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Why do nerds love East Asia so much?
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<blockquote data-quote="Willie the Duck" data-source="post: 9023901" data-attributes="member: 6799660"><p>I think people have touched on all the big parts. Western audiences have had a fascination with the 'exotic' Orient and Indian subcontinent since colonial days. For the U.S., thousands of ~18 y.o. GIs stationed in Japan post-WWII refocused the specifics to Japan*. Japan's rapid adoption of exporting media and toys made it easy for people looking for genre-material to latch on to specific facets of it. I think the slow diffusion and versioning** of different components of the purchasable media landscape helped by making each generation feel that their iteration of it was different from their parents (and maybe even somehow rebellious/'you-wouldn't-get-it-dad'-ish). I think the slow scope-change of nerd-dom in general from economic niche to demographic to mainstream sub-line to general mainstream category also gave many subsequent iterations of this process renewed life.</p><p><span style="font-size: 9px">*China-centric obsession coming from immigration, taking over the 'Asian restaurant' industry while the Japanese were in camps, and a bunch of other things that will be hard to discuss without veering excessively into politics</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 9px">**from direct ports (with subtitles or dubbing) to made-for-export products to US-made interpretations to splicing in American protagonists to using existing footage/animation but chopping things up and changing the narrative and back around to direct ports in a merry little loop.</span></p><p></p><p></p><p>Outside of recursive definitions like 'nerds are people who like nerdy things; nerdy things are those that nerds like,' one of the best definitions I've heard someone use for nerds is <em>'people who like a number of activities (notably entertainment media) that is focused, modular, and easy to obsess about/pore over the intricacies of, and possibly to gain in-group cachet by having a wider knowledge than others in relation to the subject.'</em> It's not a 100% perfect matchup, but useful and explains a lot (in particular how nerds and sports fans traditionally have butted heads, but also behaved in similar ways; also why Greek/Norse/your own favorite mythology is another favorite nerd-topic). You do not need to know the complex interplay of feudal Japanese culture to enjoy tales of samurai or ninja, but once you do enjoy those tales, they are great to pick apart and learn more about and maybe do learn those complex interplays of the culture.</p><p></p><p></p><p>The easy buy-in I alluded to is both blessing and curse. We've probably each been that person at least some of the time.</p><p></p><p>And the Monk class supposedly got into oD&D because of <em>Kung Fu</em> and The Remo Williams/<em>Destroyer </em>novels.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I agree. The Japan/China focus exists because of specifics of a place and time and the cultural and economic situation of the second half of the 20th century (also, Japan and China are two of the top three economies in the world). It's unsurprising that this dynamic is shifting (although Japan in particular has a lot of first-to-market advantages that will keep it in prominence for a long while). That Korean is making such great strides in the past 2-3 decades kinda points out that they have some really interesting stuff (culture and media-wise) going for them. I would really like it if Vietnamese, Cambodian, Laotian, and Hmong cultures had similar moments in the sun, with regard to international cultural prominence.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Willie the Duck, post: 9023901, member: 6799660"] I think people have touched on all the big parts. Western audiences have had a fascination with the 'exotic' Orient and Indian subcontinent since colonial days. For the U.S., thousands of ~18 y.o. GIs stationed in Japan post-WWII refocused the specifics to Japan*. Japan's rapid adoption of exporting media and toys made it easy for people looking for genre-material to latch on to specific facets of it. I think the slow diffusion and versioning** of different components of the purchasable media landscape helped by making each generation feel that their iteration of it was different from their parents (and maybe even somehow rebellious/'you-wouldn't-get-it-dad'-ish). I think the slow scope-change of nerd-dom in general from economic niche to demographic to mainstream sub-line to general mainstream category also gave many subsequent iterations of this process renewed life. [SIZE=1]*China-centric obsession coming from immigration, taking over the 'Asian restaurant' industry while the Japanese were in camps, and a bunch of other things that will be hard to discuss without veering excessively into politics **from direct ports (with subtitles or dubbing) to made-for-export products to US-made interpretations to splicing in American protagonists to using existing footage/animation but chopping things up and changing the narrative and back around to direct ports in a merry little loop.[/SIZE] Outside of recursive definitions like 'nerds are people who like nerdy things; nerdy things are those that nerds like,' one of the best definitions I've heard someone use for nerds is [I]'people who like a number of activities (notably entertainment media) that is focused, modular, and easy to obsess about/pore over the intricacies of, and possibly to gain in-group cachet by having a wider knowledge than others in relation to the subject.'[/I] It's not a 100% perfect matchup, but useful and explains a lot (in particular how nerds and sports fans traditionally have butted heads, but also behaved in similar ways; also why Greek/Norse/your own favorite mythology is another favorite nerd-topic). You do not need to know the complex interplay of feudal Japanese culture to enjoy tales of samurai or ninja, but once you do enjoy those tales, they are great to pick apart and learn more about and maybe do learn those complex interplays of the culture. The easy buy-in I alluded to is both blessing and curse. We've probably each been that person at least some of the time. And the Monk class supposedly got into oD&D because of [I]Kung Fu[/I] and The Remo Williams/[I]Destroyer [/I]novels. I agree. The Japan/China focus exists because of specifics of a place and time and the cultural and economic situation of the second half of the 20th century (also, Japan and China are two of the top three economies in the world). It's unsurprising that this dynamic is shifting (although Japan in particular has a lot of first-to-market advantages that will keep it in prominence for a long while). That Korean is making such great strides in the past 2-3 decades kinda points out that they have some really interesting stuff (culture and media-wise) going for them. I would really like it if Vietnamese, Cambodian, Laotian, and Hmong cultures had similar moments in the sun, with regard to international cultural prominence. [/QUOTE]
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