Geek Philosophy In the Boudoir
I hope you’re sitting comfortably. No, smoking a pipe will not be necessary. I don’t want my manga to stink of tobacco. Chances are you’re not sitting in a boudoir. I bet you’re not even in a room that remotely looks like one either. But I bet you’re thinking. It’s that time again, for some Geek Philosophy.
After having posted my definition of what Geek Philosophy actually is at my home blog (where it belongs, mind you, I’d never be so rash as to unleash it onto Yukan Blog readers who would otherwise be expecting another dose of Lucky Star reviewing), I decided to contemplate what the significance of the Anime Geek bedroom is, and the sanctity of its sometimes profane contents. It is a place of wonder, and contemplation. A respite from the harsh realities of school or employment, and if you’re unfortunate enough to still live with your parents, a site of constant invasion. *shudders*
What does your Anime Geek room say about you? Well, at first glance, unless you’re really into your posters and themed shelves, it won’t say particularly much apart from the fact you have a messy room. But even if it is messy, it doesn’t mean your mind is. But sadly this might also be the case.
I will not do the traditional “otaku room post” where I put pictures of my room for the world to see online. I value my privacy in that respect. And also I am not an otaku. I am an Anime Geek, or fan. And my room is not only where I sleep, but where I think and create.
My Osamu Tezuka art prints are the only real clue to my inner Anime Geek. My manga and Anime boxes are all hidden behind clutter. Not that I want to hide them, but considering the size of my room, it’s no surprise I have no choice but to live this way. Such a pity.
Your Anime Geek room is as much about your interior personality as your visual exterior personality. Fact is, nobody who doesn’t know you well would know that your taste in manga and Anime, as reflected on your bookshelves, could possibly construct what fandoms you belong to. And yet the true self of the Anime Geek room is what is not seen.
You know what I mean. The not so obvious four volumes of Love Hina I bought because I wanted to learn to draw Anime girls, unmercifully discovered and chided at by my non-Geek brother who never did like anything I was into. The memories printed in the walls from when I stayed up all night playing Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney on my DS Lite, when I played so long I had to put the AC Adapter in because I’d made the power light warn me I would run out of battery soon. A salty reminiscence of a tear I shed when I read the end of Tezuka’s manga Apollo’s Song, the first time I ever cried reading a manga ever. These things don’t need pictures posted on the internet to prove they happened. You either believe I cherish these things or you don’t. In any case I don’t have my fandom written on big posters stuck on my walls. They’re things unseen, tattooed on invisible ink on my heart, because when i move house I know I’ll leave this room behind one day.
It’s not so much a place of solitude as it is a parent-free zone. I’m more than happy to have guests, because I don’t have anything to hide from them. But I have everything to hide from my parents, things about me I’m not ready for them to see. That’s why every visit into my bedroom feels like an invasion to me. It sounds absurd, and it is. Obviously a parent would want to visit their child. But it’s hard to explain. You’ve either lived that experience or you haven’t. Call me crazy if you want to.
Which brings me to my criticism of the whole “Otaku room post” phenomenon in blogging. How can people just post pictures of their belongings, thinking strangers they’ve never met will understand how much it all means to them? Weblebrity is one thing (Weblebrity = web celebrity, a possessor of e-fame, or electronic fame) but showing strangers your stuff seems all too weird to me. Thoughts are a different matter, for me those are OK to post, because those can’t be judged as harshly as a complete collection of Haruhi box sets, which a lot of bloggers seem to post about.
The Anime Geek room isn’t so much what you can see at all. Even from pictures of otaku rooms I can’t imagine the hopes and dreams that go on inside the heads of geeks on beds. One otaku room post posted a picture of their body pillow. Note to self, never do that. There are search engines that in the future prospective girlfriends will use to search your details in order to decide if you’re a psycho or not. But that’s getting a bit paranoid. I’d be more worried about MySpace and Facebook if I were you.
My, oh my, this IS an epic post. I suppose it couldn’t be anything else than epic, because I’ve had this post coming on for a while.
What brought this on? I guess it was Genshiken. If you haven’t seen it, watch it. It’s an eye opener into contemporary otaku society. What impressed me about this show was the empathy you had for the characters. It’s a show that helps you understand the alienated. And they have a whole otaku nest where they have their Genshiken meetings. Posters, game consoles, and a whole Raiders of the Lost Ark secret cupboard of doujinshi manga. It’s an otaku nest alright, but it’s nowhere near what my room looks like.
What can I say about my room? It’s not about showing off my Anime posters to prove I’m an Anime Geek. I don’t believe I have to prove anything. A Geek or Nerd is a Geek or Nerd through their actions, not what they display on their walls. The aesthetics are important, but the look is a supplement to the real action within daily life and within the mind. My room is where I can sit on my bed and read Yotsuba&! for hours, or where I can play my DS Lite when I can’t sleep. It’s where I write my books on my computer and watch Anime on my laptop and PCs respectively.
I don’t need to prove how nerdy or geeky I am by my room. It should explain itself, like a good manga or Anime plot, without lengthy backstory that isn’t needed. And it has a backstory, one day a lucky girl who’ll be my girlfriend will hear that tale. But judging from the mess on my floor it won’t be for a while.
“A Geek or Nerd is a Geek or Nerd through their actions, not what they display on their walls.” I think “to display” is a verb or an action – and while aesthetics may seem exterior to the “anime geek” mindset, I can’t seem to separate them. I think the whole mindset itself is about being aesthetic (a lack of aesthetics is also aesthetic). Call it a counter culture if you will, but this counter culture is inextricably concretized in aesthetics; without aesthetics, it is nothing. This isn’t to say that those that don’t shower their rooms in posers don’t fall within this territory, since we obviously watch anime, a very material and aesthetic thing.
With that said, I don’t think posting pictures of your room has anything to do about ramming your e-peen down the sphere’s throat or developing your weblebrity. Of course reputation has a stake in that, but it’s indirect. It’s not about trying to convey subjective experiences – an impossible feet indeed – but it tries simply to make the internet that much less faceless. It’s not about trying to prove “how geeky you are,” but trying to show (not prove – there’s nothing to “prove”) how human you are, or rather, how human the internet is. It’s not about saying “I act, therefore, I am a geek;” it’s way past that. The sphere is so rooted in geekdom that any attempts to question the degree of your geekdom seem alienated or elitist, or an attempt to provoke your fantastic sense of normalcy.
@lelangir:
You raise an interesting argument, but what I am trying to say is that the thoughts and memories generated by the Anime Geek room express the inexpressible in a way that viewing pictures of otaku rooms cannot deliver in subjective meaning. But you are right in that displaying something is an action I guess.
Suppose I read a manga on my bed, but did not place the manga volume in an obvious place in my room. My parents would not know I own the manga volume, but it is there. Say my friends don’t know I own it either.
Reading it would be a private, contemplative action which is not materially tangible. In the same way I believe that Geek activities that are acted upon alone are not actions witnessed by other people, but you reading the manga would be experiencing something in private. The Anime Geek room is a place where such activities are acted out, especially private contemplation.
Somehow I don’t think my rebuttal has made any sense whatsoever. The bit about the Otaku Room Post critique was, yes, about weblebrity, but more about questioning how the non-tangible personal elements of the Otaku Room could not be experienced by anyone apart from the owner of the room.
I think you have indeed schooled me at boudoir philosophy though, lelangir, and you’ve put up a jolly good argument. God, I’m typing like a Victorian era duelist toff for some reason. I suppose I’m wrong again. Well, we had to start the discussion somewhere.
With such a namesake, this post is surpringly lacking in pruriency, now isn’t it.
When I see the room posts, particularly the ones with anime objects crammed in every place possible, the first thought is materialism followed by consumerism.
However, I would have to disagree with your thoughts vs. Haruhi judgment line. I think people are more likely to judge you for your thoughts more than what you buy, particularly if those thoughts are on sensitive topics. Thoughts tell you more about a person than material objects possibly could.
Who exactly might you be? I checked the sidebar but didn’t see any “newgeekphilosopher” under the Active Writers heading.
I don’t have any real issues when people post images of their room. It actually makes me feel proud of my own messy one
@Baka-Raptor: Oh lols, it’s Jacob Martin
Edited: Now you should see newgeekphilospher
Now I’ve dug myself into a hole again
I don’t actually have a problem with people who post pictures of their Haruhi box sets on their blogs, it’s just that the whole notion of the Otaku Room Post escapes me. Yes, it makes the internet less faceless, but when people post pictures of their holding pillows it gets iffy.
I hope this doesn’t turn into yet another crisis in the blogosphere akin to the Otaking thing that was troubling people last week. I was really just trying to have some fun subverting the notion of the Otaku Room Post, but I seem to have dug my own grave with this one. It’s the Totoro review all over again…
I can explain it. I LOVE reading peoples’ room posts. My reasoning being that it gives me a bigger connection to them. The room posts are mostly a treat for regular readers who have gotten to know you a bit from reading your blog so much. It’s a way for them to see a little more into what makes you you, and as an internet nerd, chances are you spend most of your time in your room. It’s almost like a way of saying ‘here’s where I am when I’m talking to you.’ Let’s take Wildarmsheero’s room post for instance. It’s fun for me because I can look at things and think ‘ha! that’s totally what I’d see him having!’ or ‘wow, I didn’t think he’d put that in there!’ or even ‘haha! I remember when he bought that!’ The last one is especially fun because you can learn the eventual fate of the things you’ve watched him accumulate. His case is even more special because he posts about a lot of his posters and other things.
And I really, really, really don’t see what you’ve got against showing off your dakimakura. What would be the point of showing someone your life if you’re going to hide things anyway? That’s removing the personality that define the experience. That’s why in my room post I took pictures of my daki even though it wasn’t in the video – I keep it in my closet, but it’s still a part of my room. Besides, if you’re embarrassed about it or something you’re just being a pussy.
Also, for a lot of us, our otakudom says more about us than anything else. My life is defined by three things – anime, music, and the internet, and I intend to show all of myself to everyone.
@21st Century Digital Boy:
The truth is… my “holding pillow” is just a regular pillow… I feel embarrassed being outdone by other Geeks and Nerds who have better resources than I do… HAPPY?
Thanks for explaining this to me, 21st Century Digital Boy (boy that’s a mouthful to type). It makes it all make a whole lot more sense that I’m not making at the moment.
Just call me DB. It’s what most do.
Ok, DB, I’ll try to remember that.
There are otaku and there are otaku. As much as I like looking at some figures over at Danny Choo blog, I doubt I’ll ever going to get any myself. Also I find it odd when people collect beautiful figures and put them into heaps and stacks. Gluttony is deadly sin after all! Regardless of otakuism I always disliked overdecorated rooms. It’s overkill and burries beauty in quantity. Sometimes it also gives the impression these people just want to show off even if it’s not intented. Likewise, if you don’t applaud their choice, you’re considered envious but at the end of the day it’s really just matter of tast and mindset maybe.
[...] How could I go from an insightful Geek Philosophy post to something so smug as a subversion of the Otaku Room Post which may have been feeding my [...]
I love otaku rooms, only because my rooms looks nothing like it. Its something that says alot about the person (kind of like looking at people’s desktop on their computer… its something I like to ask people for actually~) I have friends whose rooms are the typical messy, figurine filled room and I get a blast going in every time I visit them.
My room?
Off-white, like the rest of my apartment.
Bed?
Queen, with two normal pillows. Everything light blue with a splash of pink.
There’s a small table in the corner, and there’s a few boxes ontop of it (where I keep some winter clothes).
Two doors, one to my bathroom, one goes to my living/dining-room area.
No posters, no paintings, no figurines.
Why? Cause I like it like that.
natural fibers like wool are still the best for winter clothes;-:
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