There's an old saying that goes, "you are what you eat." I was never quite sure what that meant until I started eating Coco Pops on a daily basis and apparently I began to resemble a Coco Pop. Now that's not to say I looked like a dried piece of rice with chocolate flavor all over my body, but I did wonder what was the point of people saying that. If you are what you eat, then it would mean everyone would resemble lumps of food. And lumps of food usually equate to what you flush down the toilet. So by that definition, people = shit?
Okay, I may have gotten a bit off-track with that saying, but I do believe it serves a different purpose entirely. It doesn't mean we physically begin to resemble lumps of shit. Take it from a figurative sense; we, as humans, are consumers. Whether we consume Coco Pops, the latest fashion trends, movies, merchandise, games, or porn, we are consumers of the market. And right now, the market is ripe with the business of being entertained. Now when we take a step back and start to dissect this otaku culture as a whole, perhaps it's safe to say everyone who plays games is essentially a gamer. But I digress. It's the same as calling someone who's only watched "Dragon Ball Z" in their entire life a fan of anime. Because, technically, they aren't really a fan of the craft itself. I, myself, could've been found guilty a good decade and a half ago when I thought playing Solitaire on those cheap computers automatically made me a hardcore gamer. Then I got in touch with just how extreme of a sport this business really was. And yes, I use the word "sport" because essentially, gaming is a sport. If you can earn money from the slightest of things like talking about gaming, then what's there to say that it isn't a legitimate job or career?
So I began on a quest to find out exactly what the pro's and con's were of this vast gaming and anime industry. As gamers, we're pretty much obligated to consume this on a frequent, week-to-week basis. Everything we say, do, breathe, eat, revolves around the key idea that when we're in a space of comfort with a console, a game, and a controller, we're primitive creatures. Perhaps more accurately, creatures of habit. There's a certain thrill you get from playing a good game or watching a good anime that reality unfortunately cannot simulate. Rightfully so, since most of us do agree that reality is nothing much more than a place of sad faces, no dramatic moments, and very little action, but throw yourself into a game or anime and suddenly we get in touch with our essential bare humanity: we're alive. And for that brief moment, we don't exist either. It's a funny balancing act that I'm sure most circuses would scratch their heads in confusion over. Exactly what are we looking for as consumers of the otaku?
Well, that's another plain and simple fact. We don't want to live in reality, but without reality, we don't have anything to escape to. I like that idea of escapism. I think it's a wonderful way for an angry adolescent to throw a hissy fit with his parents and in the end, know Super Mario Bros. is there waiting eagerly for him to dive into that world. Yeah, sure, we don't have to be ourselves, since we're pretty much playing as a fat Italian plumber who headbutts bricks for money, but I'm sure there's a silver lining in all of this. So please, fasten your seatbelt and adjust your mirrors, and enjoy the new blog. We'll go on a journey into the depths of the otaku culture... Well, let's eat!
No comments:
Post a Comment