Weeaboo Ideology
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I don’t browse forums, 4chan nor the comments in RandomC, so I guess I’ve never been exposed to this mystical weeaboo that (to roughly paraphrase Shance) exalts himself from the rest of otakudom simply because he knows a few Japanese catch phrases.
As others have implicitly motioned, the raw watcher challenges the power and authority of those who learn a language through institutionalized means. In this case, the ideology of the school (very Althusserian) hails its subjects as more “established” or “proper” as those outside the discourse (the other; the weeaboo). It’s interesting to see how the power of the educational establishment – and some of it isn’t all as great as its cracked up to be – inculcates such thoughts in people. What if someone truly doesn’t have access to Japanese classes and can only fill their insatiable xenophobia and desire to learn through the media of that culture? Such is the state of many public school systems, especially in urban centers.
Although one point bloggers enforce is that the beginner of Japanese shouldn’t waltz around and proclaim an arrogant and naive fluency, bloggers owe it to the base of this digital social structure to propel and propagate the very essence which constitutes the entirety of the subculture – “disenfranchizing” one part “jeopardizes” the whole (or at least makes both those power and the whole structure look rather foolish). Many bloggers do not promote the essence of “Japan”, “multiculturalism” nor “second language acquisition” but their own status quo and hegemonic discourse that marginalizes everyone situated at its border.
The blog is an ironic soapbox. Serious Business.
Ugh… I hate weeaboos. I think fansubbers are big weeaboos for using words like “Onee-san” instead of “sister”… including when they show flashy text and/or big text that covers the show itself… kind of losing it’s “excitement” when they do that.
@lelangir:
Or alternatively Japanese classes were made inaccessible via lack of support for disabled/learning disorder students like me because the school had poor establishment of support services for those students, so I had to drop the class because my Japanese teacher knew nothing about how to deal with Asperger’s students.
It’s something that makes me mad to this day, and I continue to be not fluent in Japanese, ironically the only word I know in Japanese is Baka, which I think means idiot or something. But at least I don’t pretend to be fluent.
newgeekphilosopher:
Eh? As an aspie, I don’t see how you could demand to be treated differently than other students. You’ve got strengths that other students don’t have (Better memory, boredom tolerance, etc) and I don’t see how it would impede your learning of Japanese.
I’ve been taking Japanese myself and I’ve got no problem at all. (Aside from terrible calligraphy
but it’s still perfectly legible.)
Lelangir:
I don’t understand your chinoiserie at all. Mind writing in a human language
watashi wa egree with some of you anatas. watakushi wa thinks this is super kawaii onegaishimasu!
@jp: I guess it comes down to the time in my life in which I took Japanese. In the days I was trying to learn Japanese not a lot of support was given to struggling students even if they were honestly trying hard to learn. One Design and Technology teacher gave me no support at all and encouraged me to drop the subject because she didn’t want to deal with me. To be fair, my poor Japanese teacher had never encountered a student like me before and couldn’t understand why I couldn’t pick up on the fast talking that the examination question tapes with spoken Japanese on them.
Nowadays students like me get much better support because of educational reforms and compulsory special needs assistance departments. I do much better at subjects I take now because I get not only assistance but I have been more capable at working on my studies, due to the support of my teachers.
There’s nothing really stopping me from taking an extra-curricular Japanese class, but the early Noughties were a different educational climate where students like me were left to fend for themselves in the Australian education system.
Like I said, I wasn’t against the osmosis thing. It’s just that stature needs to be clarified in a sense of knowledge, and the means need not be necessary since we’re all open to that possibility. I’d go through the trouble of talking to someone who doesn’t rather than someone who does, basically because he won’t go inserting his “knowledge” here and there compared to the weeaboo.
Okay, stop. Pride talk again, what the fuck. We do have our own egos that may be hurt according to how we sport, but I guess it should be enough to point out that this is the Internet. Serious business. I need not be the one to hammer a weeaboo a peg or two down, but I know someone else will. And don’t we all know personal information are perfect bait for the-you-know-what?
Also, we’re talking about Omo, weeaboo-wise.
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KORE WA NAN DESU KA?!?!!?
@ Aizen:
I actually like it when they use words like that (onee-san) instead of sister because there’s no direct translation of the word. The kind of weeaboos I don’t like are the ones who claim characters… usually female fans claiming male characters.
Well. I´ve been to 4chan and whatnot. I didn´t know what a weeaboo was, but now I have one possible translation for it.
I do know certain words and what they mean and so on. And I do watch some shows raw, but I would in no way say that I´m better than the ones who study Japanese in school. I want to do that as well, I just haven´t gotten around to doing it.
@ Aizen: For words like onee-chan, which they use for people that they aren´t related too it would be kinda weird to call them sister, while the word now has double meanings: A bloodrelated older sister or a female older person that the person who said it looks up to.
So we all have to learn every way to use it. That´s why language is so hard, one word having multiple meanings. If I´ve made a misstake, then correct me. Then I´ll learn more which is good.
Here in sweden we have cat food. The label for this catfood is “Pussy”. For the english only readers it sounds so wrong to call catfood this, but we have grown accustomised to it´s double meaning and I don´t even think we pronounce it the same way.
Maybe not of the same caliber but you get the point no?
@Char
You need to learn a little bit more about language and translation.
@whoever posted this blog
Learn how to write. Put down the thesaurus. Reading through your self-important verbiage is like trudging through a bogging mire.
Very interesting post. However, I couldn’t help but notice the use of the word ‘xenophobia’ in the phrase ‘What if someone truly doesn’t have access to Japanese classes and can only fill their insatiable xenophobia and desire to learn’ — perphaps you meant ‘xenophilia’ or some other antonym?
[...] notwithstanding, the discursive strategies used to criticize or challenge the mainsteam sometimes backfire. It depends on (1) where you write [in blogs, in territory] and [...]
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