Every community seems so torn apart these days. I’ve been thinking about this for a long time, but it’s always remained in drafts. Today I’ll just publish it to fill my quota. Though I still feel like I can’t quite handle this kind of topic.
Mainly just some scattered thoughts
Looking Around, No One in Sight
How should I put it? Basically no one can talk anime with me anymore. My coworkers don’t really watch anime either. Even if I can find someone to discuss anime with, it’s hard to talk about the same series. And even if we do manage to discuss the same series, it’s hard to have the same viewpoints. I remember in high school, my classmates and I would discuss the “worldline changes” in Steins;Gate while waiting in line for lunch, seriously debating in the cafeteria how our current actions might change the worldline. Our motto was something like “The gears of fate are turning somewhere unknown” ( ). High school was my most blissful time, not for any other reason than those few friends who listened to me ramble every day. Right, xxx-kun, you still have that organization-exclusive notebook I gave you, don’t you?
When following a series back then, I really enjoyed guessing what would happen next. In high school, when we were all guessing who the One-Eyed King was in Tokyo Ghoul, we literally had a different answer every week. I didn’t have a phone in high school, so to read the manga that updated on Sunday nights, we would secretly pass around some rich classmate’s phone in the dorm late at night, taking turns reading. Now, without friends to discuss with, I gradually engage less deeply with works. Being able to sort out a work’s timeline is already quite an achievement, and I might even finish watching something and think “What was that character’s name again?” After all, if you don’t discuss it with others after watching, it’s really hard to leave a deep impression.
Lacking Shared Imagination
I think I’ve figured it out. The major difference between this era and the previous one is actually television. Although I don’t have academic papers to support this, I feel that to a large extent we lack this kind of shared imagination, which has dramatically increased the distance between people. Especially in big cities, because everyone in big cities comes from various regions with all kinds of different backgrounds. They have almost no similar past experiences, and their interests are all different. An atomized society, like isolated islands of office workers in big cities - actually, that’s not quite right. This situation exists even outside big cities. The fundamental problem is that “outsiders find it very difficult to achieve identity recognition in foreign places.” The characters in NANA are basically this kind of group too.
It’s been like this since college. I was actually quite surprised by everyone talking about Star TV - I had never even heard of it. From that moment, I gradually understood that “we have different pasts.” Moreover, to some extent, after reaching a certain age, it’s actually quite difficult to accept others’ interests and hobbies - there’s always this feeling of NTR. This makes it even harder to follow colleagues’ interests, or get colleagues to follow yours.
Ethereal Communities - Maybe Meeting IRL is the Solution?
But is it really like this? Actually, we can look at this problem from another angle. In this era, even the smallest circles can have a certain number of people. It’s just that those people might be on the internet, making them seem so ethereal. How do we acknowledge and embrace the ephemeral interpersonal relationships in cyberspace? If we consider text as one-dimensional, then one-dimensional people are really hard to become profound. Many times, you truly will never meet that person who communicated with you online ever again in your lifetime.
Digital nomads feel the same loneliness.
So that’s why we need so many meetups, right? Meeting IRL is truly meaningful - it allows like-minded friends’ images to be constructed through multi-dimensional factors.
Like how my mom has a group of friends who dance square dance together - that must make her so happy every day. ( )
Preface
This is a passage I originally wrote over a year ago:
I really enjoy that feeling of “sharing stories I’ve experienced with others.” Especially when people around me have interests quite different from mine, this feeling becomes even stronger. People with similar interests and hobbies as yours are always something you can encounter but not seek. Especially after college, everyone’s interests and hobbies are basically set, making it really difficult to recommend works to others. How should I put it - everyone’s time seems to never be enough. Everyone is busy rushing toward their own direction, or filled up by their own interests with no time left to communicate with others, or perhaps “afraid of being hurt and staying away from others.” People are like isolated islands.
Those who are good at listening to others’ opinions and can “watch works recommended by others” are wonderful people with a wonderful trait - they don’t only have eyes for themselves. They’re really easy to like.
I’m the opposite type of person. I always easily want to forcibly change others, especially those who are slightly more vulnerable than me. I never listen to others’ opinions, I won’t watch works others recommend, and I won’t like things others like. That’s exactly the feeling. Of course, I might still watch something before others recommend it, and I might like something before others do - I’m just that kind of “person who is always filled by their own interests.” I often fear being looked down upon by others, but actually I’m the one who looks down on others the most. Too selfish. Just like in elementary school when I would often bring many classmates to my house to watch me play computer games - when I’m doing something, I throw others to the back of my mind. “Being different from others” - that might be why I like niche things like ACG.
Reference Links
- The chestnut example from before (the link below) really describes well that complex psychology of “when the niche things you love are no longer niche” and “when the things you love are no longer what you loved.” Why do many people who like ACG culture refuse to admit they like 2D culture? - Zhihu