I've been getting a lot of PR spam related to the recently-launched
Otaku Crush dating website, and it's driving me kind of crazy.
(Okay, actually the most recent spate of code at work is driving me crazy, but there's plenty of crazy to go around, boy howdy isn't there.)
Anyway. Otaku Crush. Apart from the fact that they're trying to move into an area that's been thoroughly owned by
Otaku Booty since approximately the dawn of time, the very idea of the site raises questions. Like, are otaku categorically unable to date non-otaku? Otaku are capable of being interested in non-otaku pastimes, right? (Please do not answer that.) They've got the same sort of parts, right? (
Please do not answer that.) Tentacles are not strictly
required, right? Why the special dating ghetto?
I kind of worry that they're right, though. Both
Otaku no Video and
Genshiken addressed the question of dating non-otaku, and both concluded it wasn't possible -- either it ended badly, as in
Otaku no Video, or the non-otaku slowly became corrupted, as in
Genshiken. It's kind of a bleak picture, and I worry that it might be accurate.
The fact remains, for better or worse, that otaku partake in a sort of totalitizing narrative. Everything gets seen through this lens of Japanese pop culture. It's not part of the definition, but it should be -- there's this memetic force that changes people. That's why it's always seemed worthwhile to me.
Media's worthless if we consume it and emerge unchanged.
words from chris, 2009-09-17 00:53:45, los angeles
