PSA: we exist

[branchandroot]

I don't do this very often, but this isn't the kind of thing I like to leave unchallenged.

Anime fans! Go and tell this blog-blinkered individual that women who are also passionate anime fans exist!

*shaking head* Honstly.

Comments

[ldybastet]

Hmm. Well, I seem to not count anyway, due to my selecting a few shows every season that I think looks interesting instead of a general OMG!YAY!ANIME! and watching *everything* that is aired. Hrmph.

[branchandroot]

Man, seriously. As if most of what's available in any given season is to everyone's taste? Really not.

[foxinthestars]

...Contrasting people who make passionate serious commentary with people who write fanfic. ::head meet desk::

Contrasting watching lots of stuff with fandom of specific titles seems awfully dicey, too; taken too broadly, you could be excluding as "fans" people who, er, have taste.

[branchandroot]

I know, right? I'm just sitting here going ...how on /earth/ are these mutually exclusive? Hello? What? I can only imagine it's a function of only participating in the blogosphere, which is, from what little I've seen, more inclined to commentary than fan-production. But dude.

*coughs* Yeah, a bit of that also. I mean, I figure I'm on the high-consumption end having a few shows a season I follow instead of dedicating my every waking hour to just one or two!

[annotated_em]

Oh for god's sake, way to bias your own sampling, douchebag. "There aren't any female fans, because they don't do fandom the way I do it! And my way is the only way to be a REAL fan!"

Augh. AND he has the nerve to make qualifications and backpedalling moves, but he does it in a comment rather than as a top-level edit to the post. Smooth, dude. Smooth.

[branchandroot]

That, that! Seriously. Someone needs a base-course in statistical validity. And possibly to spend more time in the more intensively social-cooperative corners of fandom where people get acculturated to debate manners.

The annoying thing? I think this is a woman. Isn't that just freaking depressing?

[annotated_em]

...that is extremely depressing. That is, like, Ryouhei levels of depressing.

[branchandroot]

*dryly* In the extreme.

[unjapanologist]

I've been to enough fannish places and cons to know there are very many guys too, but if I went just by my personal experiences, most of anime fandom is female. *glances at RSS feed* Most of anime bloggers too ;)

Talk about blogging versus LJ/DW-type journaling always confuses me a bit, though. I get the impression that people who write on non-LJ/DW services tend to think that LJ/DW posts are intrinsically different from blog posts? I'm not saying there isn't a difference (I haven't given it much thought yet), but I'm not sure what blogging-only people actually think the difference is. Do you happen to know if there's any good meta on this topic?

[branchandroot]

That's certainly my experience, both online and off. I suppose twenty, thirty years ago the balance was different, but now? There really do seem to be more women.

I don't know of any good meta on that. I think you're right, but I don't frequent the blogosphere all that much myself; the community standards for talking-in-the-comments are just different enough to make me wary. It feels a lot more performative, in the blogosphere, a lot more focused on showing your cleverness in public. A product of less built-in interconnection and therefore far fewer privacy controls, I suspect. Pings just aren't the same as a reading list.

[unjapanologist]

No idea what things were like in US anime fandom twenty or thirty years ago, but in Japan, which OP also points to as having less female fans, the fanworks-creating female fan community was huge even twenty/thirty years ago. It's absolutely massive now. The fact that she uses "there's more guys in Akihabara" as an indication that there are fewer women anime fans makes me suspect that she doesn't know all that much about anime fandom beyond her own space.

I tried out finding some stuff via Pinboard, and the following blogging-related meta came up. Won't have time to read them until tonight, but what you say sounds pretty familiar. I feel a lot more pressure to be coherent/clever/correct when commenting on a blog than on LJ/DW. There's a real sense of stage fright.

http://azurelunatic.livejournal.com/5923155.html
http://innerbrat.livejournal.com/623061.html
http://blog.lib.umn.edu/blogosphere/women_and_children.html

I say there are only guys because there are only guys in MY line of sight!!1! :DDD

[shiraume]

...I don't exist because I don't watch anime except very selectively and don't like hanging out around guys with your attitude? *wry* And he replies to one commenter "Sure, your survey shows a lot of gals but that's because only girls visit your site lol" and that makes his entire post...what?

Silly boy. ^.~

Re: I say there are only guys because there are only guys in MY line of sight!!1! :DDD

[branchandroot]

Which, um, yeah. Cluelessness, coming soon to a blog near you!

[dancing_serpent]

*sigh* Yeah, I'm not hanging out in the blogosphere but people like her don't necessarily make me want to.

[branchandroot]

That. Claustrophobic as the journal-sphere can sometimes get, at least we've hashed over "your way =/= One True Fan" a few times.