This thread is intended as an inquiry into why the geeky enthusiasm is a thing, which I think most people would say exists.
Well, I don't think it's exactly "focused" on the Geeks. The East Asia culture has themes and elements that attract everyone. But it did start with the Geeks.
Set the Wayback Machine for 1970 something. You had the occasional 'Asia' movie, but they were not 'blockbusters'. There was really only ONE way to get exposed to 'East Asia' for most of the 70s (and 80s) : UHF. By the late 70/ early 80 s UHF channels were playing a ton of stuff from Asia. A typical viewing area had two UHF channels: One that played the American re-runs of the old shows......and that other one. The other one was quite often a high number Channel 67 or something like that. They either could not afford "I Love Lucy" or there were crazy laws saying "only one channel per county can brodcast this show". But the UHF channels had some 16 hours or so to fill of air time. And shows from Asia were cheep to buy. There were some companies that even took the Asia shows, edited and dubbed them into English, and then sold them. Your typical 60 something UHF channel had ham afternoon and afternoon of kids shows like Ultraman and G-force. Then in the evening had the more adult shows like The Samurai and The Super Girl. And spaced in-between, week day afternoons and weekends were all the movies, from Godzilla to King Boxer. I'm sure more then one poster here saw their first Bruce Lee movie on the Sunday Action Matinee on channel 67 along with a goofy movie host.
And the UHF channels also put on things like local city council, high school sports.......and Martial Arts. Someone would put a camera at some people doing real martial arts for an hour or two....maybe even a competition. At first just to fill time. But it quickly gained popularity.
And who was watching all this? Well the "Main Stream People" were ALL (nearly like 99%) over watching ONLY the Big Three National Networks(and maybe PBS). It's just how TV worked at the time. So who was watching the UHF channels?
The Geeks.
Of course the National Networks had close to zero kids/teen programing other then Saturday Cartoons and an After School Special and an odd show like The Mumpets. And even for many (geek) adults, the over done cop, medical, family dramas and made for TV movies did not really draw them in. And they were the ones tunning in to UHF.
And this was true for all the 70/80. Few "Main Stream" people even knew Asia Media existed.
But the draw was still there. If you could get a "main stream kid" to watch say Voltron, there was a good chance they would like it. And this is EXACTLY what happened in about the mid 80s. The UHF channels would show American shows like GI Joe, back to back with Voltron. And kids ate it up.
And things like Martial Arts exploded in the 80s. And not just for the 'geeks', everyone...even the mainstream kids would take martial arts classes.
Buy say 1990 or so a typical main stream person would see a ninja and say "wooohaa, that is so cool!", and the geek next to them would just nod and say "Yea, I've know that for years......".
