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OTAKU_ANIMAL


                                               May 7, 2012               
                                                                         
                                              "Oatku Japan's             
                                              Database Animals" (2001)   
The Animal/Human distinction                  by Hiroki Azuma            
Azuma makes seemed quite a                                               
puzzle at a distance--                             OTAKU_BASE
                                                                         
Every description or summary of                                          
Azuma's work makes it sound more                                         
complicated than it is.                                                  
                                                                         
Originally, I wondered if the idea was                                   
that living with a grand narrative is                                    
to live as a human being (or perhaps                                     
just a humanist?) and the otaku has                                      
descended (or ascended?) to some sort     From the translators                                       
of animalistic level of indulging pure    introduction, I got the                                    
desire-- or perhaps gathering             idea that the otaku                                        
moe-points like acorns?                   engages with art by                                        
                                          identifying and cataloging                                 
     OTAKU_ACORNS                     familiar elements, that is     
                                          by "databasing" them; and                                  
                                          this way of relating to art                                
                                          is "animalistic", as befits                                
                                          a post-marxist classless                                   
                                          society that has gotten                                    
                                          beyond artificial "human"                                  
                                          status-seeking.                                            
                                                                            
                                                                             
                                                    This all makes sense,   
                                                    right?  Animals are     
                                                    well known for their    
                                                    database skills.         
                                                                             
                            Other riffs you                                  
                            could play:                                      
                                                                             
                            animal-animate-animismanimal-animate-animism

                                   mal-adaption


    What Azuma is really arguing:
                                            Or see p 67, 68
    Azuma takes the line that
    humans have desires, but                OTAKU_SNOBBED
    animals merely have needs,
    that desires are bound up in
    complex interactions with                                  ANIMAL
    the other, but that in
    post-industrial society,
    humans have (or can become?)
    "animalized": their needs                     I might go with the idea
    can be satisified without                     that it's human to struggle
    personal human interaction                    against the nature of the
    (e.g. through restaurants,     (Animals       world, and that once that
    or the sex-industry).          love whore     war is won, it becomes
                                   houses.)       possible to relax and drift
       (see p.86, 87)                             and perhaps devolve into
                                                  consumerism.

     So then, Azuma essentially buys
     the mainstream critique of the
     Otaku as socially damaged: trying
     to live without real personal
     interaction, instead substituting
     the consumption of product.                   Azuma also has a bunch of
                                                   stuff about "snobbery"--
                                                   which I grant is at least
         OTAKU_CONSUMED                            a form of interaction with
                                                   the Other-- but he seems
                                                   convinced it's the only
                                                   possible one.  Or rather
                                                   it's the only possible one
                                                   now that our souls have
                                                   been postmodernized.

                                                       OTAKU_SNOBBED
                                       
                                                   
                                 (Oct 24, 2018)    
                                                   
        Is this all a reduction to dualities?         
                     
        Otaku as fans of popular culture, must      
        be regarded as in opposition to snobbery.

        Otaku are looked down upon by the normals:
        If the normals are the true "humans" then
        Otaku must be animals.




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