Forum - View topic

Answerman - Why Is It Socially Unacceptable To Be An Otaku In Japan?

If the incident with Kurt Eichenwald is any indication, people would rather pretend that side of the nerdom is a small minority or non-existant entirely, rather than admit the truth Anglo countries are a lot more shameful and prideful about those things.

The main difference is here it's forced to be hidden away in the shadows. Plenty of porn comics, videos, and pictures exist, but they're digital only, because having a huge convention like Comiket or store hosting physical releases is impossible in our society versus Japan. One just needs to go to one of those furry sites and see how much artists make from commissions, or head over to the Patreon and see artists making up to 30K a month. To put in perspective, that's heads and shoulders above more than what 'mainstream' journalists, or ex-TGWTG allumini/YouTubers are making.

'Out of sight, out of mind' and all of that. If it's not a front page article on Buzzfeed, most people will ignore it.

Those comic films and AAA games are in the same manner of Sazae-san or One Piece in Japan. It's fine to like them, but breaking through the first tier to the more obscure stuff below is when the stigma hits. Dismissing them as 'niche subcultures' is intellectually dishonest. As someone who worked in a comic shop during his youth, comics were more mainstream then than they are now, since sales have slumped despite the movie boom and DC and Marvels attempt at pushing them. In printed regard, manga is far more mainstream in Japan than comics are here. If you're going to talk about Wonder Woman to your co-workers, it better be Gal Gadot, because people will think you're a nerd if you talk about the fan favorited Perez run of the 80s and 90s.

Japanese society -- and Asian societies in general -- tend to favor collectivism and social harmony over individualism. It's a lot more of a "thing" to shame or shun people who throw off harmony, who are antisocial.

Paiprince wrote:

Oh get over your ethnocentrist high horse man. A lot healthier? Do you just ignore the flat out deviant behaviors of MLP'ers and Homestuckers? Chris-chan? The average comic book demographic of XXL nasty looking balls with manners akin to a kindergartener? The list goes on and on.

You can try to focus on niche Western subcultures as a defense, but you can't deny the enormous impact that comic book films and videogames have had on Western pop culture in the last 20 years. Nerd entertainment has practically become mainstream in the West, while in Japan it's still looked down on by working-class adults. I do think that that cultural divide plays a part in the social frustrations that are fueling the type of increasingly pandering output we're seeing in anime these days. 80's and 90's anime actually seemed a lot more genre-driven and internationally-inspired compared to the more insular and trope-driven titles that make up a sizable chunk of the modern market, so it's not like I've always felt this way about Japan; actually, back in the 90's I practically felt the opposite.

Any fantasy, sci-fi or comic book nerd from the 80s and 90s is giddy with joy at the current mainstream pop culture that largely celebrates and embraces those genres. You can hardly walk into a mall, Wal-Mart or a Barnes and Noble without seeing Marvel, Star Wars, TLotR, Harry Potter, and videogame memorabilia, T-Shirts and products for sale. They're a huge part of mainstream pop culture, largely catering to a generation of mid-to-young adults who've come to embrace geekdom with their personal identities. Most young adults I know wouldn't bat an eye if you mentioned being a fan of 80s or 90s comic books -- depending on your personality, they might even think you have more fan cred in comparison.

TBH, I sort of sense a shifting in the goalposts with your commentary. In a way, it feels like you're trying to suggest that the word "nerd" doesn't refer to "nerds" anymore, and instead is actually relegated to pervy fans, social deviants, etc. So maybe it depends on how you view "nerdness". If you look at the word "nerd" strictly as a pejorative that only applies to people who carry a social stigma for their strange/unpopular hobbies, then maybe your perceptions work in that context. But even then, you can't deny that the "nerds" of yesteryear are the pop culture leaders of today. I mean, a single 2-hr Avengers movie can bring in over a billion dollars in revenue, most of which comes from global markets. Popular though Sazae-san and One Piece might be in Japan, I don't think their scale is much the same. TBH, Sazae-san maybe compares more favorably to The Simpsons, and One Piece... I dunno, maybe Dr. Who..?

I do try to distinguish between being an anime fan (I'm one of the moderate types now... I even stopped drawing a long time ago), and an otaku (when someone's interest pervades the rest of his/her life and he/she decides it's more important than being a wholly functional part of society).
Don't get me wrong, though. Liking anime isn't a sin, but going as far as breaking an engagement, dropping out of college, or even getting a mediocre job just to have more time to indulge in something that in the end doesn't give you anything other than pleasure is just too much.

Tropes and Genres that I like ="genre-driven and internationally-inspired" I assure you that the anime back then were full of formulaic and fad driven schlock that you deride the modern counterparts now. Your arguments have been full of personal opinions and assumptions that it's hardly evidence you can back it up.
And you're seriously downplaying on anime's impact on mainstream when series like Shingeki no Kyojin, One Punch Man and Boku no Hero Academia among others gain reception in the mainstream. These shows garnered mass appeal while still keeping the interest of their hardcore otaku crowd similar to the average cape comic adaptation. So the thought of anime slinking back to cater to just one specific niche audience is outright wrong. Dial down that bias against modern anime dude and blind faith on cape comics. It's making you develop tunnel vision.

Some might be estatic, but there also others annoyed that the big screen adaptions have usurped the source material if that is what they want to talk about. Pop culture specifically refers to mainstream culture, and it's going to be those adaptions that carry that responsibilities. I've had more than a few friends sigh that Sauron will forever be depicted as a lighthouse with an eyeball on it, or Spider-Man has organic webshooters. I had an English teacher in high school who was known to dislike the movie Jurassic Park for it's ruining of the book, and other kids would call him loser for not liking a popular movie and reading a book.

Nerd is, or was, a derogitory term. The term has lost it's meaning, co-opted by marketers who turned it into a trendy label for billion dollar grossing movies and TV shows. If used in the 90s like it was today, nerd would be used to describe people who enjoyed Independence Day or Seinfeld. Popular things the average person watches, which would be the superhero and book movies of today. The current term to describe nerds of yesteryear today seems to be neckbeard, weeaboo, or manchild. Those still carry the negative term.

Those subcultures mentioned are what I would call the nerds of today. The shows or games that would get you the same looks as they did today. You must know a surprisingly open minded set of mainstream sports and FPS game fans if they don't look at people oddly for picking up JRPGs with a pretty boy or cute girl on the cover, or openly admit to watching kids cartoons like Disney sitcoms and get treated no different than if they said they liked Avengers. Not necessarilly limited to perverted groups, but that was the most common example people were ashamed of in this thread, and I was merely saying you're underestimating just how many people are into that stuff in the west since you have to actually go looking for it to find it, but it's there in spades.

-Stuart Smith

It's very much worth mentioning one of the biggest contributing factors behind otaku being shunned - Tsutomu Miyazaki, aka The Otaku Killer. The guy kidnapped little girls and did all sorts of horrific things to them, and when he was caught, it was revealed that he was a massive otaku - something the media ran with.

This article hit a lot of nails on the head. Particularly the comment that much of anime has become something of a salve for the social anxieties of Japanese nerd-dom. TBH, I feel like the modern Production Committee model is business-driven to the point of exploiting that fact, to the detriment of the most vulnerable of fans. For many in the fandom, anime is becoming more than just a salve --- it's turning into a surrogate for personal relationships and a normal life.

Nerd-dom in the West, I think, is a lot healthier in comparison. There's a certain mainstream open-ness and acceptance of previously nerd-only genres that isn't driven nearly as much by sexual or social frustrations.

Such a dismissive attitude towards alternative ways of living and loving will not win over anyone. What is a 'normal life'? A wife/husband of the opposite sex, two-to-three kids, two cars and a mortgage? The generic description of 'normal' lives that society and Hollywood love to push in their media seems suspiciously absent of happiness.

Part of what created the initial boom of Otaku was hopeless men unable to achieve the sort of social and financial status that made it possible to get married, have cars, kids, a house and extravagant vacations. By placing so much emphasis on 'normal' it created the 'leftovers' that eventually became Otaku. As painful as a transition as that must have been, it was definitely for the better. We now have a sub-culture where individuals can go to be accepted with open arms to live life without being judged so negatively for not fitting in. They can live existences where they can take care of themselves.