/Many foreign devotees of Japanese pop-culture treat the word "otaku" is a superlative rather than a pejorative. That's their first mistake. This often arises from a misconception of Tokyo as a glorious "nerd-vana" where otaku galavant and gambol twixt the figure-shops of Akiba and Ikebukuro and Nakano hand in harmonious hand. That's their second, as threads like this one on 2ch show.
Lest you get the mistaken impression that this "moderate" versus "die-hard" schism is a recent trend, allow me to remind you how many of the complaints about fanaticism, over-assertiveness, and general cluelessness echo points made decades earlier in that old pre-otaku-era pamphlet about "yappies." But generally speaking, old-school otaku were a quietly suffering lot who cast their collective sense of embarrassment over throwing their lives away on garage kits and anime artbooks as a sort of stoic heroism. In contrast, younger and more outgoing "kimotaku" ("gross/creepy otaku") wear their hobbies on their sleeves, even evangelizing them, public opinion be damned.
And now for sampling of the latest comments in a thread with an epically straightforward title:
Why "Kimotaku" are annoying as hell (2ch, Japanese language)
Because they treat being an otaku as a badge of honor.
Because they're mouth-breathers.
Stupid guys mistake their own greatness out of a lack of humility. Kimotaku have another layer of cluelessness on top of that, so they can't be saved.
So many kimotaku are overly self-assertive, which is annoying as hell.
You guys are basically describing nico-chu. (Note: obsessive users of Nico Nico Videos)
The thing that disturbs me about kimotaku is that they lack the masochism of their predecessors, using the name as a source of pride to argue its legitimacy.
They keep pressing their hobbies on everyone even after we tell them directly that we aren't interested.
What makes you think YOU aren't gross, huh?
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