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Comments
This probably won't really catch on since I can't think of many IJBMers in Sydney who have an interest in Japanese culture, but what if those few of us arrange to... meet up at SMASH! this year? I dunno, it could work.
Well, in NSW, there's you, me, and... I dunno, Legionnaire watches some anime at least. Hey, that's three of us, at least.
argh shit it's on July 14th
that's like, two days after I leave Sydney
what the hell
I tend to be more irritable in real life, I think.
I'm less eloquent and more scattered in real life. Probably more well-humoured too, though. All in all, I think my "real", non-internet self is actually more personable. I might take it a bit far, though, as I'm sometimes considered a goofball and ditz when I'd prefer to be known for stuff that, while immediately less endearing, is more evident online. It doesn't bother me that much, though.
I stutter in real life, so I tend to just stand among the crowd, quietly listen and observe and quip an ocassional sentence Silent Bob-style. In periods when I'm more relaxed and my stuttering backs down a bit, I'm way more gregarious.
I'm much more inhibited in real life, unless I'm familiar with the people I'm conversing with, in which case I'm either very affable, or a clownish douchebag, depending on who it is I'm conversing with. If I'm a douchebag otherwise, I'm entirely joking around or gossiping/ragging on something, like on IJBM; around friends, I just act as inconvenient as possible (still for the sake of joking, but it's a different type of joking than in the previous example). I also stumble over myself a bit when speaking; can't call it a stutter or anything, but I talk too fast and mumble, and certain words give me trouble (my voice is also very unfitting, being much too high-pitched).
tl;dr Internet me is the me that the real me wishes could be me
I think if we actually had an IJBMer meetup or something, I'd probably not act tooooooooooo different from how I do here... (after accounting for the fact that you can't greentext IRL and whatnot) since I at least sort of know you people, but... I dunno, maybe I wouldn't.
Around people I don't know I'm a mess though, so it could also just end up being a lot of me avoiding everyone.
For all intents and purposes, I am a bot. Showing my actual face would ruin the illusion, though I guess I could (hypothetically) go wearing a mask.
. . . Aw. Now I'm remembering a brief conversation I had with a guy in the line to AB's dance, where we ended up finding that we both liked K-On!. Should have asked for his Facebook or something, if he had one. We might have been good friends.
I'm much louder, prone to taboo jokes and less afraid to embarass myself. I blame my environment.
Mind you, this is only around people who know: around total strangers I keep to myself.
Look, let's be honest, I'm not even a regular here, or anywhere. I type to slowly ever get involved regularly with most forums. Once I get comfortable with people, I talk a lot, and much faster than I type, though I'm still prone to embarrassment and such.
But I'm not really actually that interested in meeting you guys, for some reason. It wouldn't be that hard if I made the effort, I'm not that far from several regulars, but at this point I just wish I could spend more time with the people who are in my offline life.
The 3-person BTL meetup back in February was fun though. Kind of dissolved into endless wandering, but still fun.
For the record, I wouldn't mind an IJBMer meetup, though I'm not sure how I'd tell my parents that I want to go somewhere to meet random internet people, and I lack transportation of my own, so...
If anyone ever comes in the vicinity of Holland they're welcome to drop by(my hometown has enough culture and nightlife without becoming too touristic: f.ex., the Pilgrim Fathers crashed here before going to America and the town's history goes back to Roman times) and get the grand tour, but I wouldn't go out of my way for a meet-up.
^^Pretty much that.
I don't think my basic personality is that different IRL, but I'm certainly less self-confident and quieter in real-life. I think that goes for practically everyone on the Internet though.
I've never liked the idea of an internet persona, so basically any stupid shit I say is stupid shit I actually believe, and if I annoy you here, you wouldn't like me in person either.
When I did the BTL meetup, it helped that I could say about Anne "I know she really is a girl and really does go to [school name] and really is slightly younger than me and I sincerely believe she is not a threat." And I think as soon as she initially said hello to my mom in the restaurant parking lot she was convinced.
We knew next to nothing about Disaster Grind, but he was...well, basically himself. Taller than us, for one. And just as prone to messing with people IRL as on BTL. (That's a compliment.)
Disaster Grind (known here as Formaldehyde, as a reminder) seemed pretty interesting. I'd like to meet him in person, too. Though I also remember that you, he, and Anne are all from Connecticut or something, so that's obviously much more convenient.
I still want to hang with Forzabro at some point before we head to college; since his family has a cottage up here in Maine, we could conceivably meet each other. Other than that, there are obviously some people here who're closer to me than others (doesn't help that I'm in the furthest-northeast state in the country), but in all cases it wouldn't really work . . . except with an anime convention or something.
Well, we don't have to meet at an anime convention; could be a convention about something else.
Though for me to be willing to go in the first place, you'd either have to have a con about anime, gaming, or general nerd stuff, OR you'd have to give me a reason to go that would trump my lack of interest in something like comic-books.
Bigpost coming up btw.
IJBMer Ren Fair.
Best or worst idea, not sure.
best and worst
What could go wrong?
I personally am okay with pushing it back a little. You leave on the 13th I believe, according to the current schedule/the hazy vision I have of it in my mind. But you probably can't accomodate it or something.
I'd have to discuss it with Nan, is all.
Okies. I'll probably have to meet Fuschlatz in person at some point anyway.
I could go as the Heavy!
Or lose a shitload of weight, gain a shitload of muscle and go as Archer!
I'd come as me because fuck dressing up.
She says it'd be okay, just arrange the dates and tell her.
Part the Second!
or, I brought my parents to an anime convention, and was surprised to find that the sky didn't fall.
Yes, you read that right. My parents became curious as to what it was. My warning them that they might be bored due to lack of interest didn't deter them, nor did my warning that there would be crazy people there. I guess novelty value was too high.
I still told them it was a convention of people who like games and cartoons. They still wanted to go. Okay, sure. After all, registration is free anyway.
I got there too late for Eureka Seven. So the first thing I attended was "Name That Tune". Apparently it was actually a contest, like Anime Jeopardy. There were four people on stage. I debated whether I should ask to be a contestant, then decided against it, as that would leave me free to wander around if I got bored, and also prevent me from making a complete fool of myself.
They encountered technical difficulties early on, and especially since I felt a responsibility to entertain my two "guests" (those being my parents), I decided to go to the "Vocaloid Interactive Concert". Well they were having some other difficulties. Apparently difficulties in how a song would be sung, specifically, whether it should include a spoken intro introducing the show it came from, or something. Between the costumes (and I never liked the Vocaloids' character designs anyway) and the possibility of long strings of Japanese making it clear to my parents that these people are weeaboos--well, I'd be willing to sit through it, despite not being a fan of it, but I took my initiative and took my leave, going back to Name That Tune.
Well, I sat through that for a while. To absolutely no surprise to me, I didn't get most of them. The ones I did get were classic tunes that everyone ought to get, like the first U.S. Pokémon theme, Tank! from Cowboy Bebop, or Cruel Angel's Thesis. That said, the panel did have their few stupid moments, such as not being able to remember that the first Evangelion TV series's full title is Neon Genesis Evangelion.
And I got to feel good about myself for recognizing Eureka Seven's first OP. Even though I forgot it's name and its artist's name. I also got to grimace upon hearing Mokette Sailor Fuku; in my defence, the grimace wasn't even intentional.
My parents joined me back at Name That Tune after a while anyway. Well, I was kinda enjoying NTT, and I thought perhaps it was a good thing that they'd actually be able to see firsthand that I really didn't know most of what was going on. Maybe that would give me "good child cred" showing that I wasn't hopelessly addicted to this stuff, or something.
Well, turns out that they didn't completely hate the experience either. Afterwards, my mom told me that, from among the stuff people sang at the karaoke event, she liked the song "true light" or something from DNAngel.
After that, I went to this one even that was supposed to be a panel discussion about...well, the panel was called "What's going on? Somebody help me!". Turns out it was the organizers giving information about the convention itself. No one else went there, though, so I just sat there listening to the organizers talk about how the convention was organized. Instead of being about what they expected, I ended up interested in the details of how they organized stuff. I also committed a notable gaffe, saying that I was "bored" by the convention though I didn't fault them--pretty much what I was saying in the first post of this thread. In retrospect, that was the wrong word to use, despite my following it up quickly by explaining that it's because I'm not a mainstream anime fan and that I didn't come with a friend. Whoops.
After that, we basically just left. There wasn't really anything else I was interested in. I might have stayed a bit longer had my parents not been there, but...whatever.
Then we turned the day into a multicultural event by proceeding to enjoy lunch at a Mexican restaurant, then visiting a Polish grocery store. Hooray, USA!
Finally, to make up for my making the convention organizers feel bad about my experience, I wrote them a little thank-you note on their forum when I got home.
THE VERDICT:
I'd still say it was worth it. Maybe I was bored. I had both high hopes and low expectations; my hopes were dashed and my expectations fulfilled in that I didn't care much for the content.
But on the other hand, it did give me quite a bit to think about and reflect on. Y'know how there are some things that seem boring at first, but then you just can't stop thinking about them because you're trying to figure out how to place them into your experiences and collective subconscious and whatnot? Yeah.
Plus, the architecture of the convention building was awesome.
That said, I'm still a bit annoyed that the Name That Tune event didn't feature any iDOLM@STER music. That's a recent series, dude! And it's chock full of music! At the very least, you can relish the opportunity to tell people just how lady you are! Sigh...
Rightio.
Also dress up as Crona.
I'd need a purple wig, I'm afraid.
Or to dye my hair purple. Can we dye my hair purple?
I don't see why not. Probably best to just use Spray-on though.
And we'd need to find a long dress. This is more complicated than I assumed it would be.
Let's just let me go as me. Except with purple hair.
We can find the long dress.
Boots (she/he wears those, right?) might be an issue.