Fandom Generations: My Take

My bro causeiambetta told me about the travesty that is the Stony Brook Anime Club. Reputedly, they played Wii all of the time, which is a bit unusual. Most otaku pride themselves in being at least a bit ridiculoun, which entails at least a PSIII, Xbox 360, or a vintage system. Mentions of this group, evidently, elicited snickers from the elite geeks at the SF Forum.

As I've probably mentioned before, I was throughly spoilt by the Animation Society at my college. We thought of anime as something precious. We hoped that it would come to these shores and would stay. I tried to corrupt -er- show anime to my friends, and thought there was an obligation to spread the underground gospel so that it wouldn't disapper.

The thought of an anime society that spends it time playing guitar hero, if the allegations are true, is a bit depressing. Also, they are unoriginal in light of the manga & anime Genshiken, which is about an anime club that is caught between other fandom societies and becomes the odd one out.

This surely as a sign of the times. I tend to split the times into five periods:

1. A legendary group that was into anime before there were really commercial releases. They got the ball rolling for the rest of us. Think Toren Smith [1].
2. The group that were high schoolers or adults when Starblazers or Gundam were released. The majority of their viewing were probably multi-generation raws [2] with scripts or fansubs.
3. These were my friends and I who got hooked on Robotech, Voltron, or Mysterious Cities of Gold as kids. There were a few translation companies. Fansubs were prevalent. The Sci-fi channel used to have a weekend block. The term Japanimation didn't sound wierd back then.
4. The Toonami transition phase who had Sailor Moon, DBZ, or Pokemon. Gundam Wing fanboyz 'n girlz and the Big O were the tail end. An editted version of Tenchi hit the airwaves, too. This was when anime went on widespread TV and got recognized as such. At this point, I was crossing my fingers hoping that anime was here to stay, despite the travesty that was Fox-caflowne. [3]
5. Narutards & up.
   

I judge these groups based on their attitudes toward anime & fandom and the advent of the internet. Back in the day (Gen 2 & 3), just owning some tapes was the admission to the club. Later on, peer-to-peer networks made this a moot point. Conventions became the center stage for fan displays and cosplay became more competitive.

Group 4 also saw the emergence of the fangirl, which evolved into the seacow of the 5th Gen fujoshi. And they are the ones that squeal at the Cons.

This is the group that the current guys jamming to Guitar Hero belong to. However, they are also the future of fandom and will there be a 6th group?

[1] He had an anime character named after him and had Noriko from Gunbuster call his name. Lucky bastard. Reeeeaaally lucky bastard.
[2] I'm talking magnetic tape: VHS or Beta. For those who don't know, these degraded with each copy.
[3] No forgiveness!