AarinNerds

It's good you guys got back on topic.
Racism discussions are not allowed here in the forum.
Pls keep that in mind. Thank you

No, I don't really tell people I'm into yaoi / BL. I hesitate to tell them I even watch anime. I didn't watch anime as a teen, so I have this childish prejudice against it, and I'm convinced that people, when they find out I watch it now, will think I'm a "geek." I have been teased for it by family and friends, but then I've also had people be very accepting, even if no one has ever offered to sit down and watch an actual episode with me. Anime is seen as something that pimply children watch, and adults who enjoy it are apparently inexplicable phenomenons.

The only anime community I'm familiar with would be the online community! I rarely venture out of my little yaoi-related world online But when I do, when I enter a shounen, male-dominated board, for instance, it's not very nice. Lots of cursing, lots of childish remarks ... and nothing nice to say about yaoi fans. Homophobia is rampant.

i don't go around telling people i'm into yaoi either, mostly because i live in a heavily homophobic society (in my country they still do the "throw-rotten-tomatoes / heavy-bricks-at-them-freaks" routine), and it's a touchy subject, something i don't feel like arguing about with just anyone.
anime is not exactly popular either, especially among people past 25 like myself, so, again, i would probably be given weird looks. i remember once a coworker happened to see my cell phone lying on my desk, and it had this cute chibi Inuyasha wallpaper, and he asked me "o, you like this sort of stuff? what's it called, manga or something?" and i just told him "yeah, i like it" and changed the subject. the thing is it feels rather tiresome to argue about something which automatically places you in the "kiddy" category, because the general opinion goes that anime targets children, and i obviously lack the time and energy to go on a crusade and fight this prejudice. only one or two people know about my anime (and yaoi) hobby, and frankly that's enough for me.

i'm not what you would call a regular forumer, the only online anime community i'm into is this one, but from the few contacts i've had with the "outer world" i learned that the yaoi reader is perceived as a mindless slasher, loudmouth fangirl, and generally annoying person. inside our own community, we're just dandy though

First of all pardon me if I don't make sense, english is not my first language.

I, like most of you, don't go around telling people I love Yaoi/anime/manga, but I don't deny it either. I'm pretty blunt at times and I don't like to explain myself much so I just ignore the questions at times. I have been in other forums but never sign up, most places are full of neurotic, overly defensive teenagers that argue about the most miniscule thing. Here at least everyone opinions are respected. The world is full of ignorants and there's nothing I can do about it.

I'm happy been in aarin, people here are so nice. I better shut up before I get all lovey-dovey.

i don't tell everyone that i like yaoi coz then it'd have to explain to them what yaoi is ... and then they'd have this O_o moment when they think it's like drawn gay porn ... which it sometimes is, but once people have this preconception in their heads, no matter how much you try to argue with them, they're not really gonna be convinced that there are storylines and romance. there have been a few guys how knew about hentai and would think that yaoi is like that but just with guy on guy. i dont personally know anyone who's gay so i can't gage their opinion on yaoi, but all the straght guys i know, once they know that yaoi is, kinda get freaked out and like ... change the subject >_>

with normal anime in general, i don't care, i tell everyone that i like it and if people think i'm childish, i just shrug and say 'if you watch evangelion or death note, you wouldn't think that it's for anyone under 15". mostly it's been cool, i've found some people who like it as well, if not obsessive about anime, at least enjoy it and know some titles. the cool thing is that, this year i joined my university's anime society, and there is just a group of people who gather and talk about anime, and draw some manga every week, and it's really fun because everyone loves it and know all the famous ones. the cool thing also is that i found 3 yaoi fangirls among the lot so now i have people i can talk about yaoi to face-to-face some of the guys look at us weird when we're fangirling about bleach slash but generally, everyone's pretty easy going and understand that such a genre exists and is popular.


@arinna ~ my parents think that im a kid for liking yaoi and i just dont bother to justify why i like it. i think people have seen a couple of minutes of sailor moon dubbed or naruto dubbed, see how childish it is and assume that everyone is like it
... and i didn't think that perception of people who like yaoi were that bad!

@sexyryu ~ i totally agree! there are so many nice and helpful and friendly people here on aarin

@artemis ~ this is the only place i can discuss anime constructively and fangirl about it at the same time. you're right that shounen manga forums are full of guys that either just curse and swear, or 1337 speak which is even worse >_< or they go into full arguements about some tiny detail in the plot, and it's hard to stay in the 'discussion' even if you post constructively... also a lot of the times, they tend to ignore, or just reply to the posts that are contain the words 'pwnd' or 'ownz' something similar >_>
... i'm being renji, see! but arinna beat me first

Yes, you are being Renji! *drools over you* And I am Jyuu-chan! Here everyone, have some candies! *pats you all on the head* *special hug for sexyryu, yes, Aarinfantasy is the greatest, isn't it!?*

I think a large part of my reluctance to talk about my interest in anime is almost totally based upon my OWN preconceptions about what kinds of people watch or enjoy anime. In general, the response has been neither positive nor negative, but mostly indifference.

I'm perhaps lucky, in that I work in academia, where pretty much everyone is nerdier than I am. So there are probably quite a few anime fans mixed into that lot; I did have a professor who used to watch the anime that came on Adult Swim; this seems to be the only source of anime for most guys. To date, I've only met one other girl who enjoyed anime, and she was a bit eccentric; she was a huge Harry Potter fan and actually dressed up and went to a convention. Of course I made fun of her in my head, when the whole time I secretly wished I could dress up and go to a convention!

@shattered - lemme get this straight... i beat you at being Renji? or am i completely misunderstanding?

can i be Byakuya?

@arinna ~ ... its just from when we were talking about typing without punctuation, and i was lazy about it, so i thought i was a bit like renji, but you didn't type with punctuation, so you beat me to the renji-ness

if you want to be byakuya, you gotta talk a lot more formally than that dear!

@artemis ~ you have a point there ... i also kinda think that those people who cosplay are a bit 'too' obsessed, but ive always wanted to cosplay, just didnt have the skills to do it >_<

i was trying to get to Renji level, Byakuya would never say "lemme".

but then again, i'm not even a native english speaker, maybe i'm aiming too high

i find it funny that there are all these people who start off their sentences with "i'm not a native english speaker, so forgive the bad english" and they go on to write stuff that makes more sense and sounds more correct than how a lot of native speakers i know will talk!!

byakuya's technically japanese, so really, he wouldn't be a native english speaker either