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Forum - View topicAnswerman - Why Is Liking Kids' Stuff Such A Bad Thing?
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mangamuscle
Posts: 2658 Location: Mexico |
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The thing is, why should we care someone has a so called "odd social deviation"? Has such deviations triggered tragedies where people have lost their lives or source of income? Is there any chart about how said deviations affect the gross GDP of a nation? Anyone that knows me a little knows I AM said odd social deviant. But I have no criminal record and somehow I am part of this mesh we call society. So why people should care what I see in the idiot box? Oh look, its kiddies stuff, don't make a sound and run for the nearest exist and when you are outside tell the world about what you saw. -_-; |
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Valhern
 Posts: 916 |
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I think there is also a fine line between Kids' Stuff and Kids' Stuff.
Now that you've given the example, Dora the Explorer is the kind of thing that pretends to aim to an audience between 2 and 6-7 years old. It's when language is being developed constantly, and these kind of shows always have moments in which the kid has to "interact" with the show. In most of the times, they are given a relatively easy challenge (such as finding the correct route in a map or the correct object to use in X situation), they aim directly to the kid's imagination and mind work, thus why they are very effective. Often, they speak in another language and automatically translate it. They also learn life values and stuff like that, but it's not always the key point. However, when we're talking Rick and Morty, Gravity Falls, Steven Universe, MLP even, it's a different area. While it's possible that these shows break the fourth wall, they usually cover story in a different way; characters can have different moral values without being evil (in the others, anyone except the villain have the same moral compass), most of the times the lessons are more abstract, hell, sometimes there isn't even only one lesson to learn from or they don't show any particular truth. The kid usually relates to a character because their specific personality, in the other type of show there isn't much to like except for their design or any joke they could make. This is, in fact, pretty close to shows such as Avatar the Last Airbender, Avengers, or classic shounen anime. Most likely the only clear difference is the tone, the language, how it's presented and stuff like that, but they are not that far from each other. I would be legitimately creeped out by an adult literally watching Dora the Explorer or those shows with Disney guys that are supposed to make kids play and stuff like that. I mean, watching for real enjoyment, not because they are with their own kids. I can understand male adults watching MLP (without considering some really bad stuff that has happened, I wont' deny it) because it's the same as me watching Pokémon, it's for kids but I, as an adult, can enjoy it as if I was one without forgetting that I'm not one while criticizing it. I surely could not enjoy Mickey asking me to choose the most obvious route to a beach or whatever the crap she is doing that day. |
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Spawn29
Posts: 556 |
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I still enjoy stuff made for kids if good story telling is involved. I think some anime fans refuse to admit that several animes like Dragon Ball, Naruto and Gundam are market to kids in Japan.
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BadNewsBlues
Posts: 6281 |
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Which is intresting given that those same anime were marketed towards kids in the states. |
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malvarez1
Posts: 2102 |
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Really good article. As someone who has watched a lot of toyetic anime alongside seinens, I never got why some people gave others a hrd time for watching them.
That said, as far as Shonen anime go, I feel some people are really selective about what they deem "for kids". Like, Inuyasha is fine to watch, but Case Closed and Kekkaishi are embarrassing? They were all in the same magazine. 
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EricJ2
 Posts: 4016 |
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Parents forced to watch Disney Junior with their preschoolers might find themselves getting hooked on Sofia the First just for having some entertainment value to its stories and characters that's universal enough to get hooked on. It's more than just the Stockholm Syndrome of sympathizing with your 3-yo. "captor", it's finding something in the episodes that makes them less painful to watch as another, or even actually fun. Dora the Explorer, OTOH, would be a bad example, as she's comparatively one of the cuter examples of the "Living CD-Rom game" format of cable-preschool shows (literally, other shows don't have the little mouse-arrow appearing on screen to "click" her backpack) that do absolutely nothing in the way of story or character but engage the preschooler in Interactive Activity. And even THAT'S not very danged much to put up with for more than five or ten minutes.
The Brony Debate only brings up the comparison to the Sailor Moon fans in the anime community: The first two seasons of Sailor Moon were unapologetically for little fourth-grade girls to buy plastic wands, and didn't appeal to anyone else. But we liked Usagi. And we liked Ami. And some of us liked Makoto.  Even as a "little girl show"--or, to the Japanese, another "kiddy show" where the masked hero rescues the kindergarten school bus from alien baddies--there was something addictive about it to watch. If we found out little girls liked it too, we didn't feel ashamed or rage that they "didn't understand it like we did", we just shrugged "Good for them, they've got taste."
Say that in Japan over the age of 20, and you'd immediately be shunned as a horny work-hating pedophile putting bedsheets over his windows...Say that in the US back when the show was some strange annoyance on weekday local stations, and they'd think something similar. But no one quite thinks that today--A generation that remembers it from the 90's, remembers it as still being good, and can explain why. Bronies, OTOH, were mostly high-school and college kids, at an age when finding identity is a big question, who felt....confused that they found a little-girl-marketed show entertaining--And instead of noting that it must have been a good show that did it, started forming a closed insular cult that they were Special Sensitive Snowflakes in seeing something different about the world, and learned to band together against a world that would "persecute" them for following their hearts. One group made the argument about the show, one made it about themselves.
With all the hype over YA novels going to movies, I often find my adult self going into the YA section, which most of the teens use to socialize, text or sleep, and are barely aware of those paper-thingies that are lining the wall behind them. If I walk in to check out a paperback copy of "Hunger Games: Breaking Birds", or whatever, all the stories of Evil Pedophiles Cruising Libraries For Healthy Young Pickups guarantee that I'll be met with five or six teenage glares of "This is the YA section, SIR..." Oh, that's good--Then you do know that it actually has books in it. 
The issue of "Why do you watch kids' stuff?" is a bigger issue in Japan, where the pressure is on to act responsible, race through school to the high school tests and get that big grownup career, all by acting your age or preferably Over. And with the heavy toy-marketing, any show on afternoon TV is For Kids, and only kids watch it. We had that same thing in our country when Cartoon Network played the angry-childhood-issues card by attacking Hanna-Barbera reruns with "Some people like to watch the same shows they saw as kids...Scary, huh?" As I mentioned on the last "Kids' stuff?" thread, I often like to shake up the status quo by pointing out that the first three seasons of the Flintstones was one of THE smartest-written sitcoms of the sixties, live or animated (just behind Dick Van Dyke, and just ahead of Addams Family). A lot of people--some of whom want to hammer on the same personal childhood straw-man that CN did--might want to shoot the messenger over that, but get me into a debate over that question and I can bring the evidence. Sometimes something targeted just isn't appreciated by its own target. How many can remember sixteen years ago joking about being "embarrassed" to admit in public that they had actually read Harry Potter?....Eww, stay away from my kids, you freak! 
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H. Guderian
Posts: 1255 |
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I think I can answer this with some confidence. Its a work-before-play social mindset in action. Look in Japan. No one cares what your hobby is if you get your work done and keep it home. The same applies. being single eventually means you'll leave no kids to contribute to the elderly population. You will become a drain on the economy. You have no trusted other to rely on. Families are the focus of so much political attention for an important reason, they're important. They're the Standard. Being proud of an odd social deviation is all fine and good so long as you have all of your own ducks in a row. Personally, you can spot me as an otaku 20 miles away. I radiate it. I'm also my local union steward. While I bleed weeaboo juice, I kept my career concerns on a higher tier. If my hobbies were intervening with work, the hobbies would have to cool down. Still in the search to build a family of my own, but look at it like this. Most people spend their whole lives looking for a promising job and significant other. To risk being poor and alone to score nerd points isn't worth it. Not saying you or I are competing like this, but to outsiders they see someone enjoying "kid's stuff" as someone who should be out learning a skill, socializing, working, etc. "Waste of Time." "Get a Job." What we have to do is prove to people that we can do both, the hobby and the responsibilities to society. My father doesn't watch any movie that isn't a "Based on a True Story" because nothing else really matters. He often complains about my hobbies. But then last year I made the most money I ever had at work, and won that steward election. Unanimously. All me coworkers had to Vote for me to get that. They also make fun of my hobbies, but they also trust I can get myself together when I'm needed. Many people deep into their hobbies...can't. And when reality gets hard they retreat further into the hobby. |
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EricJ2
Posts: 4016 |
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But play with a Gundam figure in public, and you'll literally hear "What are you, in fourth grade?" No valedictorian high-school sports star or future rich corporate executive would be looking back at some earlier stage in his social development, you see, when promise of the future was to keep running forward into that sunset...
(Well, nice to see he's enjoying all those James Wan haunted-house and exorcism thrillers.)
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Hoppy800
 Posts: 3331 |
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I would not show any mainline Gundam to kids, despite the marketing, any of the non-SD or Build Fighters Gundam series are NOT for kids. It's for teenagers on up, try showing IBO, Thunderbolt, or any of the other UC Gundam titles to young kids, they'll have nightmares.
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DRosencraft
Posts: 671 |
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It emerges from the concept of the social contract - that all members of a community have a duty to that community, and that excessive deviance is indicative of a failure to support the community to the degree the individual should, thereby leading to struggles and failures in that community. Religious teachings focus on this in particular, but it is intrinsic in all social units. If a person is supposed to be an adult figure in the community, participating in non-adult matters unrelated to your own children, it means you are not spending time doing things you should be doing as an adult. This probably has less meaning nowadays, but for about 90%+ of human history, this sort of thinking held water because so much of a person's daily activity mattered to the success or failure of the community. In addition, it serves as a warning sign. A single, grown man, with no children, watching a show for little girls raises suspicion that the man in question could be a pedophile. You don't want to wait for him to do something to a child if you can catch him before then. The question, of course, is whether those indicators amount to anything substantial. Are they really predictors, or are they only projections of insecurities? Social deviations have less impact when the community gets larger, because the actions of any individual is outweighed by the fact that the vast majority adhere to a "norm". But the instance of deviance does not disappear. Japan pays particular attention to issues of deviance since it has long been blamed for the decline in birthrates and economic troubles - youngsters out of school but engaging in deviant activities instead of joining the workforce and starting the family. In the end, concern about deviance is part fear, part social efficiency. If you're not doing what everyone else is doing, then what else are you doing that we don't know about that also goes against the social grain? If you're not doing what everyone else is doing, you're not doing what needs to be done for the community to succeed. Some of these concerns are valid, some aren't. I also think there has to be a nod to the fact that what is deemed "mature" by rating standards and what is deemed mature by commentary standards are entirely different. Shows with a mature rating get that rating because of the presence, or lack thereof, of certain content. Nudity in various levels, coarse language (swearing), talk of sexual themes, gets you a mature rating. But no one would put Game of Thrones and Galko-chan in the same category. Yet they're both shows that get a mature rating for TV, and that is where discussion on this topic often starts. If a show doesn't have blood, guts, sex, and cursing, it's almost always assumed to be a kid's show, regardless of the themes it may tackle. |
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myskaros
 Posts: 604 Location: J-Novel Club |
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It's tricky because this is just in human nature. If you're walking alone at night and you notice that someone has been following you long enough to make you feel uncomfortable, you are protecting yourself by being suspicious and wary. Depending on the person, the reaction might be to walk faster, or duck into the nearest building, or scream for help. Is there a chance the person just happens to be going in the same direction? Sure, you don't really know. However, in that situation, being aware of possible danger is what keeps you alive, and it's better for your health to be suspicious and wrong than to assume the best and be wrong. Where this gets more complicated is in observing the progress of modern society. Now that human life and longevity has become so well off compared to 100-200 years ago, people who are not in dire need of food, water, shelter, or social interaction are finding other priorities to pursue, such as wealth and luxury and other forms of hedonism. What this means is that there are new forms of behavior to be wary of, such as pedophilia, and new threats to assess. There is a desire to proactively seek out risks for knowledge and awareness. Unfortunately, not everyone fits the stereotype of "follows people at night" or "drives around in vans with candy," so there is a social mentality that tries very hard to find faults in non-traditional behavior and attribute them as risks to public safety. This is why the LGBTQ community is often attacked, and the same can apply to various "non-mainstream" activities such as watching anime, playing collectible card games, or, less so in recent times, playing video games. The flawed reasoning is simply "if this person were 'normal,' they would be doing 'normal' activities like playing football or going shopping or working out. Since they are watching anime instead of doing something 'normal,' something must be 'wrong' with them." From there, it's really easy for someone without critical thinking skills to say "well, if they're watching Chinese cartoons starring little girls, that probably means they really like little girls, which means my child is in danger!" In less extreme terms, a lot of it simply has to do with older generations frowning on newer activities they don't understand and making the judgment that they have less value than older activities. If, growing up, football was really important to your family, your school, your town, it can sometimes be hard to let go of that as an adult. That means you might want to keep attending football games, you might enjoy associating with other people who like football, and you might want your kids to play football too. So if your football-playing son is friends with this weird kid who doesn't like football for some unfathomable reason but watches anime, you might decide that anime is a bad influence on your future-Heisman-trophy-winner-and-totally-not-a-future-rapist-cop son (*coughdanielholtzclawcough*), which just leads to a poor impression of anime and a misattribution of "I don't like things that aren't football" into "anime is bad." Sociology is fun. People are really interesting, but also at times infuriating. |
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Vaisaga
 Posts: 13240 |
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I enjoy Blue's Clues myself. Honestly it's just nice to slip back into a time when things weren't complicated and everything had easy solutions. Being an adult is hard, so escaping back into childhood can keep you sane. As for how other people treat you for it, it's mostly an ego thing. We reassure ourselves that we're healthy and normal by singling out people we consider more "abnormal" than ourselves. "I might like Transformers, but at least I'm not a freak like those bronies!" Sadly when many people act that way towards a certain person, they'll lose confidence in themselves and start thinking it's wrong to like what they like. If some one comes down on you for what you like, the best possible response is one I saw in a brief comic: "Aren't you a little too old to be playing with toys?" "Aren't you a little too young to have lost your childlike sense of wonder?" |
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Spore_777_Mexen
 Posts: 18 |
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I stopped apologizing for being what is considered an otaku by the Japanese. I pay my taxes and obey the law. I might as well Crunchyroll while I am at it.
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DJStarstryker
 Posts: 140 |
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For the most part, once everyone's an adult, no one seems to care as much anymore. I was judged a lot more for my video game/anime hobbies as a kid/teenager than I ever have been as an adult. I don't exactly hide my hobbies either.
I have a friend who is in his 40's who is an unashamed Brony. Granted, he does have children so he partly sees it as something he can enjoy with them. But he actually has MLP drawings hanging up at his desk at work. No one cares.
The funny thing about Gundam though is I feel like it's aimed towards both adults AND kids. Most of the people I saw in Japan who were buying Gundam figures were kids, but most of the people I saw in Japan who were buying Gundam model kits were adults. I even once was in a McDonald's in Japan and there were 2 30-something adults who were working on a Gundam model kit together in the McDonalds at a table. 
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Beatdigga
 Posts: 4597 Location: New York |
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And then there's those moments when the advertising is confused about target audience. Like when kids shows are advertised in crossovers with shows that are ostensibly for adults.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1FLRlVnHJQ |
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