Yeah, I'm not sure how going to lengths to learn theme tunes to cartoons in a language you don't speak, dress cross-gender as characters from said shows, and go to a communion of holy anime worship could be construed as anything except extreme fanboyism?maxlords wrote:Since always? cosplay is practically synonymous with fanboyism. There's no question there. None at all.Obiwanshinobi wrote:Since when cosplaying and singing theme songs at conventions is fanboyism? If they were doing it in the middle of a shopping mall out of the blue, that would be another story.
Let's not get started on this though, weeaboo culture is one topic I wouldn't mind nailing to the cross.
Yes, that's a good synopsis.maxlords wrote:I think the issue we have is that the primary target demographic of MLP is VASTLY different from the secondary audience it has attracted.
The more sensible arguments in this thread all seem to hit a similar wall: Geekiness exists in many facets, but not universally so. There are degrees of nerdiness (as RNGmaster pointed out), ranging from a middle-aged family man with a toy car collection to a man in his thirties sitting down for a My Little Pony marathon.
There's a distinct difference between those two pursuits. On one hand, the toy car collector is rekindling a fondness of objects from childhood memory. But the MLP Brony convention travelling hippy is immersing himself not in fond childhood memories, but in the childhoods of the current generation. In a broader sense, he's fraternising in the interests of children, and perhaps even more oddly, crossing a gender gap that wasn't even acceptable when he was a kid. I wouldn't be surprised if there were more adult males watching MLP than there are young boys.
If those kids give you a 'WTF' face, and ask why anyone would want to watch a 'girls show', you've got some answering to do.
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