Peoples, I have identified another telltale sign of identifying an Otaku. The current Answerman mentioned this on ANN. He spoke the truth:
"I guess you can't really match wits and measure your "e-peen" against the agitated denizens of /a/ or whatever because your collection isn't a massive, towering skyscraper, and you have neither the time nor the interest in watching every single new frame of Japanese animated content that gets blasted across Japanese television every two months. But, those people, to make a terrible blanket statement with a tiny ounce of veracity, aren't at all interested in enjoying it. They watch everything and anything anime out of a sick compulsion, out of that nerd ideal to be completely and utterly informed of every single nuance within their chosen niche. They don't actually chew and digest anything they watch; it all slides right down their throat and passes through their body like a stone, so they can post on the internet and blog and spew their opinions over their dozen or so like-minded peers.
...That sounded a bit harsh. To which, yes, I was using hyperbole for possible comedic effect, but I do think that there's a very vocal and very disturbing sect of obsessive anime fans that don't watch anime out of enjoyment; they just want to BE that guy that has literally SEEN EVERYTHING and KNOWS EVERYTHING and DON'T YOU DARE CHALLENGE THEM ON THEIR INTERNET FORUMS AND IMAGE BOARDS BECAUSE THEY WILL SCHOOL YOU SO HARD WITH THEIR IMMENSE ANIME FAN-DOM. But their "knowledge" and their "passion" doesn't make them any more or less anime fans than me or you."
Actually Sir, this is not a blanket statement. This is the MO of several otakus I have encountered. Don't you just hate these guys? Like watch:
{me} Hey guys, I just Blue Gender for the first time! It rocked!
{otaku} Ho hum. I haven't seen BG since it was first fansubbed way back in the 1990s. I can't believe you're bringing up such an old series. Get with the times, already.
Yeah, you see what I mean? And also, my main man at Answerman also said this.
"People on the internet are jerks.
The heavily imageboard-driven culture that is the modern anime fan community has developed this weird conclave of elitism. They watch their fansubs religiously, they talk and joke about it in relative secrecy under complete anonymity, ensuring that those plebeian, childish noobs can't destroy their precious anime discussions. If I weren't one to throw odd psychological theories out there, I would say that this is sort of a response to the relatively massive mainstream acceptance that anime had only a few years ago, and the near-unanimous presence it had in early internet communities. Except that that's probably overthinking it a little bit, but regardless, the current mindset of the inside-joke crowd is to keep anime discussion as a secret, shameful language between like-minded miscreants.
So pay them no mind; they are undeserving of it."
I would know. There's guys like this in the NPF, ANN forums, the DS board, and even a few Tropers are like this. They don't watch for enjoyment; they watch so that they can gloat over their knowledge of otaku-dom. It annoys me as a true fan of animation, obviously enough.
I bring this up, for it will be relevant in my next post.
