#western fandom

[animentality]

[mysticalmusicwhispers]

Another unsolicited opinion, but SEAtalia twitter/the SEA fandom in general is such a breath of fresh air from stuff on here

people ship almost everyone together and it's no big deal, nobody says "oh x and y called each other brothers and therefore it's inc*st" (since everyone understands how sibling terminology actually works in EAsia and SEA) and from what I've seen there's literally no discourse and just wholesome content creation that turns Hetalia into a way for people to share their country's culture with one another

here it's "nichu is inc*st" "morally gray yao is racist" and 203948235 other things that plague the asian characters

[united-fandom-anime]

I feel like a lot of the time when official "popularity" polls of different anime and characters are posted, fandom on Tumblr and Tiktok (and occasionally YouTube) forget what it's actually showing.

Biggest example. The most recent BNHA character popularity poll. Everyone was complaining that Endeavor was there and not All Might. Or that Shindo was there and Dabi wasn't. Hate to break it to people, but if it's an official poll, the characters were decided by the fans in Japan. And shocker, their perception of the characters is different. Case in point. ShinKami fanart on Japanese fansites is next to non-existent. They favor ShinOji. (They also tend to favor EraserMight over EraserMic but that's not what I'm talking about.)

Another is in popularity polls (like the ones on YouTube with the bars) where Naruto or BNHA aren't very high. Same thing. There are different interests between those in Japan and those in the U.S. (and/or Europe).

My point is don't be salty if your favorite show or character isn't as high as you thought. There's a good chance it's based on Japanese interest and theirs is different.

[animentality]

[yumejiin]

"is eastern fandom really that good or do you just not know Japanese"

well that depends entirely on when YOU entered fandom. I entered fandom at least in June 2013, probably earlier, when we were still in the transitional period of early 2000s and early 2010s fandom. The cringe itself was its blood and cells. It was meant to be cringey.

I remember people WISHING they had the dedication of toxicity of EA fandoms. EA fandoms always had the reputation of "toxic" which actually lead to a lot of EA hate ("block Japanese fans on sight") but also west fandom always had a problem of disrespecting asian fandom.

(stealing fanart especially but this was a general fandom thing that I sadly can't shake, I keep just downloading fanart and if theres no watermark I'm just going to forget who owns it. And this was EVERYWHERE back then that is also why a lot of fanart is password protected)

However, If you were like me and saw the transition of early 2000s to late 2010s fandoms you can probably see the appeal of EA fandoms. You've dealt with the same amount of toxicity. "You're not a REAL fan if you don't know this." "You ship that, this is superior". But its not the SAME as the toxicity nowadays.

In the flipside if you started fandoms in 2018 to now, that toxicity might be new to you. The toxicity in fandoms comes from complainers of fandom as a whole not individual hate campaigns of early fandoms. ("This is bad so don't draw it" vs "you don't understand the character since you drew it") That toxicity would be new to you and you'd prefer the western toxicity of fandom.

Theres this theory that "Japanese internet is a least 5 years behind the west." Lately the most popular Japanese youtube videos are "pranks" and "sexual harassment prank" that were popular in the west in 2018.

Basically depending on when you got into fandom can take the same "toxicity" of EA fandoms. Theres toxicity in ALL fandoms, thats what fandoms are, they create drama easily. Its why when proship discourse got to Japan (from western fans) Japanese fanartists started to mass-block antis. Its the same idea of"Don't engage with those who have no braincells" ("don't feed the trolls", "Stupidity bites the rotten apple" all things I've seen back then). Its why people were surprised when EA fandoms harassed a Woithlette Zine for allowing a Nuiveworth artist in (I do not know if those are the ship names). The SAME CHARACTERS just SWITCHED Dynamics. Its amazing, its like toxic Sasunaru vs NaruSasu shippers who were yelling that their ship was better.

[ocerassa]

i’m studying Japanese, and as soon as I know enough I’m joining the Japanese fandom because the western fandom is just complete utter bullshit  

[feminoonas]

Though I think the overall point of their ask was to derail, the one anon who referred to the language of Feminoonas "About Me" being problematic since none of the admins are South Korea is correct on that point.

I am personally very specific in trying to engage and discuss fandom and other related things with a blatant stamp on my opinions and posts denoting the fact that I am NOT Korean either ethnically or by nationality, and I am a Western fan. That bias needs to be personally taken into account an voiced when commenting on social issues, especially since there is a bad precedent of "American/Western Feminists Talking Down To Brown/Black Folks And Telling Them Their Culture Isn't As Progressive Or Awesome As Theirs". Even though I'm not white and come from an immigrant Latino family, I can still misstep or misspeak and say things from an ignorant or biased perspective. All Western fans can and often do. This is a problem in fandom.

If anything, this blog is an energetic attempt talk about fandom from a Western, socially conscious perspective so as to bridge a divide and foster healthy and non-appropriative interactions between different peoples and cultures. We can't promise we won't mess up but we'll do our best to keep ourselves in check and be culturally and personally conscious about things.

I or one of the other admins will get about to changing the about me section to reflect the above stated sentiment more clearly.

-Admin Briana