Seems like there was just miscommunication and we don’t disagree?
this whole time I have been restating that agree with your assessment that 2B is objectified, I think we disagree over to what extent, but that’s neither here nor there. I think the main crux of our disagreement(s) stems from whether problematic material can be recuperated or if it’s verboten, and we can argue that till the cows come home.
What I DO disagree with is your overtly authoritarian treatment of your own and other’s opinions, and I try to call that out whenever I can.
What I find constant umbrage with you is your knee-jerk dismissal of anyone not brandishing the exact same form of leftyism as you. I find your attitude overly shaming and alienating,.
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I play PUBG. It’s a game where to win you have to shoot people in the face. Not actually, but in a computer game simulation.
My girlfriend really can’t cope with video game depictions of human-on-human violence. She doesn’t like watching it, and will only enjoy PUBG videos where it’s about silly driving stunts. So when we play games together, we play games which don’t revolve around shooting people in the face. Like this year: Subnautica (made by someone who didn’t want to make another game about shooting people in the face), Goose Game, Dream Daddy Dating Simulator.
When I talk to her about my PUBG games I modify my language. I don’t talk about how many “kills” I had in a game, I talk about “knocking someone else out the game” or similar.
She likes watching true-life murder documentaries. I can’t cope with them. Because unlike computer games, at the heart of the entertainment is actually real human suffering. So when she talks about this kind of TV, she prefaces with if at the end (or start) of the story if someone is killed.
Anyway, both of us have something that we enjoy that the other finds distasteful. But we don’t try to impose it on each other, we don’t feel we the other needs to do more research so they can better understand what the other person is comfortable with. We also don’t make either thing such a big part of our identities that we take personal offense when the other person expresses their distaste.
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“I don’t respect your opinion, but you need to respect mine”
exact white male attitude I’m talking about
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Well I’m glad that’s what you’re taking away from this story.
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I know people who vend at cons, who have signs for their booth that literally say things like “Wear Ahego merch, add 25% to the price.”
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sigh, I’m prolly gonna regret this google
yeah, a bit.
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Oh, it gets worse. Friends at Anime NYC mentioned that they saw multiple people walking around with Ahegao hoodies(some with matching pants) that were entirely made up of very underage characters. There’s motherfuckers out there wearing their pedophilia on their sleeve, literally and figuratively, with zero consequences.
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Your exact words in this very thread, and then you post you’re big spiel about how we just need respect each other’s opinions? Fuck off. You do this shit all the time. Get over yourself.
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Jeeze…
So bit personal here but I have a like overactive gag reflex. It’s involuntary and very noticeable, often one begets more.
That’s generally a bit embarrassing (though ultimately harmless, I think) and something I try and avoid in public if at all possible. My google brought it out and I’m imagining seeing those gentlemen would have done the same.
I almost went to anime NYC. Glad I stuck to flamecon.
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Right. I’ll say it again:
If a person literally has an anime character as an avatar then they are a person who, by definition, so closely associates their personality with their anime intake that it’s impossible for them to see this issue from the outside.
I mean, literally.
This is how I judge your expression of yourself. If you have an anime character avatar, I make judgements on your taste and personality based on that.
I’ve already said that your opinions and tastes are your own. Go wild. They don’t effect me.
You know what does effect me? Blatantly sexist representations of women as a stand-in for culture. Tit windows and upskirt shots as a daily experience on this forum.
I don’t like that material. It doesn’t make me feel comfortable. I’m judging people who bring this into my world negatively. I can’t help it. That’s who I am and what my comfort levels are.
I don’t need to educate myself more on where this material comes from. I know I find so much of it distasteful, and I’m not going to start googling terms to see how close to the line of taste they are.
If someone who didn’t have an anime avatar wanted to talk to me about this, I’d be open to following some links and reading more. But that people with anime avatars are so happy-go-lucky with the blatantly sexist imagery sharing, and argue against it being problematic, they are the people I don’t want to have the conversation with. They just creep me out.
I’ll have a conversation about lolita fashion with a woman who wears it and feels comfortable with it. If that’s not you, and I have to wade through vibes of toxic male gaze, I’m not interested.
I honestly don’t see how me being repulsed by sexist imagery where I’m never sure if I’m going to have pedophile search terms in my browser history, and expressing that view, is suddenly a condemnation of me as a “typical white male”.
If it’s a typical white male thing to want a forum more accepting to women, sign me up!
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(post withdrawn by author, will be automatically deleted in 24 hours unless flagged)
I’ll just rephrase @panfriedmarmot’s argument since I think the exact same thing and you have a hangup about a pixel circle.
Every time it’s the same; you come in with your anime=problematic guns firing. There’s a ton of problematic stuff in anime culture, probably a higher concentration than most other groups. There’s also a metric ton of anime that isn’t the least bit problematic, but whenever that comes up you plug your ears and run down this bullshit about how you shouldn’t be expected to internally normalize problematic shit despite the fact that no one is asking you to.
You have an opinion and not only do your reiterate that you’re unwilling to learn or possibly change it, you brag about how much of a better person it makes you. Then you denigrate anyone arguing against as if they’re arguing in favor of problematic shit when all they’re asking if for you to be an iota less like a brick wall.
And now your running off about how we need to respect each other’s opinions and that even though your find it unforgivable for people to like things you hate, nobody should feel bad for liking problematic stuff and it’s just like your opinion man.
You’re toxic as hell.
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Okay, I get it. Sorry if I’ve come off as dismissive.
This is a real hangup of mine, and I’ve tried to explain why I don’t feel like “go do more research in an area that you find creepy” isn’t the best way to make me feel less creeped out by it. Kinda the opposite.
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nobody is asking you “research” loli or gothic lolita or whatever, can you read the fucking words I type for once?
Maybe try watching an anime? Like Samurai Champloo? Or Fullmetal Alchemist? Akira? Castle in the Sky? Tokyo Godfathers? Doesn’t matter to me, I personally don’t care since I’m not privy to your personal purity test for what constitutes creepy anime stuff or not. I don’t think there’s anything even remotely problematic in those, but I could have forgotten something. If my recommendations paint me as an anime creep in your mind please let me know so we can at least mutually dismiss everything the other says like stubborn assholes.
Anime movies aren’t what I find problematic. I’ve seen plenty of anime movies, including half the movies you mentioned above. I’ve liked a lot of the ones I’ve seen. The ones I’ve liked have been almost universally recommended by film critics, other movie makers, friends of mine and loads of other people. I consider a good movie to be a good movie, be it animation or not, from Japan or not, a movie for children or not.
Anime TV shows I’ve had a mixed reaction to. It’s mostly a stylistic thing, and much of it not being particularly age appropriate to me. Maybe if I’d grown up with watching it. But then I grew up without a TV in the house, and have no attachment or desire to watch cartoons not from Japan or in that style.
The anime culture that arrives at me via images shared on the internet is another issue, and more like the issue I’m bringing up here. As in, exactly the conversation that started this whole discussion.
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Most of Anime NYC was fine! It’s just that Anime fans, regrettably, were also anime fans while there.
Anime is just animation from Japan. Anime movies and TV shows have very few differences. Obviously TV shows are usually longer and are broken into episodes. TV shows often have lower production values and smaller budgets. They also are shown on TV and not in theaters.
Other than that, they are the same. Some will be age appropriate for you, and some won’t be. Some are full of awful sexual objectification, and some are not. They cover ever possible genre you can imagine. Think about the diversity of western television animation. You have everything from Pepa Pig, Muppet Babies, Ren & Stimpy, The Simpsons, Spongebob, Beavis & Butthead, Dexter’s Lab, Duck Tales, GI Joe, Samurai Jack, Steven Universe, Rick & Morty, Mickey Mouse, Loony Tunes, the diversity is just insane. Anime is just as diverse, regardless of whether it is TV or movies. Same goes for manga.
You are absolutely right that there are a lot of anime with content we both find extremely distasteful. It’s also easy to see as how an outsider to anime you might only see the stereotype and imagery used by anime fans on the Internet and believe that is what anime is all about. Fans who do things like defend that sort of imagery are obviously not helping to remove that image from your brain.
So yes, it is completely understandable why you think what you do, and why that has completely turned you off. However, I also understand the frustration on the other side. You are dismissing not just a genre, but an entire medium. Imagine if someone dismissed all UK TV shows because they really really didn’t like Dr. Who. Obviously that is not representative of all UK TV!
It’s really just a shame because several animated Japanese TV shows are absolute masterpieces. There is a lot of frustration when someone refuses to even give them a chance, like you are, because they are just so unbelievably good we want you to experience their greatness, or at least give them a fair shake. I mean, I dismiss and don’t watch any of the Hollywood Marvel/DC superhero movies, but I saw a bunch before I stopped caring.
You know what the hottest TV anime is right now that everyone is talking about? It’s Carole & Tuesday. It’s a sci-fi show about a singer songwriter duo who live on a terraformed Mars. This is the opening sequence that looks nothing like the stereotype of TV anime you are imagining.
The show is on Netflix, by the way.
What you miss is that there are several shows like this every season. Those are the shows we are watching and you are ignoring in your efforts to avoid the really awful ones. And the fact you have cast too broad a generalization is what causes frustration.
As for everyone else.
If you like pervy stuff that doesn’t make you a bad person. Nothing wrong with that. I mostly don’t like it, but that’s just me.
I also don’t agree that it should somehow be censored or non-existent. Freedom of expression is fine.
The reason I say it is problematic and I don’t want it around is because of the effect it has on the environment. A lot like how actual pollution damages the real environment, this kind of content damages the community. It makes it an uncomfortable and unwelcoming place for many people. Yes, there are very good people who enjoy this kind of content. That’s great for them, and I have nothing against that. The problem is if that content is posted all over the community, or if people are making excuses for that kind of content, then it harms the environment.
There are obviously exceptions, like panfriedmarmot and their partner happily enjoying this stuff together. But for the vast majority of people, that is not how it works. Having that stuff, and defenses of it, here will, for the most part, attract ahegao hoodie type people that we don’t want. For the most part it will also repel people we do want. When I say we, I mean, Rym and I, and the kind of people we want in our community.
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Man, it’s so much easier to go “I like this and you might find it problematic in these ways” than getting super accusatory defensive about things.
Sure, a person might make take your benefit of the doubt and engage in the media and enjoy it. Great! But if a person still feels reserved not to do that, that’s fine too! No one has enough time and energy to consume all media. And people have different takes on media, yourself included. The person might still watch your media and it’ll still make them feel bad. Times change.
It’s easier to go with the flow and stand with your feelings than fight against them. Usually when I hear Rym/Scott criticize something on the podcast; they’ll go “That’s great” or “That shit sucks” and they’ll only continue that conversation if someone (or each other) chooses to engage with them. That’s just how they discuss media.