'Of social networks, otaku, and why I just don't care'
Unless you have neither access to Internet, talk to people or do not watch TV - in some form or another you have heard of online social networking. It is a big craze particularly among all levels of current students, and while in principle it's a great way to connect to people, though I find that as with most things popular there are quite a few problems. Take one of the most talked about social networks recently 'Facebook', (which admittedly I am a member... actually this blog gets automatically posted to my profile... hmm, ah well) anyway, it can get very addictive yet while it isn't quite as bad as some other networks I've tried there are the same problems which people should be aware of yet unfortunately don't have the time or energy to look into.
Well one thing I've noticed about most online networks is that there seems to be a kind of 'collector' attitude. For most networks you invite people to be your friend and then you create a list of friends who you... well, basically keep as a scorecard. People will invite people to be friends and then never contact them again, unless you are actually have some real world interaction at least once in a while. To be honest that's only natural, for all attempts at realism and connecting to people, the Internet is a virtual world, IE not real, as in - not a substitute for real world interactions. I'm tempted to use the old quote regarding quantity and quality but I'm sure most people with some cerebral function left can see where I'm going.
As well there is a certain loss of privacy, and especially in Facebook where the defaults for privacy are dangerously low, it can lead to someone or some company having full access to your profile as well as all content you've shared - including your list of friends. In fact Facebook announced their new 'platform', where companies can use third party applications on Facebook granting them full access to a users information unless the change their privacy settings.
That doesn't mean online social networks are evil, just that one has to be fully aware of what they are signing up for and as painful as it may sound - read the fine print.
Well now that part is out of the way, I wish to speak now a self professed Otaku (geek), I say self professed because until last weekend, I had no idea how shallow my geekiness was - not that's a bad thing. For the first time I attended an anime convention... it was an interesting experience, if you don't know what anime is - well, mostly this, but fortunately sometimes this or this. Anyway getting back to the convention, called Otafest, was pretty interesting, a brief recap:
Day 1, arranged to meet friend at the convention so headed out on the Ctrain to the U of C campus. I could tell I was going in the right directino because of the various people dressed up as anime characters in scattered amoung the other passengers. Got to convention at 9 am, and proceeded to spend the next hour in line to get it - seriously never knew there were that many anime fans, unfortunately there were mostly considerably younger and a few had questionable hygiene. Though the fun part of waiting in line was watching the reaction of older people dropping off kids to the event, their faces basically read with a mixture of shock, confusion and horror, though in all fairness if your not prepared to see people dressed as assorted Ninjas, robots, androids, maids, Gothic Lolita's and even a few furries (you don't want to know) it can be mentally damaging.
Finally register, $12 for 2 days hmm, not too bad, pick up a guide book since it's probably the most useful souvenir for the convention. Taking a look at the schedule there are about 10 rooms devoted to viewing different anime, throughout the day they have different events to cater the Otaku such as; Iaido demonstration (sword fighting forms), sushi lessons, cosplay show, beat the geeks contest, a video game room, anime music video contest (music put to clips from anime, a la ici), Japanese fashion show, a dealer room (anime related not drugs), and an auction room to name a few. Though probably the highlight of the convention is the 404's, an improve group similar to 'Whose line is it anyway' with a bit of a geeky twist.
Not seeing anything too interesting, head to the dealer room - another huge line, fortunately it moves a bit faster only 30 minutes this time. Inside is where the magic happens, then is bottled and sold for $4.99 an ounce, a lot of different vendors from around the city are there to share their wares of DVD's, manga, plushies, wall scrolls, bokken, swords (very fake), plushies, Japanese music, and other assorted merchandise related to asian culture... I use culture in a very liberal sense. Still it was kinda neat to browse around the different stalls and see what was being sold, and to my own amazement found a series of DVD's that was planning to buy for 1/3 the normal price, can't go wrong there I suppose. There were a few interesting things such as an old NES system, some really beautiful art scrolls, racks of various clothing.
Meet up with a few friends and decide to grab a much needed drink and some food, fortunately there is a bar right in the building - score. Compared to the chaos outside the bar is very quiet, probably since most of the attendees already spent their money in the dealer room or are underage. The bar food is surprisingly good, and gives us the energy to walk around a bit. Check out a few anime shows, then decide to check out the cosplay show, to which another formidable line awaits. The cosplay consists of people in different costumes who then perform a skit of some kind or just pose if they're unimaginative, some of the costumes are impressive, some of the skits are funny... though often not both and for the most part neither. Leaving the show early check out a few more horrid anime for laughs then a live action ninja movie - again for laughs. Not much else going on so head for the C-Train and head home.
Unfortunately a bit of a story on the way back, our travelling group consists of myself a couple of friends and another friend of a friend who is a hardcore Otaku... hardcore. We chat a bit and at the next stop a group of rather attractive (and slightly inebriated) members of the opposite sex sit in the opposite booth, and for some odd reason actually ask us what we're up to... I seriously doubt anything would have happened but after a day of being a geek it seemed like a nice change of pace to talk to a few ladies. At that exact moment our Otaku friend decided to go into a rather impassioned recount of his anime purchases including some 'figurines', well that ended any possibility of conversation right there. Meh, that's life I guess, so that ended day 1 will probably post day 2 later as this post has already taken on a rather epic length and I have a few more things to write.
So first impressions of Otafest? Well honestly had to say I felt a bit like a dirty old man, it was fun but it is definitely these things are something you go with a group to, fortunately have a good group of people who are for the most part mature. It was very commercialized in the amount of rather useless shiny things that were sold - and bought. Though the things I appreciate about anime were also at the conference, people enjoying themselves without worrying about what other people think, taking time to show their passion and skill with costumes and performances.
That is probably what I'm going to take from my experience at the convention, if you have the courage dress up as Sailor moon while doing a pretty good impression of Vicky Pollard, while it's kinda weird - it's pretty damn impressive as well. The moral, I guess is don't care so much about what others thing, we're all a bit silly anyhow.
Well one thing I've noticed about most online networks is that there seems to be a kind of 'collector' attitude. For most networks you invite people to be your friend and then you create a list of friends who you... well, basically keep as a scorecard. People will invite people to be friends and then never contact them again, unless you are actually have some real world interaction at least once in a while. To be honest that's only natural, for all attempts at realism and connecting to people, the Internet is a virtual world, IE not real, as in - not a substitute for real world interactions. I'm tempted to use the old quote regarding quantity and quality but I'm sure most people with some cerebral function left can see where I'm going.
As well there is a certain loss of privacy, and especially in Facebook where the defaults for privacy are dangerously low, it can lead to someone or some company having full access to your profile as well as all content you've shared - including your list of friends. In fact Facebook announced their new 'platform', where companies can use third party applications on Facebook granting them full access to a users information unless the change their privacy settings.
That doesn't mean online social networks are evil, just that one has to be fully aware of what they are signing up for and as painful as it may sound - read the fine print.
Well now that part is out of the way, I wish to speak now a self professed Otaku (geek), I say self professed because until last weekend, I had no idea how shallow my geekiness was - not that's a bad thing. For the first time I attended an anime convention... it was an interesting experience, if you don't know what anime is - well, mostly this, but fortunately sometimes this or this. Anyway getting back to the convention, called Otafest, was pretty interesting, a brief recap:
Day 1, arranged to meet friend at the convention so headed out on the Ctrain to the U of C campus. I could tell I was going in the right directino because of the various people dressed up as anime characters in scattered amoung the other passengers. Got to convention at 9 am, and proceeded to spend the next hour in line to get it - seriously never knew there were that many anime fans, unfortunately there were mostly considerably younger and a few had questionable hygiene. Though the fun part of waiting in line was watching the reaction of older people dropping off kids to the event, their faces basically read with a mixture of shock, confusion and horror, though in all fairness if your not prepared to see people dressed as assorted Ninjas, robots, androids, maids, Gothic Lolita's and even a few furries (you don't want to know) it can be mentally damaging.
Finally register, $12 for 2 days hmm, not too bad, pick up a guide book since it's probably the most useful souvenir for the convention. Taking a look at the schedule there are about 10 rooms devoted to viewing different anime, throughout the day they have different events to cater the Otaku such as; Iaido demonstration (sword fighting forms), sushi lessons, cosplay show, beat the geeks contest, a video game room, anime music video contest (music put to clips from anime, a la ici), Japanese fashion show, a dealer room (anime related not drugs), and an auction room to name a few. Though probably the highlight of the convention is the 404's, an improve group similar to 'Whose line is it anyway' with a bit of a geeky twist.
Not seeing anything too interesting, head to the dealer room - another huge line, fortunately it moves a bit faster only 30 minutes this time. Inside is where the magic happens, then is bottled and sold for $4.99 an ounce, a lot of different vendors from around the city are there to share their wares of DVD's, manga, plushies, wall scrolls, bokken, swords (very fake), plushies, Japanese music, and other assorted merchandise related to asian culture... I use culture in a very liberal sense. Still it was kinda neat to browse around the different stalls and see what was being sold, and to my own amazement found a series of DVD's that was planning to buy for 1/3 the normal price, can't go wrong there I suppose. There were a few interesting things such as an old NES system, some really beautiful art scrolls, racks of various clothing.
Meet up with a few friends and decide to grab a much needed drink and some food, fortunately there is a bar right in the building - score. Compared to the chaos outside the bar is very quiet, probably since most of the attendees already spent their money in the dealer room or are underage. The bar food is surprisingly good, and gives us the energy to walk around a bit. Check out a few anime shows, then decide to check out the cosplay show, to which another formidable line awaits. The cosplay consists of people in different costumes who then perform a skit of some kind or just pose if they're unimaginative, some of the costumes are impressive, some of the skits are funny... though often not both and for the most part neither. Leaving the show early check out a few more horrid anime for laughs then a live action ninja movie - again for laughs. Not much else going on so head for the C-Train and head home.
Unfortunately a bit of a story on the way back, our travelling group consists of myself a couple of friends and another friend of a friend who is a hardcore Otaku... hardcore. We chat a bit and at the next stop a group of rather attractive (and slightly inebriated) members of the opposite sex sit in the opposite booth, and for some odd reason actually ask us what we're up to... I seriously doubt anything would have happened but after a day of being a geek it seemed like a nice change of pace to talk to a few ladies. At that exact moment our Otaku friend decided to go into a rather impassioned recount of his anime purchases including some 'figurines', well that ended any possibility of conversation right there. Meh, that's life I guess, so that ended day 1 will probably post day 2 later as this post has already taken on a rather epic length and I have a few more things to write.
So first impressions of Otafest? Well honestly had to say I felt a bit like a dirty old man, it was fun but it is definitely these things are something you go with a group to, fortunately have a good group of people who are for the most part mature. It was very commercialized in the amount of rather useless shiny things that were sold - and bought. Though the things I appreciate about anime were also at the conference, people enjoying themselves without worrying about what other people think, taking time to show their passion and skill with costumes and performances.
That is probably what I'm going to take from my experience at the convention, if you have the courage dress up as Sailor moon while doing a pretty good impression of Vicky Pollard, while it's kinda weird - it's pretty damn impressive as well. The moral, I guess is don't care so much about what others thing, we're all a bit silly anyhow.
