Why do nerds love East Asia so much?

[MGibster]

For context, here's Stevie Nicks posing with her bodyguard Bob Jones for his book Hands Off!: A Unique New System of Self Defense Against Assault for the Women of Today taken circa 1983.

 

[Eyes of Nine]

Well....nerds is not really the right group. I'd say more the Geek Counter Culture as a whole.

You have a group of young people in roughly 1960 that, like all such groups, want to like "something different" then what their parents like.

Then you have East Asia full of magic, dragons, ninjas, samurai, martial arts and exotic weapons....and more. What's not to like.

So the youth grabbed on to it. Also, all the way up to about 2000.......it was very much a Geek Secret. And like all groups, Geeks love to have secrets. Unless you were a fan....and really, really, really put in a HUGE effort to watch Asia Media, it was unknown to you. Starting in the 70's a lot of East Asian Media was brought over to the USA....for kids. It's a long list. And...well, you need to remember the time.

Set the Wayback Machine for 1984. If you were a geek kid or teen or young adult....well there was NOT that much Geek Media(action/adventure/sicfi/fantasy/horror) for you to watch. Not that you could watch and access every day. There was the occasional movie, but after they left the theater they simply just vanished. Even when VCRs did start to come out not much was for Geeks. The "Geek Single Shelf" at Video Mart had like Star Wars, Alien and Planet of the Apes. TV was worse, the occasional Geek show was on maybe a couple years....and then just vanished. Maybe....MAYBE your local UHF channel got a couple copies and MAYBE played them at a time you could watch them....maybe.

It was the time of the Geek Void. And a couple clever people came along to fill this void, while making money. Japan alone was making all sorts of Geek Content starting in the 70's. And the thought was....well, lets bring it too America. And they did. G-Force, Star Blazers, Gundam, Voltron, Robotech and more. Geek Shows to fill the Geek Void. Martial arts, robots, ninjas, outer space, action, adventure and all. And even more then that....a LOT of the shows were very different then the stale American Media. And only a couple years after that came Cyberpunk and Anime. And Power Rangers and Pokemon....

This

 

[CleverNickName]

What's not to love? Vibrant culture, beautiful people, distinctive art and architecture, delicious food, rich history...

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Well....nerds is not really the right group. I'd say more the Geek Counter Culture as a whole.

You have a group of young people in roughly 1960 that, like all such groups, want to like "something different" then what their parents like.

Then you have East Asia full of magic, dragons, ninjas, samurai, martial arts and exotic weapons....and more. What's not to like.

So the youth grabbed on to it. Also, all the way up to about 2000.......it was very much a Geek Secret. And like all groups, Geeks love to have secrets. Unless you were a fan....and really, really, really put in a HUGE effort to watch Asia Media, it was unknown to you. Starting in the 70's a lot of East Asian Media was brought over to the USA....for kids. It's a long list. And...well, you need to remember the time.

Set the Wayback Machine for 1984. If you were a geek kid or teen or young adult....well there was NOT that much Geek Media(action/adventure/sicfi/fantasy/horror) for you to watch. Not that you could watch and access every day. There was the occasional movie, but after they left the theater they simply just vanished. Even when VCRs did start to come out not much was for Geeks. The "Geek Single Shelf" at Video Mart had like Star Wars, Alien and Planet of the Apes. TV was worse, the occasional Geek show was on maybe a couple years....and then just vanished. Maybe....MAYBE your local UHF channel got a couple copies and MAYBE played them at a time you could watch them....maybe.

It was the time of the Geek Void. And a couple clever people came along to fill this void, while making money. Japan alone was making all sorts of Geek Content starting in the 70's. And the thought was....well, lets bring it too America. And they did. G-Force, Star Blazers, Gundam, Voltron, Robotech and more. Geek Shows to fill the Geek Void. Martial arts, robots, ninjas, outer space, action, adventure and all. And even more then that....a LOT of the shows were very different then the stale American Media. And only a couple years after that came Cyberpunk and Anime. And Power Rangers and Pokemon....

This is a really good thesis and it matches the timelines and explains why the geeks/nerds embraced it even more than the general public did -- as noted, general American pop culture was briefly infatuated with Japanese culture in the 1970s.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

For context, here's Stevie Nicks posing with her bodyguard Bob Jones for his book Hands Off!: A Unique New System of Self Defense Against Assault for the Women of Today taken circa 1983.


View attachment 285111

If you are fishing for likes, posting a picture of Stevie Nicks being awesome will do it every time.

 

[TheAlkaizer]

There's often fascination and interest with very different cultures. I can't talk specifically about nerds, but the stereotype tend to be applied to people that become very fascinated and passionate about one thing. So maybe it would make sense that a bigger proportion of them would latch onto something like east Asian culture.

And it goes both ways, there's a ton of east Asian medias exploring European history like Vikings, European knights, etc.

And American media (brands, movies, music) has permeated east Asian cultures much more than the opposite.

I just think that we view the fascination in both direction very differently because of colonialism and decades of crass Orientalism.

 

[Scribe]

So what's going on? Why are nerds more into Japan and East Asia than everyone else? I'm not sure I buy that it's about Teddy Roosevelt and vases.

Because 'nerds' are a group that can really get into a thing, fixate on it, and iterate on it essentially forever.

I watch video's sometimes of things which are mundane, but which a mastery of is (was?) elevated in Japan for example.

I'd say if there is a culture which would be conducive to nerd culture being able to blossom, it would have been Japans for a real long time.

 

[beta-ray]

This nerd is of Japanese ethnicity, and growing up, was exposed to a lot of Japanese culture including anime (Mazinger Z) and tokusatsu (Kamen Rider V3). I've always been into it.

As for others… there are probably many reasons, many listed above.

Nerds… get into things.

 

[Tonguez]

Golden Chersonese and Sinae are mentioned by Claudius Ptolemy in Geōgraphikḕ Hyphḗgēsis published around AD150. From a western perspective Asia was always far away unknown, exotic-fantastic.

 

[S'mon]

It is striking that Japan especially generates much more interest than any other non-Western culture. Partly it's the strength of their cultural industry. Hong Kong cinema was popular too, whereas eg Thai or Vietnamese culture don't generate the same interest. Why Japan is seen as cool, and India with its own massive cultural industry is not seen as cool, is a complicated question of psychology I think*.

Things do change - the mythology of eastern Europe has become cool in recent years, in a way it was not during the Cold War and immediate post-Cold War. Not yet at anything like Japan level though.

*Stoicism is generally seen as cool, whether it's Samurai or Spartans. I suspect that's a major factor.