired.
Why did they need $17,000 and where did it go?
- Their "at the door sales absolutely deflated after the Friday evening and Saturday afternoon debacles". This reflects how they very blatantly over-estimated their projected attendance and how it later bit them in the ass.
- A Dashcon upper-management staffer misrepresented what costs they would need to cover at-con. "Whether that misinformation was deliberate or accidental, we can’t say for sure. " Translation: "we didn't know what we were doing, made up a fake person to blame, and then fired him".
- Referencing their statement that the hotel was demanding money because they didn't like Tumblr's clientele: "When two of the Con Heads were told by the third that such a thing had been said or otherwise insinuated, it wasn't wholly unbelievable—as it’s happened to so many other events in the past—and, in our state of panic, we believed what we were told." Heh, sorry for lying guys! Our bad!
Will donations be refunded?
- Dashcon is urging people who donated by Paypal to email them with transaction information in order to be refunded. Anyone who has already filed a claim needs to send another email or they will probably be ignored. Anyone who files a claim correctly will also probably be ignored. Anyone who files a claim over 5 days from the official statement will be carefully and deliberately told to go fuck themselves. Remember: if they make off with your money, it's probably your fault.
- People who donated in cash are also urged to file claims, though Dashcon will determine the "legitimacy" of these claims before doing anything.
What happened with the Baker Street Babes’ and Gingerhaze’s hotel rooms?
- clerical error lol not our problem
- "For reasons still unknown, seven of DashCon’s comped rooms ‘fell off’ of our master account." Yes, they fell. Just fell down a long flight of 500-dollar stairs. Stop asking.
- Con admins "missed calls" from the Baker Street Babes because "phone reception was shoddy all weekend long—mostly due to the number of people overloading the towers", implying that their over-estimated turnout was able to disrupt cell phone towers operating in fucking Chicago.
- "As reported by the Baker Street Babes, they did mention speaking to their lawyer. For the record, this was not what sparked our action, though."
Why did you consistently give false information to the committees which helped plan Dashcon, including misinformation about where their fundraising money would go?
What happened with Welcome to Night Vale?
- Roxanne had a check to pay them but was not on the premises Friday despite being the legal owner of the con, and was thus unable to be contacted for a long period of time. Megan asked Night Vale staff if they could be paid Saturday, to which they naively agreed.
- Supposedly Night Vale staff heard of the $17,000 shutdown and emailed Dashcon admins asking whether or not the convention was still going to happen on Saturday. A nameless, faceless Dashcon admin read this email and told no one about it. It is this nameless, faceless admin who also sent a very rude response. Cain was shocked to see this reply all too late and it totally was not him who fucked up, seriously guys. The nameless, faceless admin was fired from Dashcon staff for single-handedly fucking up the Welcome to Night Vale life reading.
- On Saturday Dashcon admins met with Welcome to Night Vale staff. "It was only upon Mr. Hopkin’s and my arrival at the in-person meeting that we were alerted to the request for cash or a cashier’s check. When I reported that we were given no notice of their request, that information was the most accurate I had at the time." Despite the fact that being paid by check was the original plan, actually being expected to follow through on something came as a shock to the Dashcon admins.
- "The amount still due to them was roughly $3,700. [...] we were able to provide around $2,345 in cash." Dashcon extorted roughly 2.3k out of their attendees, not counting the 17k.
- And when it comes to paying back all attendees who paid for a show that would no longer be provided due to Dashcon's incompetence? "After speaking to our legal counsel, we have been advised that we are unable to provide refunds on these seats."
- Dashcon states that they are aware the rules were edited post-fucking up the Night Vale show, but that doesn't matter because the last line of their rules and policies says they can do whatever they want and you can
go fuck yourselfgo sit in the ball pit. - "DashCon has been instructed that refunding the reserved seats in direct opposition with our rules would call into question all of our rules and policies." If we refund you we're breaking our own rules! We can't break our own rules! Then this con might turn into a public embarrassment or something!
Doug Jones?
- Doug Jones definitely arrived and completed his events, his attendance being the one thing at this con that didn't go wrong. He said he had fun and there are no statements from him that Dashcon refused payment. Doug Jones is a lucky bastard.
The Ball Pit, Official reply
- Supposedly the inflatables requested were not the inflatables delivered to the con so it's not their fault the ball pit and bouncy castle were sad looking, as if the quality of the inflatables were somehow the issue here.
- "That said, we fully encourage and support the meme that followed." Dashcon admins are fags who like memes.
Additionally, Dashcon felt the need to address the growing number of blogs impersonating them. To differentiate, anything that sounds cool or fun is from a fake blog. Anything that is pandering, blame-shifting, or reeking of shills is Dashcon official. If anyone has any additional questions they are allowed to ask by email or Tumblr. Unfortunately Dashcon admins are "prioritizing our responses based on the important [sic] of the message" so it's most likely you will never receive a reply. Dashcon 2015 is a thing that is absolutely happening despite common sense and Dashcon urges people to pre-register so they can take that money and flee to Rio.
At the bottom of the page there was a single button.
Dashcon 2015
Those who failed to learn a lesson from DashCon 2014 will be thrilled to know that they can 
preregister for Dashcon 2015 Emoti-con! Admins reserved the Dashcon 2015 Emoti-con venue six months before Dashcon 2014 took place.
Dashcon 2015 Emoti-con should "expect between five and eight thousand people" despite the under-1000 turnout in 2014. They're also boasting new ideas such as being hosted in another state where (hopefully) no one has heard of their incompetence and a meal plan where attendees can pay $15/meal per day for food Dashcon Emoti-con ultimately won't provide. Remember kids, no refunds!
Emoti-con
The only remaining Dashcon admins, Megg and Cain, have proven they can take no responsibility for the events that occurred at Dashcon but decided to do the next best thing: change their company name and the name of their con. The Dashcon website has been shut down, but a new con has popped up taking place at the same time and in the same venue as Dashcon 2015. This convention is Emoti-con (a name thieved from the NYC convention which has held that name for the past 6 years). Some hypothesize the name change will help with negative PR, due to Tumblr's tag system being unable to track hyphenated words. If people can't find your negative reviews, they don't exist!
Rather than just being a Tumblr-only con, Emoti-con claims to be a "internet-themed" con for Tumblr, Reddit, YouTube, Failbook, 4chan, deviantART, and anyone else who could tolerate being trapped in a hotel with those fuckers for a 3-day weekend. Despite being an all-internet con, Emoti-con's rules are overtly tumblr and require attendees "be sensitive to other's feelings". These rules also clearly state "no refunds" and in a hilarious bit of hypocrisy "Attendees found attempting to swindle, steal, or otherwise mislead the convention staff or exhibitors will be removed from the convention and appropriate legal action will be taken."
Weekend tickets for Emoti-con $40 which is $25 less than what was charged for Dashcon. It is unsure why admins have lowered their badge price when Dashcon is confirmed to have closed $15,000 in debt despite saving a hefty chunk of change by not paying their guests. Emoti-con took over Dashcon's future venue after the closing of Dashcon so admins could start a new con fresh and accumulate it's own crippling debt. Staff of Emoti-con is not allowed to speak of Dashcon or it lies and bullshit by order of their ~legal council~. Emoti-con will have a PR team so admins can't make asses of themselves again, but oh boy will they try.
Events
Despite being legally separate from Dashcon and not allowed to speak of Dashcon, Emoti-con is hosting an early bird party with food, drinks, and a ball pit. Megg and Cain have embraced the ball pit joke and are unaware it is a at their expense. They see the ball pit as a theme for their con and not a symbol of their failure.
More information to be added as it becomes available... oh wait...
Dashcon 2015 Cancelled
On December 9th, 2014 the Dashcon saga concludes as Emoti-Con Indy is officially canceled. Some have speculated that the admins realized what upset nerds are willing to do after Midwest Furfest in Illinois was attacked with chlorine gas in a vain attempt to cleanse the gene pool of animal DNA.
See Also
- Convention
- Theft
- Las Pegasus Unicon
- Fyre Festival
- m00t's GamerGate Sellout is said to have begun with DashCon
- Social engineering
- Teenager
- tumblr
External Links
- Official website at Archive.is DELETED
- New website at Archive.is
Roxanne's tumblr (lol DELETED)- Lochlan's "professional" tumblr (lol DELETED)
- Megg's tumblr (lol ABANDONED and taken over by Malaysian spammers)
- Megg's homestuck role playing blog ("My ask and submit are always open") (lol DELETED)
- megan-eli-blog her "backup blog" says nothing about Dashcon or Emoti-Con, last post July 12th 2015
- Cain's tumblr (buried behind a CAPTCHA because he doesn't want anyone "triggering" him)
- dashcon (still shows the last post, Sept 2 2014)
- tumbl-con-usa - Former blog ("Click the link to search out the very best Online Bank Speech from the Bank Publisher: Ms. Trish Bis, I live in Naples. I worked as a Police officer. One day i would want to do Bungee Jumping. This July, i am going to be 23. Such banking weblog will often be entertaining.")
- emoticon-indy loads of criticism of the Dashcon organizers
- Things you can buy with $17,000
- Bloggers mock stumbles at Tumblr convention
- In just one weekend, DashCon descended into chaos
- The Tumblr User Convention DashCon Was a Beautiful, Hilarious Shitshow
- The Ball Pit meme is the only good thing to come out of DashCon
- Dashcon Ball Pit Simulator
- There is a Wikipedia article about DashCon
- Lochlan's website is still up because she needs to keep selling crap
| Featured article July 17 & 18, 2014 | ||
| Preceded by Jada |
Dashcon | Succeeded by Hungary |