On Idol Otaku
A friend of mine presently living in Japan sent me this e-mail.
Jesus F*ck idol-otaku are creepy. I know I shouldn’t play the “my style of geekdom is superior to yours” but seriously, idol-otaku are creepy f*ckers. After Hirano Aya appeared on a TV variety program and mentioned she has had boyfriends, 2channel then exploded with people posting pictures of themselves destroying her merchandise for “betraying” and “cheating” on them, because clearly, never mentioning that you’re had a boyfriend in your 22 years of life means you’re a “pure” girl who’s never had experience. But hey, destroying merchandise is extreme but kinda understandable. However, soon people started posting posting “die” (someone wrote “die” on her wiki page 67,000 times) and discussing how they were to use PIs to find her address, break in, rape, torture, kill her, cut her up into little pieces, and other John Hinckley, Jr./Perfect Blue-type stuff.
Now, I’m aware Hirano Aya will probably not have her eyes gouged out and skull****ed to death by an irrate, psychotic fan, and people have used 2chan before to play internet detective and find and post people’s addresses and private info. But this is why I look down on these extreme idol otaku. Even loli fans are aware they are experiencing a fantasy. Extreme idol fans go way beyond that, and that’s not even counting rules like you have to buy 3 of every record your idol releases to support her. The idea of “possessing” another person, much less a person who doesn’t even know you, and expecting her to be “faithful” to you is screwed up. Even if the otaku on 2channel are just talking sh*t, it strikes me as tasteless and socially irresponsible. In private conversations between close groups of friends, I think it’s okay to talk about murder fantasies because everyone knows everyone is joking, but a public forum turns the discussion into death threats, and that’s not cool. Aya may be freaked out by the situtation and have to hire bodyguards or receive police protection because of the 2channel thread.
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Yeah, what he/she said.
I know that a lot of crazy otaku (as differentiated from the sane otaku majority) obsess about anime and video game characters to an unhealthy degree (spending money on figurines and overpriced DVDs while neglecting a proper diet), despite many of these characters having romantic relationships with other similarly fictional characters, but even they are able to get over it. Maybe its the ability to find or create escapist fantasy works like doujinshi that allow fans to punish their beloved two-dimensional idols for their infidelity or to experience a sexual or violent catharsis through the characters inserted into doujinshi.