Midlife Crisis Crossover is coming to you live this evening from my living room while I’m in the middle of planning for our big day at the inaugural Indiana Comic Con on Saturday. (I’ve written about it here and here, so loyal MCC followers are well aware and waiting for it to be over with already.)

As part of my prepping, I thought I’d check in on the Twitter scene and gather impressions from the three-day attendees who edged ahead of us in joining the fray. I saw a fair amount of evidence that my sincere hopes for everyone to enjoy themselves are largely being realized. I’m looking forward to joining the discussion tomorrow myself.

That’s assuming I can figure out where the discussion is. As of tonight, I’ve seen attendees using as many as four different hashtags to tag their tweets in hopes of staying in touch with the population at large.

Leading candidates are:

1. #IndianaComicCon
2. #IndyComicCon
3. #ComicCon
4. #ICC2014

Fun quiz: without peeking at Twitter, can you guess which hashtag the crowds are using most, versus which hashtag the showrunners waited till Friday morning to suggest?

Think carefully. Take your time. Or think haphazardly and scroll down five seconds ago. I’ll wait here either way.

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At the moment, #ComicCon seems to be getting the most usage by the fans-at-large. I think. Some of it’s from outside Indiana, though. Far as I’m concerned, hardcore fans planning for another mammoth San Diego Comic Con pretty much have standing squatters’ rights to that tag. I also spotted a few users from other states discussing their own cons with that tag included. Locals are using it quite a bit, but unwittingly sharing it with outsiders. Hopefully the average Hoosier realizes not all events with a “Comic Con” label are related to each other in any paperwork-based capacity.

This morning, not exactly streets ahead, whoever’s in charge of the con’s official Twitter handle (and using it sparingly, at that) fired a happy opening salvo tagged #ICC2014. Fun trivia: plenty of organizations use the acronym “ICC” and hold occasions tied to specific years. #ICC2014 is a never-ending, amalgamated trainwreck of commentaries from any number of international happenings and users, many of which appeared today to be spambots with warehouses full of T-shirts to sell. It’s effectively useless and I turn my back upon it.

The other two tags, #IndianaComicCon and #IndyComicCon, each have their supporters, but #IndyComicCon is lagging behind the pack. I’m partial to #IndianaComicCon, the longest one to type, but it’s the most literal and therefore easiest to come to mind. “Indy” is a common nickname among us denizens, but it might not occur as quickly to our visitors from other cities and states, all of whom deserve to be welcomed and included, and not left out just because they’re not hip to Naptown lingo.

I think it’d be awesome to see the entire community interconnected for the weekend, whether for networking, for business, or simply for entertaining each other. That’s doomed if we can’t go full-on hivemind on this issue and pick one tag.

All of this could’ve been settled weeks ago if the showrunners had thought ahead, taken a cue from popular TV shows and other corporate constructs vying for our attention in today’s hyperaccelerated modern world, and taken ownership of a specific tag as part of their marketing strategy — one that would serve them easily and exclusively for cross-platform user-driven social media interaction purposes, by which I mean live-tweeting. Dismiss it as a fad if you will; right now live-tweeting is kind of huge. If you’re craving those young-adult demographic dollars, some light research should unearth some interesting corollaries between said dollars and all this Twitter usage I don’t seem to be shutting up about.

As in many other areas of life, it’s important to set your standards before showtime, instead of letting others fill your void after the fact with a thousand clashing ideas that fracture the audience and dilute your impact.

More simply put: if you’re making something cool, make it easier for us to share that cool thing with others who might also think it’s cool. If you expect us to pick up the ball you dropped, don’t be surprised if we run away with it in all the wrong directions.

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…and to answer the most pressing question on regular MCC readers’ minds: no, I truly have no idea at precisely what point I began putting this much elaborate thought into my Twitter usage. One year I was scoffing at it; suddenly I find myself noticing people who are worse at Twitter than I am. At my age that’s really not how the internet should happen.