Otaku

Award-winning author and feminist Ursula K. Le Guin delivered a rhetorically complex speech to the Mills College graduating class of 1983, comprised almost entirely of women. Her speech came at a challenging time for women, as second-wave feminism began to dissolve into a myriad of disagreeing factions. The title of the speech, the “Left-Handed Commencement Address,” is a reference to her book The Left Hand of Darkness, which follows an androgynous race of space aliens. This foreshadows the content of her speech, wherein Le Guin discusses gender norms and the importance of women forging their own paths in a male-dominated society. Le Guin uses strong ethos to connect with her audience successfully, though I believe she uses her credibility as a crutch to hold up the unclear premise of her speech. In my rhetorical analysis of this speech I intend to show the quality of her ethical appeal with her intended audience, primarily through her pronoun usage, and expose the weaknesses in the content of her speech. Le Guin builds ethos quickly with her choice of pronouns. The first word of her speech is “I.” She takes responsibility for her words and establishes her authority over the subject. A few sentences into the speech Le Guin shifts to “we,” with the statement, “That’s why we are all wearing these twelfth-century dresses that look so great on men and make women look either like a mushroom or a pregnant stork” (Le Guin). This usage of “we” seems out of Le Guin’s control – indeed…

Throughout time, “heroes” have come and gone each leaving their mark on the world around them. A sociologist, Orrin Klapp, has noticed trends and patterns in how we as a society define our heroes and how we follow them. In the example of entertainers, he said it was their “box office (ability)” (Klapp 54) that brings in their fans and that can in turn lift them to the status of heroism. I feel it is not just the natural ability of the entertainer that elevates them to the status of hero but also…

I am a huge, huge nerd. I’ve never cared about sports, or what’s hip now, or that cool new musician. I’m all about video games, particularly indie dungeon crawlers and first person shooters. I listen to old 80s rock and EDM music. My family and friends shaped me into this person, and they’re the reason there’s an essay here at all. Nerdiness runs in my blood. My Great-Grandfather played Legend of Zelda and Sims. My parents are therefore, of course, nerds. Different, and more old school, but…

We have all heard a million times about nerds and geeks but do we actually know the meaning of those words? Leonid Fridman evokes his thoughts about America’s wrong ideology when referring to people who are fervent in achieving academic success. The author utilizes definition, comparison and contrast, and synecdoche in America Needs Its Nerds as rhetorical devices to rectify society’s view of nerds and geeks. Fridman includes the real definition of the word geek to make understandable how…

The purpose of the study, A Psychological Exploration of Engagement in Geek Culture, was to identify and understand why people participate in geek culture. Geek culture is defined as a subculture of enthusiasts that are interested in “obscure” media such as anime, sci-fi, and videogames. However, there are many faucets of the culture and it has become increasingly appealing to mainstream audiences, causing a greater shift in active engagement. Despite geek interests once being marginalized,…

How to Cosplay Cosplay? What is this cosplay you speak of? Cosplay is the art of making and wearing a costume and role-playing in it. Cosplaying started to become popular around 1990-1995 when people started to cosplay as their favorite superheroes or movie characters at sci-fi conventions. From then to now, more than a million people cosplay daily at conventions. What can you cosplay as, you may ask yourself? Well, you can cosplay as anything you want. You can cosplay as your favorite…

When I was in middle school, there was a boy named Richard who would always pick on me and come up with names that were hurtful to me. One thing he would say was, “You’re such a nerd!” This offended me and made me feel self conscience because when I think of the word nerd, I think of someone who is socially awkward. The word nerd has two different meanings, one being, “a person considered to be socially awkward, boring, unstylish, etc.,” and the other being, “an intelligent but single-minded…

knowledge that the otaku community is not accepted well by the society. Especially by the Japanese society. Which might sound rather ironic since Japan is the country of anime, games, and kawaii. Most Japanese people, when asked, affirmed they hold negative images of otaku people. And more than half believed being an Otaku connected to other social problems such as social isolation and the increase of adults with no wish to have stable jobs. Back in the 1990s, it was a hard time to be an…

The Characteristics of an Otaku and a Fujoshi in Kiss Him, Not Me In Japan, there are many people who would consider themselves avid fans of anime and manga. The term used for such people in Japanese is otaku. Amongst fan culture, another term used is fujoshi which translates into “rotten girl” (Tanka and Ishida 77) and is used to describe females who are interested in yaoi, also known as Boys’ Love (BL) which revolves around male on male relationships in a romantic or erotic form. In this…

The Modest Otaku Harem God Wow, you guys are bunch of horny bastards! Who the hell would click on story called the ‘Harem God’? Anyway… This is the fantastic, non-cliché and plot amour less Novel. Oh, I should probably tell you… I’ve been reincarnated… Like in the title. I died in my sleep when I was 30. I woke up, I think I’m 3? I was in a very royal like room, with a bunch of antique like items. I check my stats. Race: Sylphen Harem God Stats: Overall rating =…