Friday, October 24, 2003

Reflections

Today officially marks my two year anniversary as a member of the Otaku community. I thought that I would use this entry to express some reflections on my time spent on the boards. Embarrassingly enough, I first became a member of the OB because I wanted to find out more about DBZ because I had missed a few episodes. Although I am not very interested in DBZ anymore, I still frequent the boards and have no immediate plans for leaving. The following are some of my fondest memories of Otaku Boards and the community that surrounds it. On My First Thread When I first joined the OB my friends and I were enamored with one of the greatest movies of all time, High Fidelity. We were constantly creating top five lists for everything: our favorite college basketball players, our favorite horror movie massacres, and our favorite supporting actors under twelve years old and practically anything else you can think of. I decided to bring this idea to the OB, and I posted a “Top Five” thread in which members could list and explain there top five choices for a set category. I thought it would be neat to change the topic every week or so, that way the discussion would continue for quite awhile. Unfortunately the idea was a flop, several other members decided to create similar threads and all of them were closed. Bummer. Meeting a Member I didn’t join Otaku Boards to meet people and begin friendships, however, it is why I have remained a member. At first I was a pretty reclusive member, new to the internet, I was very skeptical and wary of people online. I don’t remember who IM’d who, but my first conversation with a person that I had never met before was with BabyGirl. Our first conversation was over a thread that dealt with severe mental illness, and both of us were pretty upset with some things that were being written in the thread for personal reasons. I knew right away that even though I had never met or saw Jenna, I liked her, I enjoyed talking to her. The conversation that we shared helped to make me feel comfortable with people I met on the internet. Deborah I remember noticing Deb’s posts immediately after joining the OB. I assumed (correctly) that she was close to my age, and we seemed to share a lot of common interests. After commenting back and forth on each others posts Deb sent me a PM and we began conversing that way. Over time we have become fast friends, and I still look forward to her opinions and our conversations whether on the phone or on OB. Ganging up on Toriness I don’t know why this comes to mind whenever I think of OB, but it does. At one point in time during v.3, there was a thread on alcohol, use of alcohol, shoot, I don’t even remember exactly what it was about. Anyway, I remember that before Jenna finally closed the thread innocent ole’ Asuki ended up having to defend her point of view against three or four of us that had entirely opposite views on the subject at hand. I think that is when I started to have a little bit of respect for her, although I didn’t agree with her argument on whatever the subject matter was, I remember thinking that it was admirable of her standing up for her beliefs while she was being hassled by several of us that are older and have a bit more experience than she did. The News Editor This was a job that I was really excited about but then ended up failing miserably at. I had been asked to fill Rick Hunter’s place as the “Anime News Reporter” for theOtaku. Now, even though I am not Kevin’s biggest fan, I am the first person to admit that the guy knew a ton about anime and what was going on in the anime world. I only had magazines and online sources to take information from, and I was always plagued by not knowing what to write about, not knowing what events were important to the average OBer. So I wrote about what I thought was interesting. It was fun for awhile, but I was glad when it was over. I really didn’t do an adequate job as the “OB News Editor” or whatever my title was :) HC and Mod Rod Power Despite my shortcomings as an anime news editor, I was asked to mod the OB’s Cowboy Bebop section. Obviously I jumped at the chance. Cowboy Bebop had long been my favorite anime series, and I was one of the many that adamantly pushed for its own section on the boards. It was a blast at first. There were a bunch of really good topics and conversations dealing with all aspects of the show. There is, however, a limit to how much one can discuss a series that only has twenty some episodes. Conversation in the forum soon died. One day I decided to PM James and let him know that I would be willing to help anywhere else around the boards if he needed it, within two days the sub-forums were collapsed and I was a mod of the Anime Forum. Initially I was wary of doing too much in the forum, mainly because I didn’t want to step on Tori’s toes. I tended to just delete posts and send generic ban warnings via PM to members that were continually breaking the rules. I never really found my niche in the Lounge, mainly because I really am not all that interested in shows like Foolycooly and Inuyasha and I had absolutely nothing worthwhile to contribute to the conversation. I spent most of my time thinking of bizarre ways to close similar threads. When James told me that I wasn’t needed anymore I was quite relieved, I was no longer obligated to read 8000 posts debating who the best anime swordsman is. cAttitude Just to make it clear to everyone, I was the first person to ever display cAttitude. Although there may be those that display more cAttitude than your truly, I was the first so nyah, nayh , nyah. Although I have only really known Charles for seven or eight months, quite a few of my most memorable OB memories involve him in some form or another; Otaku Idol, the infamous sock thread, and of course, our rap battle. The battle between Charles and me is epic, and I doubt that any other will touch it. I am an arrogant person so I have no problem blatantly stating that we revolutionized the battle arena…who knows if it was for the better or the worse? There are a bunch of other memories to be made on the OB, right now Mitch and I have a very unusual battle, that my not be a battle at all and v.7 is on the horizon. Anyway, I think I wrote my fill for the day…sorry if I left anyone out, it wasn’t intentional.

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