LincolnSmash, on 03 June 2012 - 10:58 AM, said:
Actually, in Japan, anyone who watches anime above age, like, 12-15 is considered weird. And anyone who considers themselves a "gamer" is also labelled as immature or childish. It's why when coworkers ask eachother what they do in their free time it's often "golf" or "gardening", which are sometimes lies to hide what they really enjoy. The only real socially acceptable ways to "geek out" are playing casual games on your DS/phone or reading manga on the train.
So literally everybody who isn't a teenager on this forum, regardless of what subforum they frequent, would be considered a "degenerate manchild" by Japanese society, as Der Komissar would put it (and I really hope his name isn't a 40k reference either, because man the irony of a 40k fan making comments about manchildren in other fanbases

).
Hollister, on 03 June 2012 - 07:33 PM, said:
Funny that Japan has some of the most extreme geeks in the world. Japanese otaku are known for there sick and twisted crap that they do, which gives alot of the other people who are not so extreme a bad reputation.
from what i understand the Japanese are a very culturally repressed people, unfortunately because they are so culturally repressed they're cultural extremes occur more often. Which is why we/us here on this continent hear all those crazy things about the japanese. That's how i've always heard it put.
Of course it doesn't help that Game companies like nintendo and sony are confirmed to be immensely popular there, perhaps when we say gamer what we mean is the western concept of gamer/gaming is not so accepted there, after all our games don't do very good in japan. They also host the Tokyo Gameshow don't they? So it can't be that taboo to be a gamer in Japan if they host one of the biggest and increasingly important gaming conventions in the world. And their geeks do tend to be very public about being geeks from the stuff i've seen.
just my 2 cents on it, but with respect to ponies, here in the US i think the pony phenomena is a result of changing cultural values to some extent and the small amounts of public friction between media outlets and the brony community at times (as well as other groups/individuals) is a result of an evolving concept of gender. But i'm not a sociologist or psychologist so i have no authority on the matter. Just my perspective. OH and it's like the only good cartoon on TV any more....