After I shared my thoughts about Miyazaki’s remarks on otakus and the Anime Industry’s focus on that demographic, one of the comments caught my attention to write about this topic: Should you call yourself an otaku or even a gamer? (Image Source)
In the past, these labels have negative connotations and stereotypes towards a person liking a certain hobby because it’s not socially accepted. This differs to the word “fan” which implies a strong interest or liking in something, but does not have an undesirable perception in comparison. Granted, video games and anime has been in the mainstream for a while now, but should people use these demeaning labels to describe a person’s interest in a hobby? To me, I think it’s better to move away from these labels not because they are demeaning, but for the fact that it defines a person to a hobby.
While otakus and gamers have some differences in terms of interests, the stereotypes and perception of both by society is similar. People tend to stereotype them as lazy, unproductive to society, and socially inept for the fact that they do nothing but play games or watch anime/read manga all day long. However, otakus are viewed more negatively compared to gamers for the fact that there was a person who was heavily interested in horror anime that murdered several girls as a result of being withdrawn from society.
While this isn’t the case anymore, there are still some instances of anti-social behavior from otakus such as people carrying around a dakimakura of a fictional character he/she likes or instances of harassment against voice actors/idol singers just because he/she is dating someone. These negative behaviors from a small minority of the fan base creates a negative stigma for people who have an interest in these kinds of media even if they don’t want to be labeled as one. As a result, it causes a person to keep their interest for a certain hobby a secret in order to avoid being labeled as such by society. As seen in Nogizaka Haruka’s Secret and Ore no Imouto, Haruka and Kirino had to hide their otaku interests from their parents and friends because they fear that they will judge them by their otaku interests. Both of their fathers eventually find that their daughters have an interest in it and immediately disapprove of it by telling them that they have to get rid of it.
From this example, it shows that society is quick to judge people who have interest in a certain hobby just because it’s not socially acceptable. I don’t think it’s right since not all fans of video games or anime are anti-social or take things to obsessive levels. There are a lot of normal people who play video games or watch shows geared to an otaku audience on a daily basis. I admit that I enjoy playing video games and watching shows that has cute girls. To me, they are just forms of entertainment that I enjoy, not something that replaces reality. Furthermore, I think that there are many normal and sociable people who collect merchandise and figurines. Lastly, there are a lot of normal people video games that enjoy playing video games and are hard-core fans.
If that is the case, why do people get tied to a label just because they have an interest in a particular hobby while others don’t get the same treatment? If someone watches a movie, would you call him or her a moviegoer? If someone listens to Japanese music for instance, would you call him or her a Japanese music listener? No, you wouldn’t because watching a movie or listening to music is socially accepted and don’t have a label compared to playing a video game or watching anime. This double standard does not only apply to these hobbies themselves, but media targeted to a certain demographic. For instance, it’s socially acceptable to play casual video games like Candy Crush Saga or Angry Birds on a smart phone or tablet but not games like Tales of Hearts or Hyperdimension Neptunia on a gaming console. These double standards are one of the reasons I don’t like the word gamer and outright refuse to call myself an otaku (aside from term being negative in Japan).
At the end of the day, I understand that there are good amounts of people who prefer calling themselves gamers or otakus and I respect that. One have to agree, why are we automatically labeled as such just because we enjoy playing video games, watching anime, reading manga/light novels/visual novels or interested in gaming/otaku subculture? These labels only encapsulate all negative stereotypes for people who are interested in these hobbies. Why can’t anime, video games, light novels, etc. be considered a form of entertainment or a hobby instead a label? These forms of entertainment are already mainstream, so why not?
With that, what are your feelings towards the words “gamer” and “otaku”? Do you think people should automatically be labeled as one because they have interest in video games, anime, etc?
I think that, to a certain extent, “labeling” and other forms of categorization of people are a heuristic, part of a normal human thought pattern that generalizes complex, specific concepts into larger categories in order to make them easier to think about. You can hear a person be identified as a “gamer” and immediately know certain things about them.
The point at which labeling becomes a problem is when biased people extrapolate these categories to represent more than themselves. To people who self-identify as gamers, “gamer” doesn’t mean much more than “an individual who play videogames,” but to society, it has all these auxiliary stigmas attached to it (Antisocial, lazy, unproductive, socially inept). Same thing with “otaku.” The negative perspective given to these labels is almost entirely the result of people whose agenda involves those labels having a negative perspective.
Look at the terms “geek” and “nerd” in the US. They used to be derisive terms used to make fun of awkward people with fringe interests, but now the societal narrative is that “nerds are cool now” and it’s “cool” to be into Marvel comics, and Transformers. Not-so-incidentally, this comes at a time when these formerly-fringe interests are really big outside of the “geek” demographic that’s loved them all along.
I don’t think labels themselves are a negative thing. They help us to more easily understand things about other people and connect with each other. I just think that a lot of the time, these terms get co-opted by people who either 1: Want a certain group of people to stay underfoot societally, or 2: Want to change the behaviour of a certain group of people to more conform to their personal sensibilities and/or worldviews.
Way I see it, the “solution” is to “take these terms back,” so-to-speak, and have more people identify themselves as “gamers,” “otaku,” etc. so the negative stereotypes surrounding those terms can be broken through and those terms can go back to what they’re actually supposed to mean.
I agree, but beyond just identifying ourselves as “gamers” and “otaku,” our behavior while in the 3D realm needs to be one where it would not draw further negative opinions on it. With the majority of people have the incorrect preception that animation is “just for kids,” we anime fans needs to act in a responsibile manner when engaging the outside world so that in time, people will come to acknowledge that we are just like everyone else, except having interest in a foreign/unique hobby
Gamers and otaku could certainly stand to improve on their behaviour outside of their hobbies, and that’s important to point out. However, I think that also pointing out that painting an entire group with a broad brush just because of the actions of a few prominent dumb people is something that shouldn’t be happening and is, again, the product of people with an agenda latching on to negative portrayals of certain groups of people to create a negative view of those groups.
As a whole, while I don’t believe in labels, I do understand the need for them as one needs to have some idea of what kind of person he/she is. Of course, stereotypes and social stigma is one of the problems why these one of the reasons why people avoid these interests even if he/she has an interest has in something that is considered uncool. However, I think the labels I mention will become less negative as a certain interest becomes mainstream. For instance, video games are becoming more mainstream, the word gamer is becoming less negative. Of course the same goes for otaku as I recall, one of the prime ministers of Japan referred himself as one.
While I agree that these terms are becoming less negative, bad behavior from a minority still perpetuates the social stigma behind the label. For a well known instance, video games always get blamed for shootings and violence when it’s not the case, thus casting the blame to normal people who play video games just for fun. But overall, one can blame the media as in the past, they portrayed Otakus and Gamers in a negative light when someone commits a bad act.
Regarding what you said about Vita vs. tablets/smartphones, here’s the thing – people think of video games as “violent and childish.” Smartphone/tablet games, for the most part, are not violent and aren’t considered video games to its users because they don’t involve themes that incite violence, sex, etc. The view of video games revolved around games like GTA, Call of Duty, etc.
There was an article on Polygon that focused on this and it’s disheartening. I know we have a responsibility to educate people, but the companies and publishers do have some role as they have the true power to influence people. It’s unfortunate that many of them don’t do this.
Not to mention, smartphones and tablets have multiple functions besides games, which is why they don’t get a bad rep even if they have violent video games, but it’s not as popular compared to casual games. But as a whole, I agree that parents should educate themselves and not buy violent video games for children. Children wouldn’t know what is right or wrong because he/she is not mature yet and do something bad such as killing a parent or child with a weapon or gun (there are number of instances that happened on the news) just because they play a violent video game like GTA, which in turn gives video games and people who play them a bad reputation while creating a social stigma against gamers.
While I wrote an whole editorial about violence in Anime and video games, of course video game industry can learn a few lessons from the movie industry and educate consumers about the ratings. However, censoring these games or banning sales of it is never a right way to deal with this issue.