Maybe my question seems too common but I base it on several observations that I have madeOver time, otaku culture has greatly gained by popularizing anime and manga in particular, even if I observe in many other areas that communities are growing over time. I see a lot of young people who are interested in vocaloids, visual novels, cosplay etc via TitkokHowever, I find that the community aspect has been largely neglected. I'm not necessarily talking about having people to talk to but rather about creating original content around otaku culture. I have the impression that today it's the same content produced over and over again on the internet because of the evolution of algorithmsHave I just become too old and therefore can't see the positive in what's new? After all we are all a bit old here, there must be few people under 25However, I notice a change and I wonder how today a young person aged between 15 and 22 can access culture in a passionate way rather than seeing the elements as entertainment separated from all History, all genres and all the elements that constitute this culture.
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No, you are right.Many leeches that only consume and don't create anything to further the culture.But unfortunately i don't think you can change them, it's something they have to realize themselves.
>>47804924I'm not sure how "qualified" I'd be to discuss this compared to others, but I'd still like to provide some kind of perspective from my own observations that could contribute to the overall subject.You are exactly right about algorithms keeping people in the same few loops of superficial excitement or attachment towards these mediums, how could that be otherwise with the way collective understandings of media interaction have been irreversibly shifted? It's no longer about the content itself for its own sake & the intimate connections to be found through such creation, it's about "engagement" being held by a select few influential producers while the concept of "fandom" dominates any & all spaces for content appreciation. It became easier & more profitable for people to simply blend into the crowd and start leeching or echoing common sentiment, like what >>47805671 said. Even here. Searching out picrel for this post, for instance, a nearby scroll-addicted accomplice of mine remarked "Oh, isn't Lucky Star that one lolibait anime? I just heard someone online somewhere call it that once is all." I do think it's a good thing more individuals are feeling comfortable with expressing such passions in otherwise niche fields but we no longer have the proper digital or social environments overall to regularly foster good-faith communities without them splintering or turning into what are essentially cliques over highly specific content/the "right way" to enjoy something (outside of maybe cons or very isolated forums). Social media & corporate influence are among the biggest factors to blame for this. What was once curated through communal hands, understanding of what was being handled & how to handle it, has now been commodified en masse and slowly diluted for general public amusement. I resent most, if not, all major social media platforms for essentially corralling people into a small handful of structurally-rigged content farms where the user is actively encouraged to churn through as much of this stuff as possible for maximum likes/views. Tiktok is the worst example of this and its pervasiveness throughout younger crowds ought to make that self-evident. Most socials of my own I was goaded into creating by others have either long-since been abandoned or deleted for largely these reasons. It all just makes me sick.However, this has been the unfortunate result of a slow buildup towards the state of the web as it is today. Maybe this is far more obvious to older anons who saw this slow decay in real-time, but as an early 20-something myself I can tell you that what remains of this "culture" seems harder to properly break-into than ever before. I simply don't have the time to immediately fully consume a lot of shows & games others might consider quintessential, especially when I'm already busy trying to create my own content to enjoy & share with others. It's fun and I have a lot of honest passion I try to put into my creative endeavors, but that isn't exactly a shared mentality these days. Even the mainstream-anime-loving gamer dorks I used to associate with back in high school in the late 2010s already considered most "otaku-oriented" media, like Lucky Star again for example, to strictly be for the creeps & weirdos of the world based on whatever they were glomming off of social media. It was easier for them to internalize broader opinions and act "accordingly", instead of taking a chance and seeing what might happen just for the sake of enjoyment. Maybe that's always largely been the case in some smaller capacity, but we are no longer living among generations solely raised during times when Japanese media wasn't considered "trendy" per say.I've honestly taken a few digs myself towards the people desperately attempting to cling to or preserve whatever remains of their crumbling ideal "otaku culture", but that doesn't mean I can't understand such lamentations or plainly see why it is all in the state it's in today. It certainly seems as if a lot of us are stuck in varying states of "well what the hell can we do about things now" and for good reason. A lot of bubbles have already been burst and the future isn't exactly promising anything brighter. Not to suggest that doubling-down on gatekeeping would be an ultimate or even simple solution to all this, the foundational cracks are too widespread at this point, but for those of us that would remain until the bitter end I'd suggest prioritizing creation & connection where it can still be made without needless interference. I'm also of the notion that changing such widespread attitudes is largely an effort in futility, it's simply not worth the wasted energy, but the best thing we could still do in the face of that is consider everything that came before as a whole and try to somewhat "honor" that spirit (as silly or pretentious as that may sound).If any of that even makes sense that is, my ideas might still be just as biased as anyone else my age after all
Also, >>47805471Lame.
>>47805671>leecheswtf are you talking about? extreme consumerism like buying useless, super expensive plastic figures and animu cels is a core aspect of otaku culture.
>>47804924You reek of worthless EOP.
>>47809772gotta love normalnigger tourists coming in clueless but still cocksure enough to say "THIS is what otaku culture REALLY means"why the fuck do herd outsiders existing at all mindbreak normalfags so bad anyway?
>>47805671By definition an otaku contributes nothing to society, the act of creating would incur the excess expenditure of energy that could have been saved by taking it easy and therefore what you describe is in fact a logical error.
>>47818309touch meds take grass
>>47818497Why do normalfags keep conflating otaku and neets? By definition you can't have someone that spends a gorillion moneys on merch yet is somehow a neet.Acting like people can live like that through gubmint neetbux also is incompatible with believing the JP economy is bad.
>>47818566Did you just show up yesterday, people spend money they don't have all the fucking time here.
>>47818586That's just moving the goalposts, credit card money is not sustainable for that either, especially as a neet.
>>47804924The newest IM@S branch just came out earlier this year, so I think otaku culture is going to be just fine.
>>47818729You have to realize when a normalfag starts crying "is le odaku kultur le dead???!!?!?" they always mean their normalfaggot circle of friends is no longer into "the animes" and fatlus hasn't released a new persona game to zeitgeist over.
>>47806177>I'm already busy trying to create my own content to enjoy & share with othersWhat is this “content”?
>>47820983Mostly just my own writing & drawing for others, lots of Touhou stuff for sure since that’s one of my passions (hyperfixations). It’s not much but it’s what I’d like to do for my future. I don’t exactly have “money to spend” since I’m busy using that trying to keep myself alive so I try to have fun with what I am able to make for people when I can without being too weird about it I guess. The reception hasn’t been too bad at least, and that makes me thankful.I still have a lot to learn overall and I do my best to constructively contribute to what I involve myself in, though if that makes me an inherent tourist or anything else I suppose I should apologize for wasting your time with my ignorance. I like putting in effort, I’m just trying not to be too obnoxious about it either. I’m working with the only perspectives I have.
>>47804924I don't think it's some le algorithms or tiktok. I think people are just fucking greedy and I see so many people who are not willing to create anything unless it will give them money or at least attention on social media. I feel so disappointed when I see old creators who used to make cool stuff, coming back with some new projects but no longer sharing them for free in case someone might buy it from them. Even outside of Japanese culture I see more and more people making paid mods for games, something that was unheard of 10 years ago, when modding scene was even bigger than now.But I don't care. I learned drawing and I draw. I am learning Japanese and music, hoping to make Vocaloid songs myself. Recently I have started working on a yume nikki fangame with some friends. And I will continued to do so, for free, simply because it's my passion.
>>47819102I don't think you understand what normalfag actually means.
>>47824166Personally I would not condemn the artist's desire to create and make money from it. Life in the capitalist system is just hellish especially for subordinate jobsI know that if I wasn't NEET at my parents' house my works of art would just look like anti-capitalist and anti-job works of art where I would draw bourgeois people being shotOr maybe I wouldn't do anything with my life except get depressed in my bed when I got home from work
>>47824333What did changed in the capitalist system that people can no longer afford to separate professional and hobby work? Nothing.What changed is that with the easier access to youtube monetization, patreon, fantia, etc. Some people realized that they can turn their hobby into a professional work by pay walling their creations to extract money from fans(and the fact that these are derivatives makes it extra scummy). With that mindset, doing anything that isn't going to bring you more views, patreons and money is a waste of time, it becomes a business. And I believe this is what is destroying otaku, or hobby culture in general. It's no longer about making things you are passionate about, but about making stuff others are passionate about hoping they will throw some money at you.
>>47818566Nobody said anything about NEETs before you made this post.The term otaku has nothing to with NEETdom, yes, but to say the mindset of the otaku and of the willful (often LARPing) NEET aren't close is ignotance. Otaku took the label that was being used as an insult, a term that labelled them useless outsiders and drains on society. The reclaiming of the word as their own was saying "Yes! We reject your society and we reject being a part of it. We enjoy what we enjoy, whether that means we're accepted or not!", and it was through that label that otaku culture as a whole emerged. A group of outsiders, fringe people, with unproductive hobbies and who live in their fantasy world. See also the rise of moe in the otaku scene, or the reasons dempa-themed content is now inseparable from it. Wota can work, they can nominally contribute to society in that sense, because they want to fund their hobby. But don't try and say that they like this society or their role in it, they reject that and any extra contributions to it are indeed a waste of resources that could be funneled back to their enjoyment.
>>47825068NTA, you said:>By definition an otaku contributes nothing to societySomeone who contributes nothing to society by definition is a NEET, not otaku. Many otaku do contribute to the society because you need money to indulge in their hobbies. Being a societal outcast doesn't mean you don't contribute to the society either.
>>47825189You didn't read my post then.Nominal contribution is not the same thing as the typical contribution a person makes to society. In Japan, anti-social behaviors are frowned upon no matter how minor which includes things that don't fit a Western Hemisphere definition of the term. An otaku has rejected their role in society, rejected contributing for the sake of society, rejected the rat race and the traditional roles that he is to fulfil. Marriage, reproduction, altruism, further education, so on. It does not mean a whole a rejection of your place in life, the silent NEET protest. The otaku attitude is one of knowing we can't change society, so let's indulge in fiction that changes it for us, hobbies that aren't affected by society's norms. Let's do as little as possible to scrape by and get further lost in the worlds of our choosing.
>>47825274Again, you are confusing otaku with neets and conformism with contribution. Being an outcast doesn't mean you don't contribute. It could be even said that someone who gives their money to entertainment industry of a country with a lot of cultural exports, helps the society more than someone who gives that money to beer concerns or club owners. And if they further pursue these passions, they might contribute to these cultural exports directly. Basically nothing you are talking about now is related to contributing, just conformism.
>>47825678You're focusing too much on the semantics of it. While yes, it is technically a contribution, the argument can be made that working to afford the bare necessities of life (food, shelter) is not truly a contribution. Purchasing the necessities is also not a contribution if the alternative is the life of a beggar or thief. Working on a capacity to afford both necessities and luxuries of your choosing (in this case, goods and media that you enjoy for escapism) is also not contribution when these luxuries are required to live your way of life; one person sees it as a frivolity but you think of it like your daily bread. The point is that otaku as a group, when reclaiming the term used to brand them as outcasts, decided to celebrate outcast status, which included the rejection of society around them, even if not in a revolutionary sense or in totality. Technically yes, the working wota contributed as much to society as a normalfag salaryman, and both infinitely more than the NEET (who may or may not be an otaku himself).The point is that both otaku and NEET embrace a conscious rejection of their places in life, which ties the two mindsets. They are brothers,at e estranged at times, where the normalfag mindset is a cousin.
Basically contribution to the otaku culture =/= contribution to today's society, in the mindset of an otaku. Contribute only to wota society and someday it will replace polite society. It is intentional rejection of society.
>>47818309lol what a sad tryhard poser. Define "otaku culture" according to (you) then.
>>47825881Most people spent most of their money of necessities and things they enjoy. Just because someone spends them on things that are less normie doesn't mean it's less worthy for the economy. Especially when they fund domestic business.The rest of the post is unrelated to contributing to the society.
>>47825966>normieBut again, you're too focused on the literal semantics of it. I'm speaking in abstract, of how otaku culture sees itself, of the intentions behind it's establishment. What actually occurs in the broad view isn't my point. Please read my posts more carefully and without immediately dismissing them as a disagreement because they aren't, objectively your point is true.
>>47825996Beyond trying to claim that otaku by definition do not contribute to the society, you are basically saying that otaku are outcasts. Yes, they are. That's not what people disagree with you about.
>>47826019You can't read. I recommend taking a course in critical thinking in English.Get well soon.
>>47809772I didn't expect the thread to get this much discussion.Sorry i probably shouldn't have said "leeches" i didn't meant to insult just made an observation.
Also thanks >>47806177 anon, you explained it better than i could.
>>47826994I honestly thought the thread would've fallen off by now too, but you're welcome I suppose. Other posts have decent points I didn't cover as well but I'm glad my small essay was of some minor worth after all. I really don't think I'm all that knowledgeable with some of this stuff but I also have a bad habit of constantly underestimating myself so (shrug).
>>47827036
Together or not together~
