New Cave Matsuri

[Cagar]

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[Shepardus]

ITT Skykid says "you're wrong"

[Squire Grooktook]

ITT Skykid says "you're wrong"

You might disagree with his opinions, but I don't see how you can equate his various paragraphs and quote chains with this. Like Cagar, he's made a number of arguments and statements.

[Skykid]

ITT Skykid says "you're wrong"

You might disagree with his opinions, but I don't see how you can equate his various paragraphs and quote chains with this. Like Cagar, he's made a number of arguments and statements.

Nobody reads anything.

Seriously, I'm just reading Cagar's most recent post and I'm in fucking despair.

As if the entire exchange so far isn't an eternal testament of proof that he either doesn't read or can't digest basic logic, he missed the entire paragraph where I just stated I never talk in absolutes only to open his response with:

Oh sure then that must apply for the majority of idol fans too.

Jesus wept. It's like having a discussion with a crack-addict.

Someone else talk to him.

[Cagar]

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[Shepardus]

ITT Skykid says "you're wrong"

You might disagree with his opinions, but I don't see how you can equate his various paragraphs and quote chains with this. Like Cagar, he's made a number of arguments and statements.

Well I'm not seeing it. Maybe in cul's single post or NTSC-J's few, but each one of those has communicated more insight than Skykid's presence in the last four pages, which, as Cagar just said, boils down to little more than ad hominems in whic he quotes the last post, splits it up, and to each either says "disagree," "this is a basic failure of logic and reading comprehension," "I weep for humanity," or some variant thereof. Surely if people would just read what he wrote and weren't braindead, everybody would agree, it's that obvious!

[Squire Grooktook]

Well I'm not seeing it. Maybe in cul's single post or NTSC-J's few, but each one of those has communicated more insight than Skykid's presence in the last four pages,

He's basically been arguing the same exact thing as them though the entire time, up to the present page.

At this point I think he's just tired of arguing in circles, as it's clear that neither party is going to give an inch. Wiser men then me know that at some point you gotta stop banging your head against a wall whilst hoping the other guy gets bored first, hang up your hat and move on from the disagreement.

[iconoclast]

Bravo. This may stand as the least convincing rebuttal of an argument on the entire internet.

Skykid: Do you think these guys are aware that these perfect girls they're being sold are actual people? Of course not! They just want to fuck.
Idol Otaku: I know that they are human and they live their private lives normally, like we all do. We cheer for them as idols, not as real people. Also, I never thought of them as being sexual.
Skykid: This is the least convincing rebuttal of an argument on the internet.

???


Everybody's been talking about men, but what about female fans of (female) idols? Is their thirst also being exploited?

[Cagar]

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[Giest118]

Everybody's been talking about men, but what about female fans of (female) idols? Is their thirst also being exploited?

They have to be lesbians...

They must be exterminated, like bronies, or people who read visual novels.

[Durandal]

Everybody's been talking about men, but what about female fans of (female) idols? Is their thirst also being exploited?

Those are called fujoshi.
They are a somewhat different case, but a lost case regardless.

They must be exterminated, like people who read visual novels.

leave

[Xyga]

Ha ha. Another quality thread.

People who can't stand all that stuff should never read the Genshiken Nidaime manga (following the original 'Genshiken').

Especially proud alpha male wannabes, it's guaranteed seizures for them.

[Cagar]

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[Durandal]

Everybody's been talking about men, but what about female fans of (female) idols? Is their thirst also being exploited?

Those are called fujoshi.
They are a somewhat different case, but a lost case regardless.

Fujoshi is a specific type of female fan of anime culture, who comes up with gay relationships between different imaginary characters. This has literally nothing to do with idols though, as you can probably guess.

Don't fujoshi also fawn over male bishounen boyband idols? An otaku can both apply to 2D or 3DPD as well, so I can imagine the same principle applies to fujoshi. Not like pairings are limited to 2D either.

Nice meme picture though.
You guys really love to play around with overblown stereotypes. Do you do this in all subjects?

There's absolutely nothing wrong with bodypillows.

[Sakurei]

Fujoshi are not exclusive to anime related things. There can be fujoshi that pair real people (such as boy group members) with each other. However, fujoshi are unrelated to anything idol related. There are just no males to pair up. Incidentally, the male counterpart of a fujoshi is a fundashi iirc. But same rules apply, it's boy on boy for them, too.

On Skykid: He is right in one thing. The idol industry is a field of exploitation, mostly for the young child idols. If you're older you can decide to not do things because you understand they're fucked up, but a child won't understand much of what she is doing. An idol at sixteen or seventeen will know if she is comfortable with posing in a bikini or shooting a risque PV, but a twelve will not. And that's, in my opinion, the biggest problem with the industry. Not the vocal minority that scream murder whenever an idol has a boyfriend.
By the way, before someone squeaks at me for not pointing this out: Naturally, it's true that if an idol just debuted and isn't popular yet, they'll get all the shitty jobs but in that regard it's much like new actors. You won't get any big roles for a while. Having mini concerts in some random ass shopping mall, for example, is perfectly common. Maybe pose in underwear or something if you're unlucky but that doesn't happen much if you're a music idol. But as long as they have fun doing what they're doing, I don't care either way. Most girls get into the business voluntarily in the first place so I assume they don't hate it at least.
Other than that, Skykid at shown that he has perfectly no understanding on how Japan works. Not to mention that there is no reason why music and dancing wouldn't be art just because an idol is performing. Dancing and music have been art for the longest time and just because the setting for them changed doesn't mean they're suddenly not anymore.

What the idol industry does is know what the biggest part of the audience will be and they're pandering to that. It's business, that's all. In the same that porn is business pandering to their target audiences. The markets which make money in Japan changed a lot in the last decade or two. Manly shmups don't make any money anymore. I do believe I talked about something like this not too long ago on this forum. I believe it was in context of new CAVE shooters being waifubait or something like that. Japanese businesses are just going with the current trend. It's impossible to say for how long the "everything has to be super cute" trend will keep going but it will be here for some time and it's probably about time people stopped bemoaning it. Outside of the occasional doujin shmup, it is incredible unlikely that anyone here will get another shooter that keeps is "sterile" like DDP, Dimahoo or Batsugun or whatever your preferred STG of choice is. At best you will get things like SDOJ with girls of some variety to appeal to different kinds of people talking to you pretty much permanently while you play. I know this wasn't part of the discussion anymore but I felt the need to tell you again because people here seem to be forgetful about recent developments in the Japanese entertainment industry.

[Skykid]

Well I'm not seeing it. Maybe in cul's single post or NTSC-J's few, but each one of those has communicated more insight than Skykid's presence in the last four pages,

He's basically been arguing the same exact thing as them though the entire time, up to the present page.

At this point I think he's just tired of arguing in circles, as it's clear that neither party is going to give an inch. Wiser men then me know that at some point you gotta stop banging your head against a wall whilst hoping the other guy gets bored first, hang up your hat and move on from the disagreement.

Precisely, thanks for reading.

I just came to the conclusion (far too late), that there was never any actual headway to make, sadly. I never wavered from my original point and really should have stopped when J-idols were being touted as art, because if ever there was a warning bell that you're time wasting, that was it.

[Cagar]

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[iconoclast]

However, fujoshi are unrelated to anything idol related. There are just no males to pair up.

There are male idol groups though, like SMAP and V6.

[Squire Grooktook]

For the record, I am sorta neutral on this topic. I agree with some things Skykid has posted, and other things not so much. As it always is~

But mostly it comes down to not giving a fuck about idols (well, I did fap to a legal one once...or was she an actress? ah who gives a fuck) and not caring enough to do any of the necessary research into them.

But reading this argument, I don't think anyone has the right to claim victory. There were many points (on both sides, I think) that went unadressed (or were not fully explored), and it just reads like two guys going in circles while (both) insulting each-other liberally. That kind of situation is a risk when you open up your first response calling someone a "moron" though

[Cagar]

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[Squire Grooktook]

Yeah, Skykid's post might seem arrogant, but you have to understand his philosophy. Despite his liberal politics, his beliefs on art and life are a bit more "classical" IMO. Other people might read it as egoism or arrogance, but in fact he's just staying true to his beliefs and philosophy and making no pretenses to the contrary. I don't agree with many of his views on them myself (such as quality of art being "quantifiable"), but I understand where he's coming from, respect him, and I treat his views as something to consider.

Besides, the "other side" in that first post was an extreme example of basement dwellers living in another country, so I dunno why anyone in this thread would be so radically offended by that.

I feel that if you really wanted to have a discussion and potentially learn something (maybe something that would challenge your own beliefs, maybe something that wouldn't but would help you understand eachother more), you would have been better served to go in with a more reasonable attitude and taken the time to really dig into his philosophy rather then go for the heated forum warrior "debater" route. It's what I would have done, at least (if I gave a fuck).

I feel that there were points he made that weren't addressed, and some of the things he said he didn't explore enough. But IMO that's what happens when you make the person you're talking with a heated adversary from the start.

[Cagar]

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[Squire Grooktook]

I don't think I've heard any convincing argument for the "quantifiable" thing either. I've heard many people espouse the same philosophy, and I've yet to see any response to my main questions/objections of it that I think are meaningful rebuttals, but that's another story.

I think the "spirit" of what Skykid (and the others) have been saying here isn't so bad once you dig past all the unwanted debating/philosophical/japanese culture crap.

"Obsessing(keyword) over x for your whole life is unhealthy and leads to unhappiness."

With x being idols or anything else really.

The obvious response is "so what? as long as it makes them happy and it's not hurting anyone, it's cool." and while I do favor that response myself, at the same time I think that many of these people would generally probably be happier if they...uhh...expanded their interests a bit. You know, it's like when people play Call of Duty for 5 years straight and then try Dark Souls or a shmup or something and then suddenly realized they hate COD and actually like cool games for cool people...yeah.

There's also considerations like how the emergence of such cultures effect the productiveness of society at large, but that's a very complex issue that I'd prefer to stay neutral on in my ignorance.

[Cagar]

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[Eaglet]

The issue is much simpler than you guys make it out to be.
Simply; art is personal expression through an artform.
Idols and other mass produced bullshit is entertainment made with markets and profit as its primary purpose.
Ergo; not art.

[Squire Grooktook]

"Obsessing(keyword) over x for your whole life is unhealthy and leads to unhappiness."

I've never disagreed with this. Although interesting, it's quite far from the subject of J-Idol industry itself. Completely different goalposts, like you yourself say here

There's also considerations like how the emergence of such cultures effect the productiveness of society at large, but that's a very complex issue that I'd prefer to stay neutral on in my ignorance.

However I've said that these obsessed J-Idol fans are not common and that these types of fans are in literally every hobby.

Well, Skykid's posts (and others like Ntsc-j and the rest) seem to indicate that he believes that "idol culture", or at least the more extreme part of it, is part of a larger community of disaffected, aging loners in Japan who are neither happy nor contributing to society, which in turn perpetuates that unhappiness, gives rise to profitable consumer material that encourages it, and results in economic issues.

Is he right about that? I don't know, I am not an expert on Japan.

Only Japanese games.

[cul]

Squire bringing the parachute!
"T-The discussion was not getting anywhere anyways!"
I'll take that as a sign of admitting that you were just unable to continue; not because of time, but because your slowly rising amount of argumentation mistakes culminated in a 100% ad hominem post.

It's actually a joke coming from you. I posted an articulated post with logical arguments and all you could retort were:
"muh morality"
"you're wrong"
"it's false"

Without the slightest beginning of a backing up argument.

For me, I don't see any sexuality. Especially when I know how the general audience usually is. You yourself bring the sexuality to that footage, Skykid again probably gets so turned on by it that he becomes incapable of thinking that someone else might like the show for reasons other than sexuality and therefore suggests people to masturbate.

This is exactly what I was saying about otaku idols. They repressed so much their sexuality that they "don't see any sexuality in this hobby". Sexuality in idols is obvious to anyone but idol otakus. Here is the proof, thanks iconoclast:

https://www.tofugu.com/interviews/idol-otaku/

This guy is your typical average idol otaku, now I know you're gonna argue that he's not, but you'll be fooling yourself. Now, let's see what does he says about a topic remotely connected to sexuality:

I wondered if he truly loved idol girls, or whether it was just an excuse to avoid dating, so I asked, "So, what if an idol girl quit her group and became an ordinary girl? Would you want to date her?"

The question forced him to pause for some time. "That's a tough question," he groaned. "Umm…" he thought on his answer for a while longer and I could hear his foot begin to tap. His head swayed from side to side as though toying with the prospect, or perhaps the impossibility of it, until finally, with an unaffected assuredness, his eyes met mine once again.

"Well, this is my personal opinion, so other otaku may be different, but I cheer for them as an idol – the figure on the stage. I know that they are human and they live their private lives normally, like we all do. But I'm not interested in their private lives. It's said that real people are 3D, anime characters are 2D, and idols are 2.5D. That is to say, we cheer for idols not as real people, but for the image that they project themselves as. We like them as idols. So, if one became an ordinary girl, I don't think that it would be the same. Since I've never had such an experience, I cannot say anything with confidence, but that's what I think for now. Although I might get excited to see them, I only cheer for them as idols," he concluded.

So yeah, you're right, it's totally not about sexuality. These guys are proud confident males, comfortable with their sexuality, that don't care about what other people think, that's why they choose to interact with women only through idealizing them (the idols "2.5D") or deviling them (the "3DPD sluts"). And of course, they're so confident in their sexuality that they all claim they would have no romantic interest with the girls that they idolize all days everyday to the point of obsession that everyone but them finds unhealthy and creepy.

You can't see the sexual repression and frustration in this interview, or in the various idol concert videos or whatever? That doesn't surprise me, the way you reacted when people were making fun of the first post shows that it's like a personal attack to you. You probably think I'm personally attacking you but I just find that really sad knowing very well this kind of predicament. I am myself a total failure at relationships and connecting with people in general, but at least I have not fallen the prey of an exploitative industry selling me creepy sexual escapism.

[Cagar]

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[Squire Grooktook]

No, he was saying that the creators create it for the purpose of profit, rather then for the purpose of expressing themselves.

My definition of art is basically "anything that's made creatively through self expression" regardless of motive. So I guess I would technically call idols...uhhh...art. Technically. Not the kind of art I'd fight a war over though.

[Cagar]

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