I'd bet it was more a "hey, who wants a paid vacation in Vegas, we'll use this con as an excuse. Don't bother with research, just do the usual fen-are-freaks that we do whenever we cover any subculture event." Because really, it was just write-by-numbers, the same thing I've seen for SF cons or gay pride marches. She'd write the same thing about the 4000 Apple geeks I'm currently sharing an auditorium with, and probably say we worship Steve Jobs. (We don't. We worship Steve Wozniak).