Manifesto: IV. Sleeping With the Enemy
by otaking on Jun.02, 2009, under Manifesto
I soon realized that I couldn’t possibly become an expert in every single anime or manga or science fiction show or fantasy movie or comic book. Also, there were some works that I absolutely detested despite my friends’ efforts in getting me to like them (Fushigi Yuugi, anyone?).
What I didn’t realize was, as far as being Otaku is concerned, this is all beside the point.
Understand this: I’m never going to claim to be the Voice of All Otaku. I have weird tastes by ‘typical otaku’ standards, if such a thing exists. I like Deep Space Nine better than Voyager. I haven’t seen any Bleach or Naruto. I caught Firefly a few years after it was canceled. I’ve only seen one episode of Heroes. I haven’t seen the new Dr. Who. I haven’t been keeping track of Star Wars Clone Wars. I haven’t read the last Harry Potter book. I haven’t played D&D 4th Ed. seriously. I only watched Lucky Star late last year. And my tolerance for tedium is too low for me to enjoy your typical MMORPG grind long enough to be competitive at it. Sorry, I tried, I really did.
Many trends came and went and I either ignored them, scoffed at them, or was completely unaware of them. Worse, I began to judge the people who were into these things as ‘weird’. Oh, the irony. I became preoccupied with fitting into normal, mainstream society. I downplayed my interest in anime as I finished my college degree and entered law school. I started doing normal things in an effort to belong. I updated my fashion sense — a good thing. I learned how to behave and enjoy myself in clubs and bars — also a good thing. I learned that the ‘normals’, as I so condescendingly called them, were just like anyone else: pretty sharp at some things, pretty lame at others. I wasn’t better than them because I understood computers more; I wasn’t worse than them because I preferred playing video games to getting intoxicated. Besides, I was learning to enjoy that, too.
But I never really did belong. Part of me knew that by using my weirdo friends as punchlines in jokes I told normal people, I was selling them out, and selling myself out. In my efforts to whitewash myself of the loser-geek image I thought I had, I reduced myself to a bad imitation of what I thought a normal person was like.
And I noticed another thing too — normal people were desperately trying to adopt geek characteristics in order to seem cool and edgy. Girls got into photography, guys got into gadgets, and each one claimed to have intimate knowledge about stuff like Transformers and Batman and Harry Potter and CSI and X-Men as each one of these previously geeky preoccupations became cool.
Normal people were looking to the weirdos for cultural guidance. They were looking to otaku. They would badmouth otaku in an attempt to look cooler, just as I sold out my otaku past for cheap laughs, but in the end they needed someone to lead them to the next cool thing.
So they mocked us when they needed to feel better about themselves. They would still watch and read and listen to stuff made by enthusiasts who cared about their craft more than looking normal. They still consumed otaku products. They watched stuff by J.J. Abrams and Joss Whedon and enjoyed the new surge of movies based on comic books and science fiction and fantasy stories. They wanted more of our stuff.
So why be ashamed? Why hide it at all? Because I was afraid of what they thought of me, that’s why. I was supposed to be normal. I wanted to fit in.
Plus although normal girls were cute, they liked normal guys. And I was definitely not normal, no matter how hard I tried to be.
(to be continued)
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June 2nd, 2009 on 11:24 am
i’m gonna go off-tangent here a tad and share a small observation i made in my short stint as a college student and minimum-wage slave in tokyo: as much as they love geeky stuff and can get really hardcore when they’re together as a group, the real japanese fans don’t make it a point to broadcast their weirdness to all and sundry (ie the ippanjin).
perhaps due to contact to them i happen to share that same point of view, so i understand a little the thought processes behind what you think is a dual existence. i do not see it as “a betrayal of your geekhood”; everyone has every right to try and fit in with society, but at the end of the day if giant transforming robots are still your thing, then go right ahead and enjoy it alongside your “normalcy”.
i personally would never accuse you of being a sell-out. and if somebody ever did, well — they are the ones who need a little more growing up to do.
thanks for dropping by the blog often. i hope to hear from you again soon. cheers!
June 2nd, 2009 on 11:47 am
Hi there! Thanks for dropping by!
Yeah, when I visited Japan (briefly, certainly not long enough to soak in the culture enough), I noticed that unlike what most local otaku think, Japan is not the land of anime. Anime is a small subculture in a complex culture.
Also, actual Japanese otaku are… kind of scary.
I’m no expert on the subject myself, but I’m going to post about my visit very soon, told from the perspective of a wannabe who didn’t even know what merchandise a ‘proper’ otaku would buy
Stay tuned!
June 2nd, 2009 on 3:47 pm
“In my efforts to whitewash myself of the loser-geek image I thought I had, I reduced myself to a bad imitation of what I thought a normal person was like.”
followed by…
“And I noticed another thing too — normal people were desperately trying to adopt geek characteristics in order to seem cool and edgy.”
Ouchies. I guess we all just want to belong. Or be better than most.
June 2nd, 2009 on 8:01 pm
“So they mocked us when they needed to feel better about themselves. They would still watch and read and listen to stuff made by enthusiasts who cared about their craft more than looking normal. They still consumed otaku products. They watched stuff by J.J. Abrams and Joss Whedon and enjoyed the new surge of movies based on comic books and science fiction and fantasy stories. They wanted more of our stuff.”
Sides are shifting now as I often find myself explaining to other people about the ‘geek stuff’ I’m into. Some are genuinely curious/interested, while others are happy to find someone who can actually openly relate to some of the other niche things they are also into.
Funny thing though, that the ones I know who do heckle (the bad kind) at the geekiness of other people can be counted as geeks themselves.
June 3rd, 2009 on 8:14 am
“I like Deep Space Nine better than Voyager.”
Don’t worry, you’re not alone. The people in this one forum I go to also hated Voyager. As Battlestar Galactica writer Ron Moore said:
“The premise has a lot of possibilities. Before it aired, I was at a convention in Pasadena, and Sternbach and Okuda were on stage, and they were answering questions from the audience about the new ship. It was all very technical, and they were talking about the fact that in the premise this ship was going to have problems. It wasn’t going to have unlimited sources of energy. It wasn’t going to have all the doodads of the Enterprise. It was going to be rougher, fending for themselves more, having to trade to get supplies that they want. That didn’t happen. It doesn’t happen at all, and it’s a lie to the audience. I think the audience intuitively knows when something is true and something is not true. Voyager is not true. If it were true, the ship would not look spic-and-span every week, after all these battles it goes through. How many times has the bridge been destroyed? How many shuttlecrafts have vanished, and another one just comes out of the oven? That kind of bullshitting the audience I think takes its toll. At some point the audience stops taking it seriously, because they know that this is not really the way this would happen. These people wouldn’t act like this.”
June 3rd, 2009 on 12:45 pm
Exactly. There was a story arc that was billed as the Year of Hell that was highly anticipated (even by me), promising to put Voyager and its crew through the wringer. Not only was it compressed into 2 episodes, but it was turned into an averted alternate timeline. I mean what the hell. At least DS9 had the balls to stick with the Dominion War once it got started.
June 4th, 2009 on 10:14 am
Funny you should mention that, because the Star Trek fans in that forum said that that was one of the better Voyager episodes. And then it was retconned. XD
June 6th, 2009 on 9:12 am
See? Trek otaku aren’t stupid, so it’s a good thing they’ve stopped treated us that way with the new movie.