Forum - View topicChicks on Anime [2008-09-30]
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Eos
 Posts: 168 Location: Jersey |
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It's funny, just this past weekend at NYAF, whether you went on Friday or Saturday made a real difference in that area. On Friday it was small enough that I could start casual chats, walk around freely, stop in at panels at my leisure. But Saturday was so crowded (it was only one floor) there wasn't even a place to stand, and the fans were a lot younger (they were in school on Friday most likely) and more...animated.
I don't hate the new fans, but I too feel they seem to approach a convention in a naive way, assuming they can act how they like and are allowed to let themselves go more. We had two girls following me and my friends around because we were dressed like characters they loved. We tried to be polite and ask them nicely to leave us be after a while, but she interrupted us to call her mom and tell her that we'd be their guardians for the day. We had to draw the line there. |
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Zerreth
 Posts: 210 Location: E6 |
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What bothers me most is that some of this kind of behavior is ENCOURAGED. I was working at an artist table by the TM revolution booth at NYAF and behind TM Revolution was a company called Hen Da Ne! They've been there last year and they were still as obnoxious as ever with the guys managing the booth yelling YAAWEEE at the top of his lungs every two minutes, followed by a shrieking of girls.
I almost stooped to their level and thought about yelling some non-kosher things right at the guy's face but controlled myself throughout the convention. Then there were two groups of fans basically making a mosh pit with one side yelling yawee and the other Yuri. Don't get me started on the girls who thought smacking some random guy/girl's ass with a paddle was funny. Taking a look at conventions from an artist's point of view and a fan's point of view really changed what I thought about cons. |
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Kiyoko
 Posts: 131 Location: Pennsylvania |
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I go to several conventions a year. My usual attended cons are Anime Weekend Atlanta, AnimeNEXT, MangaNEXT & NYC-Comic Con.
My first few cons were quite small. I attened the very first AnimeNEXT back in 2002 and they were wonderful. But in the past 4-5 years, things have changed dramatically, not just in sizes of cons but in attitudes as well. And in my opinion at least, it appears to be regional. AWA still remains one of my favorite cons to go to, despite how much I have to pay for plane tickets. It might be the infamous "Southern Hospitality", but every year I've gone there, the attendees appear to be more mature and friendly. Sure there's always a few exceptions, but at AWA there appears to be less. I've had more people come up to me and start random conversations, and when I go to one of my hometown cons on the East Coast, I can go to a whole con without speaking to someone outside my group of friends. Back on East Coast cons, I see fans misbehaving a lot more. Leaving (literally) mountains of trash on the front hotel lawns, climbing the trees and breaking branches, food on the floors of elevators. I've seen some rather heavy cosplayers who despite their weight, have really well made beauitful looking costumes, and some of the more disrespectful attendees ignore the costume and start harassing about the poor person's weight. As a cosplayer myself, I have also been stalked, tackled, and nearly had my prop destroyed by people who take cosplayers as actual characters too seriously. Anime is currently a "hip" part of teen culture. And these days, a lot of teen culture revolves around vandalism, rebellion and disrespect. It's the way that generation has been raised. I'm not saying all teenagers are like that, but when put into a large gathering of people where it's easy to get away with being disrespectful, it's going to happen. Even just by looking at people...back when I first started going to cons you had cosplayers, and non-cosplayers who were usually nicely dressed, even if it were just in jeans and a t-shirt. These days I'm seeing more people who wear their pants down around their ankles and their shirts cut up, looking more like gang thugs then respectable people. A few cons I've been to have had to change venues because they earned a bad reputation with the host venue. Thats when you know things get out of hand. While I don't enjoy them like I used to, I'll still continue going to cons because I enjoy cosplaying, seeing others in costume, and of course blowing my money in the dealers room. But I fully agree that the close-knit atmosphere of conventions is slowly evaporating. |
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Ligene
 Posts: 137 Location: Mary-land! |
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As a part of the young generation, I can honestly say I'm appalled with the behavior of my fellow teenagers. It's downright humiliating to be grouped together with the mass because that's what "we do." Some of us aren't disrespectful idiots. (Crashing a wedding, really...)
During my first convention (Otakon 07) I admit to having a glaze-eyed doe expression on my face half the time, but I didn't go all out and start harassing random people because I saw my favorite characters. A picture was enough. Interesting discussion, liked how you stayed on topic this time. ;D |
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Servant of the Path
 Posts: 90 Location: United States |
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This column was interesting because it highlights a lot of the behaviors that push me away from the more social end of the anime community. I have not been to any anime conventions but when I've, occasionally, read about them and certainly hear about the impressive size of the convention(s), cosplay contests, voice actor appearances and booths I also get a sense for how the resident community has been affected by the attendees. There always seems to be a negative impression left behind and I think that serves to reinforce the public-at-large's perception of anime as a domain relegated to social miscreants and malcontents. Even for those of us who have been fans for years and know better I think those behaviors segment the fandbase and isolate people like myself who don't want to be associated with it. Altogether it just makes it that much harder for a form of entertainment that by itself deserves greater exposure from acquiring it. Although, for myself, anime wasn't originally a gateway for social interaction, when I want to share it with other people those behaviors present a number of different challenges to doing so while avoiding the more extreme elements of the fandom.
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Top Gun
 Posts: 4804 |
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I'm going to have to start keeping a "reasons not to attend a con" list, because this column just added to it.
 I almost wouldn't believe some of these anecdotes if I didn't have some idea about how rabid fans in large groups behave. I'll tell you one thing, though...if I ever did get to one of these things and was slapped by some girl waving a paddle, I'd probably wind up grabbing it from her and smashing it over her head without a second thought. I have a hell of a temper and a fine definition of my personal space, and I doubt I could stop myself from retaliating, even if it meant facing an assault charge. Seriously, if people are actually going around physically harassing other con-goers...that's when it's time to talk to security and/or the cops. That kind of **** is flat-out illegal, no matter where it's taking place.
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fuuma_monou
 Posts: 1853 Location: Quezon City, Philippines |
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I remember Natalie from CLAMP fandom when I first got online. Did seem like a smaller, more connected world back then.
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Zac
ANN Executive Editor
 Posts: 7912 Location: Anime News Network Technodrome |
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NYAF was the first time I'd seen people doing those "shout battles" where one group shouts something as loud as they can and the other group shouts the opposing thing and it is absolutely the most f*cking horrible and annoying attention whore thing I've seen at a convention. I wanted to throw a grenade into the crowd of people screaming "ninjas" "pirates" and watch them die.
I really don't understand what it is about cons that makes teenagers go AN ANIME CON?!?! TIME TO BE AS RIDICULOUSLY IMMATURE AND PUBLICALLY OBNOXIOUS AND RUDE AS POSSIBLE!!! EVERYONE LOOK AT HOW WACKY AND LOUD I AM!!!! |
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zanarkand princess
 Posts: 1484 |
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These are the reasons I'm going to stick to my dvd's and not be associated with all the other teenagers who thought it was a good idea to act stupid at an anime con.
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braves
 Posts: 2309 Location: Puerto Rico (but living in Texas) |
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I went to an anime club meeting a few weeks ago at my university to socialize with other anime fans. And boy was it wrong.
They were mostly subbie elitists, so this was one conversation (and really the only one that I had while I was there): -Boy: "So, what are you watching right now?' -braves: "Mostly just the stuff that's on [adult swim]." -Boy: "Ah, I hate dubs!" WTF kind of response is that?! I don't even want to imagine going to a con. 
And of course, there were comments like "Naruto sucks, blah, blah blah. We follow the law when it comes to showing anime, but of course what you do in your own time is what you do in your own time." *Everybody laughs, except me* And they said that they were only going to show new anime (though, they showed the TMNT anime just for laughs). I wish that the studios in Japan would make an anime about standard etiquette. Maybe then some "otaku" will learn. Meh, whatever. |
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DaisakuKusama
 Posts: 85 |
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Great article. It probably could have been expanded into several more parts!!
I've been attending Anime Expo since AX93 (you should see my box of memorabilia!!). I suppose that makes me old school, but last year was the first AX I didn't have any desire to attend, for most of the reasons in this discussion. There's definitely been a shift in attendance, and I'm not talking about growing crowds. That's something I've always expected, and actually embraced. I've always loved the diversity of fandom and that's what attracts me to cons both large and small. However, it seems that there are a growing number of people at anime conventions who could care less about anime. They view it as a means to an end, be it to hit on girls, behave without regard for others, or just scream louder than the next person to draw attention to themselves. And their numbers are increasing. So now you have people in the famously long lines to the AMVs who pretend to be friendly by saying "what's your favorite anime" as they work their way further to the front of the line. You have people shouting AT THE TOP OF THEIR VOICES on their cell phones DURING the event, as if their conversation is more important than the event itself. During a brief pause between songs at a concert by [insert name of any female singer from Japan here], the singer is greeted not by shouts of "I LOVE YOU!" but rather the eloquent "F**K ME!!!!" You want to tell them to tone it down until you realize that it's coming from over there, too. And over there, and over there, and over there. Standing outside the dances, my girlfriend nearly fell into me because she was trying to get away from a guy who was hitting on her WHILE SHE WAS HOLDING MY HAND. We finally decided to leave when it happened again, as some nice boy tried to pull her off my arm while saying "Let's Dance!" I'm not exactly a 98-Pound weakling; we left because she was afraid I was going to hurt someone. Some of these "NO-taku" as I've come to call them believe that swimsuits pass for Cosplay, but in reality they look like they took a wrong exit on their way to the beach and wound up at a con. Don't even get me started on using your DS Pictochat at a convention. You'll need to wash your both your brain and your eyeballs out with soap. After seeing a crowd gather for a rousing game of "Guess that Asian," I left wondering if offended is how one is supposed to feel when attending anime conventions in the here and now. Quote: A few cons I've been to have had to change venues because they earned a bad reputation with the host venue. Thats when you know things get out of hand. There has been a rumor floating around for years that this is the reason AX is no longer being held at Anaheim, because of the infamous Narutards vs. Bleach Heads fistfight within the ACC. I can't confirm it, but it wouldn't surprise me at all. I don't want to discourage anyone from attending cons, but definitely felt I needed to take a year off. Next year I may reconsider. A change of venue might do the trick. Southern Hospitality sounds good to me!! 
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ArthurFrDent
 Posts: 466 |
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It's whatcha make of it, kids, fellow romans, gentlefolk. If you let the losers get you down, they win. When you go to your anime meet, braves, bridge... you can always say "well, dubs are dubs, but it's all I've got. what can you loan me?" Yeah, sometimes people are really into their own little island thing, but you can pull them out... if you wish it so. There are an astonishing number of cool people out there that are hedgehogs at first meet. It is those very people though that can introduce you to stuff you've never seen, or thought about watching. If someone hadn't rec'd FLCL [fooly cooly] to me I would never have gone the lengths needed to see it, and find a copy. Yeah some recs never gel. Some people I have met at cons, I never got past their spiney self... but I'm sure that some people think I'm an idiot about something too... I think the weird goodness outweighs the bad.
I've ended up moderating more than a few arguments over dub/sub between random strangers... I even hosted a get together to show both types of people what the other is really seeing... The consensus was 'it's a cool show, as long as we are both watching, who cares?' But without someone to bridge, both camps build a wall... ETA... Yes I have also noted a drop in civility across the boards everywhere, at cons [of all kinds, not just anime] the airport the grocery, etc. There were some rowdies removed from a local HiSch. football game for harassing the cheerleaders. I don't have a clue what to do about the drop in civility, other than being civil. I do know that when you remove yourself, you are removing a buffer that might be for good... YMMV naturally Last edited by ArthurFrDent on Tue Sep 30, 2008 5:02 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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rinjichan
Posts: 58 |
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This is the exact same boat I am in. I have been to three cons over the course of eight years. I don't even socialize with the people at the college anime club because they're the same way, on in their mid to late 20s. I keep it to the internet and at home. |
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Eos
Posts: 168 Location: Jersey |
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I returned to my college's anime club for a meeting recently, I found that most of the younger fans seem to act that way, beginning conversations with rants (I know you want to break the ice, but it's a little off-putting to be so negative right off the bat). There's really nothing wrong with socializing with fans (it's still my favorite part of cons), but snobs at clubs and yaoi-paddle girls can really poison the well. As I see it, there are thousands of perfectly sane people there, some socially inept idiot isn't going to spoil my good time. |
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maichips
 Posts: 96 |
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Hearing this, I'm happy that my first con was the small, friendly AnimeIowa. It had an amazing staff, rules that did quite a good job of keeping people in line, and really friendly congoers. I have a friend who went to ACen '08, and she told me that AI was a much better experience. I can't imagine what that means for a con like AX or Otakon.
 ;;;
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