Justice for the word.
In response to a space bunny’s failpost (really, you lost me dude), I think it’s about time we clear things up according to more than just looking at the letters.
“Otakuism”. You know the word. And if you do, you know what you can call yourself. But hey, it’s more than what the perception of the word is. The word “Otaku” was first used to denote family, or house. However, further implications of the word were changed according to the people not only in the anime or manga business, but to ordinary people as well.
First would have been the lolicon community. Note the word. “Lolicon”. Who guessed this would pop up as soon as Macross came up? Add in some serial killers hell-bent for lolis, more Macross, MORE MACROSS, MORE FUCKING MACROSS, then some Gundam, and a horde of creative people who want to gratify their pitiful selves by using a term that generalizes them, and there you have it.
Sure, you’ll see a lot of anime and manga references thrown in there. But no, it still doesn’t justify calling someone who loves the stuff as an otaku. Maybe it was because of the repetitive usage and implcation. Maybe it was because the word inclined into something sort of an indoor hobby (though that’s a big shitty lie). Maybe because of Macross, and lolis, which amazingly go hand in hand on the latest season. All I know is that we need to give the moonpeople some credit for the word. Now a lot of retards call themselves by the namesake.
How does one label a person an otaku? Anime? Manga? Yeah, right. Those kind of people might’ve experienced some kind of jet lag since they’re living in some kind of screwed eon or something. True it may have been largely related to the anime and manga industry, but that’s not the case anymore. Any frequent obsession over something, anime, manga, or no, can be distinguished as an otaku nowadays. Geek over houses and architecture? You’re a house otaku. Ga-ga over figurines and nendroids? You’re a figumate otaku. Now, see the whole picture?
Unfortunately, some people still defend the term according to its most famous meaning, and the most likely of them are the people outside the moonland: the west, and some from the east. Since the rave of the word they already went out branding their stupid selves based on what’s the most typical meaning there is. I can’t argue. Moonpeople don’t, because they still see people who take anime and manga as a hobby as otakus in general. That’s that, and knowing the the word’s nature, it’s hard to reverse the meaning that’s so strongly etched to it.
I’m no exception to this ruling either, even though I don’t really brand myself as an otaku. It’s just that it’s going to be the most likely term they’d call me when they see how I do things. But I don’t care, really. It’s just the matter of perception, and that’s how this word goes in MY dictionary.
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