Now, no matter what circle it is, it's torn apart like this. I've been thinking about this for a long time, but it's always been a draft. I'll just post it today to make up the numbers. But I feel like I can't handle this kind of topic.
Mainly some scattered thoughts
Looking around, there is no one#
How should I put it, now basically no one can talk to me about anime. Even my colleagues at work don't really watch anime. Even if we can talk about anime, it's difficult to talk about the same anime, and even if we can talk about the same anime, it's difficult to have the same viewpoint. I remember in high school, when I was queuing for food, I was still discussing the "world line changes" in "Steins;Gate" with my classmates, seriously discussing how our current actions would change the world line. The motto was still something like "The gears of fate are turning in an unknown place" (spoiler: I only understood what chuunibyou was after university). High school was the happiest time for me, not for anything else, but for those friends who listened to me ramble every day. Right, xxx assistant, keep the special notebook I gave you for organizing, okay?
In the past, when I was following a series, I loved to guess the future plot. In high school, we were all guessing who the One-Eyed King was in "Tokyo Ghoul", and there was really one answer every week. In high school, I didn't have a phone, so in order to watch the manga that updated on Sunday night, we all took turns using a rich classmate's phone to read it in the dormitory late at night. And now, in the situation where I have no friends to talk to, my understanding of works has gradually decreased. It's already difficult to understand the timeline of a work, and I might even think after finishing it, "What's the name of that character?" After all, if you don't discuss it with others when you finish watching it, it's hard to have a deep impression.
Lack of shared imagination#
I seem to have figured it out. The major difference between this era and the previous one is actually television. Although I don't have a thesis to support it, I think to a large extent, it lacks this shared imagination, which has greatly increased the distance between people. Especially in big cities, because people in big cities come from various backgrounds and regions. They hardly have similar pasts, and their preferences are also different. It's an atomized society, like isolated islands in big cities. Well, that's not quite right to say, even if it's not a big city, there will still be such a situation. The fundamental problem is that "it's difficult for outsiders to achieve their own identity recognition in a foreign place". In "NANA", it's actually a group of people like this.
It's been like this since university. I was actually quite surprised when everyone was talking about Starry Sky TV. I had never heard of it before. From that moment on, I gradually understood that "we have different pasts". And, to some extent, after a certain age, it's actually a bit difficult to accept other people's interests and hobbies, and there's always a feeling of being NTR'd. It's even harder to follow the interests of colleagues around you, or to make colleagues around you follow your interests.
Elusive Communities - Could the Solution Be Meeting in Person?#
But is it really like this? Actually, you can also look at this problem from another perspective. In this era, even the smallest circles can have a certain number of people. It's just that this group of people may exist in the virtual world, making it seem so elusive. How can we acknowledge and embrace the ethereal relationships in the cyberspace? If we consider text as one-dimensional, it's really difficult for one-dimensional people to have a deep impact. Many times, you will never meet the person you communicated with online again in your lifetime.
Digital immigrants are also lonely.
So that's why there are so many meet-ups, meet-ups are really meaningful, they allow like-minded friends to build their image based on multidimensional factors. Just like my mom has a group of friends who dance in the square together, she must be happy every day. (spoiler: I don't have to seek comfort in another world every day like I do now)
Prologue#
This is a paragraph I wrote over a year ago.
I really enjoy the feeling of "sharing the stories I've watched with others". Especially when the interests and hobbies of the people around me are different from mine, this feeling becomes even stronger. People with similar interests and hobbies are always hard to come by. Especially after going to college, everyone's interests and hobbies are basically fixed, and it's really difficult to recommend works to others. How should I put it, it seems like everyone's time is never enough, everyone is busy and tired for their own direction, and they are also filled with their own interests and have no time to communicate with others, or "afraid of being hurt and staying away from others". People are like isolated islands.
People who are good at listening to others' opinions and can watch "works recommended by others" are great people, they have a great quality, they don't only see themselves. It's really easy to be liked by others.
I, on the other hand, am the opposite. I always easily want to forcefully change others, especially those who are slightly weaker than me. I never listen to others' opinions, I won't watch works recommended by others, and I won't like things that others like. That's the feeling. Of course, I might watch it before someone recommends it, and I might like it before someone else likes it. I'm just the kind of person who is "forever filled with my own interests". I'm often afraid of being looked down upon by others, but I'm actually the one who looks down upon others the most, too selfish. Just like when I was in elementary school, I often invited many classmates to my house to watch me play computer games, and when I was doing something, I would forget about others. "Being different from others", that's probably the reason why I like niche things like ACG.
Reference links#
- The example of the chestnut I mentioned before (the link below) really describes well the "when the niche thing you like is no longer niche" and the "when the thing you love is no longer the way you love it", it's a very complex psychology.
Why do many people who like ACG culture not admit that they like anime? - Zhihu