Bad News: Nobody Wants to Hear About Your Micronation!

Recently, in one of the micronational Facebook groups, someone announced they were organizing an online micronational conference for later this year. I thought it sounded interesting, and clicked the link for registration. Scrolling down the form, I noticed that it had a question at the end, "Would you be willing to speak about your micronation?" (Insert screeching tires and horrible car crash sounds...)

I closed the form, went back to Facebook, and added a comment to the post asking the poster (i.e., the organizer) if the conference was only going to be people talking about their micronations. They stated that no, they welcomed other talks as well, and I should message them - but they left it sounding as though the majority of the talks would be people talking about their micronations.

Yeah, no. I doubt I'll attend that online conference, much less speak at it. Why?

Well, as the title of this post says, nobody wants to hear about your micronation - or at least, not at a micronational conference. Early iterations of MicroCon suffered somewhat from this - speaker after speaker talking about their micronation for fifteen or twenty minutes each. To be blunt, it's incredibly boring for the audience most of the time. For MicroCon 2019, we set a note in the call for speakers that we would refuse any proposed talk which was "About my micronation". Other MicroCon events since then have largely followed the same rule to some degree.

Is this an absolute? No, but it's a rule that should only be broken under very specific circumstances. If there is something truly unique about your micronation - say, its system of government or some other aspect that might make an interesting talk - then by all means, talk about it. However, talk about the theory of that aspect first (say, the first 60% to 75% of your content) and then close out your content by talking about how it's working for you in practice - and include both the good and the bad. "Warts and all," as they say.

Now, there are counter-examples! At MicroCon 2025, there was a talk about Bir Tawil. At first, I thought it was going to be yet another person who can barely find the Sudan on the map, trying to lay claim to a place they'd never been to. But, no, I was wrong, and I'm glad I was - she wanted to talk about Bir Tawil from the perspective of the people who actually live there, something that the micronational claimants seem to ignore. And if Prince Michael of Sealand ever shows up to a MicroCon, I'm sure that a history of Sealand would make an amusing talk.

Overall, though, I stand by my original statement, "Nobody wants to hear about your micronation," or at least, not as a talk at a conference. 

The audience at MicroCon 2025