This little bit of 4chan macro raises some interesting issues for me. I’ve always been ambivalent towards GG; One the one hand, I find their subs to be competently translated and their meme-jokes mildly amusing. On the other, I despise their constant trolling and the irreverent, dismissive attitude they take towards their fans. Of course, that trolling is exactly what makes GG so infamous in the first place. It’s that kind of contradiction that embodies their entire attitude towards fansubbing.
In fact, the exact same thing can be said about 4chan. It’s filled with the most base content the internet has to offer, yet the community still has enough insight and creativity to be considered the heart and soul of the otakusphere. Even those who profess to hate /a/ still spew 4chan terminology and memes, whether they realize it or not. Perhaps us otaku are, by our very nature, contradictory creatures filled with self-loathing.
Or maybe I’m overthinking this whole thing. What do you think?
“The heart and soul of the otakusphere”?
I find that expression questionable. (Not even necessarily that you equate it with 4chan.) It implies that the anime fandom is arranged like an onion, with a small centre and many layers between that and the outside, distincted by their degree of “insideness”. I think if you want to do the sisyphean task of finding some organizing, it should more look like a really complicated Venn diagram with many sets and subsets, overlapping everywhere and no clear boundary to be found, on the inside and to the outside.
If the otakusphere is a city, then 4chan is the combination slum/airport. I hope that clarifies things!
Since there are many possible interpretations of your words and I don’t really know much about slums and airports, no, it doesn’t clarify things.
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