Fan snobbery

[caddyalan]

A couple episodes ago, the Tomocast crew talked about toy snobs. For better or for worse, I know almost nothing about toys and their fans. But I do know a lot about other types of fan snobbery -- especially when it comes to anime, manga, and translated video games.

Now I must admit that it's not bad to be selective about your purchases. I admit I've bought a few too many titles because of foolish reasons, such as...

1) I liked the cover
2) I liked the franchise and its creators
3) It was cheap
4) It was rare

None of those are good reasons to make a purchase. Crap content can be hidden under an awesome cover. Even the best creators can make terrible things. "Inexpensive" often goes hand-in-hand with "not worth it." And unless you love collectibles and keep them in pristine condition, rare things aren't often worth buying.

But that said, I know from my years as a Way Too Serious fanboy of anime, manga, and Japanese video games that there's some frustratingly common snobby attitudes. These include, but aren't limited to...

1. The belief that Japanese media is inherently superior. I know I've held this view at times, especially during years when I didn't care about any comic books or games that were originally written in English.

2. The belief that translations and marketing water down a product. Yeah, I know there are some official translations and adaptations that are pretty embarrassing. But let's face it, without translations, fandom would still be stuck in 1985. (There was a dark time when anime fans could only obtain videos by trading unsubtitled video tapes with people living in Japan. Blurry 11th generation VHS with no audio was considered excellent!)

3. The belief that people outside of your small segment of fandom will never understand you, or your favorite media. This is a common thought in many circles. It's especially common when the thing you like is tough to describe, challenging to obtain, or infrequently translated. But I've seen some of the weird stuff I enjoy slowly become mainstream. (The "boring" RPGs that I grew up on started getting huge amounts of publicity, and people besides me started to like them. The anime series that I paid $30 so I could have two subtitled episodes got streamed online, sometimes for free. And even the tiny fandom of visual novels now has fan translations, and games originally in English which aren't appalling.)

So it's probably best for us fans to laugh, and not take our fandom seriously. We can admit that "cartoon" doesn't always mean "stupid show with too much marketing." We can admit that there are some comics in English which aren't just for aging superhero fans. And we can admit there are a few Western style video games worth discussing.

What do you think?

[Gee-Man]

I completely and absolutely agree with all your points. I feel one of the biggest pitfalls of the gaming and anime community (just going to mention those two because I'm familiar with both) could possibly be the elitism of certain people. And it goes both ways. You have weaboo JRPG fanboys who think games like Mass Effect 2 are "watered down" or their story is dumb. And on the other side of the coin, you have elitist Western games who think all Japanese games are inherently inferior because of anime artstyle or Eastern-styled story telling.

I feel the same thing is also happening far too often for its own good in the anime community. Too often I hear people saying that Japanese media is the only interesting one, and that Western animation, movies, music, and games are completely inferior. This is exactly the kind of mindset I hope does not become mainstream. Major Motoko Kusanagi of GitS said it best: "Variation is the key to survival, overspecialization leads to death."

Anyone even basically-immersed in Western entertainment culture will tell you that there are tons of great Western comics, cartoons, and games. Whether it's a visionary tour de force like Samurai Jack or a stunning social commentary like Watchmen, Western media has proved itself over and over again to be just as good as Eastern media.

I guess my point is, every culture has something to offer to entertainment. It'd be a grand and tragic waste to purposely ignore one or the other because of bias or preconceptions.

[The-Excel]

1. The belief that Japanese media is inherently superior. I know I've held this view at times, especially during years when I didn't care about any comic books or games that were originally written in English.
If you believe that some other country's media is better than your own country's, your selling your own country short. All media sells on its own flashiness, if not its own sophistication. What about Japan's media is so much better than your own? Japanese media isn't perfect, and neither is Western media. But odds are you are more familiar with media from your own country and not nearly as familiar with Japanese media and therefore are biased against one of them.

I know there are people who have fair opinions of both Western and Japanese media and prefer the latter, but it's hard to tell them apart from the people who like anime and Japanese film just because.


2. The belief that translations and marketing water down a product. Yeah, I know there are some official translations and adaptations that are pretty embarrassing. But let's face it, without translations, fandom would still be stuck in 1985. (There was a dark time when anime fans could only obtain videos by trading unsubtitled video tapes with people living in Japan. Blurry 11th generation VHS with no audio was considered excellent!)
The argument that things get lost and inserted in translation is a tenuous one today at best. Of course you would settle for no less than the best possible experience your abilities and means can afford you, but let's face it: how are you to trust the imprinted translations of others completely? They view the words and implied meanings through their own lens and you might not agree with it if you knew for yourself what you think they're saying. You're going entirely on someone else's word. Even commercially translated works apply their own meanings based on their own interests, and unlike fans, they're out to make money. Everything any good for-profit company does is based in that fact, and if you think otherwise, you might be new to this planet. The only way to get the experience the creators intended is to know the language and culture they grew up in and watch it raw, untouched by the hands of others. The fewer people between creator and watcher, the more "pure" your experience is. Is it really worth putting your own cultural experiences aside to watch a few cartoons you think are better and more relatable than yours?


3. The belief that people outside of your small segment of fandom will never understand you, or your favorite media. This is a common thought in many circles. It's especially common when the thing you like is tough to describe, challenging to obtain, or infrequently translated. But I've seen some of the weird stuff I enjoy slowly become mainstream. (The "boring" RPGs that I grew up on started getting huge amounts of publicity, and people besides me started to like them. The anime series that I paid $30 so I could have two subtitled episodes got streamed online, sometimes for free. And even the tiny fandom of visual novels now has fan translations, and games originally in English which aren't appalling.)
I admit that I'm always looking out for the underappreciated, overlooked works that make their fans cool by virtue of their small fanbases. That "cool" feeling you get by understanding and appreciating something few others do tends to build elitist feelings and you don't want to lose them. No one does. You feel important, cultured, better than those who don't know for some reason. You don't want someone to take that away and you especially don't want huge groups to snatch it under your nose. "I liked it before it was cool", you say. Too bad, no one's listening; they're too busy watching/playing this hyper-cool program you once claimed as your own for whatever reason.