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Come to my Otakon panel! Or don’t. (Edited)

Edited 8/3/21: I have made the difficult decision not to attend Otakon 2021 or give my panel there. I apologize for breaking this commitment after being fortunate enough to have my panel accepted. But as cases continue to rise, I can no longer put my own enjoyment over the health of my unvaccinated child.

Personally speaking, I believe the Otakon convention center, which earned sanitation accreditation in 2020 after it was set up as an (unused) Covid-19 field hospital, is one of the safer large indoor spaces for vaccinated people. But my risk assessment isn’t just about me anymore. I hope I can present this panel in the future after Eva gets vaccinated, too. 

The thing about the internet is it encourages us to brand ourselves, the more specific the better. There are a lot of parts of my life that I don’t share here. For example: I bake a lot, I’m a prolific sock knitter, I’m currently involved in some incredibly dull drama with the homeowner’s association. The longer I’ve been online, the more I’ve associated myself with increasingly specific topics. Much of my most prominent work isn’t about fandom in general, but cosplay. And at anime conventions, I usually present panels about mecha anime in particular. 

But coming out of a long, horrible pandemic lockdown, I was thinking about what to present at Otakon, my first convention in nearly two years. Being stuck at home with a baby and then a toddler, I was completely burnt out. I hadn’t been building much Gunpla or even watching as much anime as usual except for review purposes. I thought, “I just want to talk about something intrinsically relaxing and fun,” and the hot springs panel started to form in my brain.

At the same time that I submitted my panel to Otakon, I was planning an onsen trip for July—and since the panel was approved, that vacation doubled as research! I stayed at Pembroke Springs, which used to be a ryokan-style bed-and-breakfast on the Virginia border before the pandemic. But the owners pivoted to a vacation rental during the lockdown. When I visited in 2017, John and I stayed in one of the five bedrooms along with four other couples we didn’t know. This time, we rented the entire property with 7 of our closest friends (and daughter). I ended up taking two baths a day each day we were there! Like I said, research.  

Here is the description of the panel I’ll be giving with John at Otakon. If you’ll be there, it’s on Saturday, August 7 from 4-5 PM in Panel Room 6:

Hot Springs Episode: An Introduction To Japanese Onsen 

Ever been curious about those inviting outdoor baths seen in anime and manga? They’re part of a centuries-old tradition. We’ll introduce you to the history of onsen, bathing etiquette, and what it’s like to stay at a hot springs inn. We’ll also be looking back at some of the most iconic anime hot springs scenes. You’ll leave feeling ready to create your own hot springs episode!

This is going to be a low-key panel, and I hope everyone finds it as chill to listen to as I did to research it. I can’t say I’ll be too relaxed while I’m giving it though, since I am way more concerned about being indoors in a big group now than I was a month ago. Even though I’m vaccinated, I have an unvaccinated child at home. For that reason, I’ll be wearing an N95 mask and I won’t be at Otakon for more than a couple of hours. This isn’t how I envisioned my return to cons, but here we are. 

I can’t exactly fault you for not coming to my panel because if I weren’t giving this panel, I wouldn’t be going at all. So come to my panel or stay home, whatever feels right to you!

On logging onto TikTok and immediately crumbling into dust

Lately, I’ve been spending a lot of time on TikTok. I started using the app regularly while researching my Washington Post article since all of the cosplayers I spoke to said they had started or increased their usage on TikTok during the pandemic. But there’s no work excuse for why I continue to spend an hour a day scrolling through funny cosplay videos. 

It’s uncanny how quickly the TikTok algorithm figured out what I wanted on my feed. My corner of TikTok is like an anime con masquerade that continues for 24 hours a day. I love this in-character Sk8 the Infinity barbeque, which turns a hangout into performance art. I’m in awe of this cosplayer who adjusts their look and body language to recreate a dozen Danganronpa characters in one video. I’m hooked on cosplay transformation videos that distill the sheer amount of time it takes to get into costume to a second or two, timed effortlessly to music. 

But every time I use TikTok, I’m also barraged with reminders of my age. “Minor, DNI [Do Not Interact]” is a common user profile descriptor. There’s a meme where young teenagers search a relative’s home for “vintage” manga, and based on my own manga collection, I might as well be that relative. More overtly, here’s a woman born the same year as me pretending to die of old age, though her presence on the app conversely shows that there are still older users! Goth Dad is one of my favorites. But I’m not seeing things: according to Statista, 50% of TikTok users worldwide are 34 or younger, and over 25% are 19 or younger. (Still, I wouldn’t put too much stock in these statistics dividing male and female users, since so many of the videos recommended to me are produced by nonbinary creators.) 

This is what categorizes my enjoyment of TikTok into a decidedly guilty pleasure. It’s time to admit that I am old and out of touch. This is a huge reason I have not been blogging anymore: my current life is so removed from my presumed audience that nothing that I feel like writing about feels like something my current readers would care about. 

When I launched Otaku Journalist, I was 22. My graduate school professor said we each needed to reserve a domain name in order to launch our careers as journalists. I initially started this blog under my real name and kept it general in order to appeal to more potential employers. After a few months, I leaned into my niche, limiting the number of jobs I could get, but also choosing to specialize in my preferred subject. You know the rest: this choice has led to bigger and bigger opportunities to cover fandom, including TV interviews and a book deal. 

All the while, I’ve written this blog with my 22-year-old self in mind. Some parts of my early career are still relatable, like my job at the Daily Dot churning out 16-20 articles a week. Other parts, like my relatively harassment-free internship for video game site Kotaku, are less so. Believe it or not, my reporting jobs in the ‘10s required me to interact in the comments section or on social media. In today’s environment of organized online abuse against journalists, that’s wildly unrealistic! There are distinct modern challenges that I never faced back then. 

But to add another barrier between me and this expected audience, I am not even working right now! I lost many of my freelance positions during the early days of the pandemic, as well as any interest I had in putting my daughter in daycare. That was a valid excuse for a while, but now that daycares are back open and my county is 70% vaccinated, I have to face the truth: I don’t want to go back to work yet. Of course, I do work: I don’t want to erase my around-the-clock labor to care for a toddler and manage a household, but it’s definitely a divergence from the career path I used to blog about. Writing and blogging used to be what I did during work hours, and now I do them in my free time, when Eva is asleep. In a way I’ve come full circle back to when I was 23, working in an office 9 to 5 and writing Otaku Journalist posts at night. 

When I was 23, jobs in fandom barely existed. Now, opportunities to turn fandom into your job are abundant, but the environment in which they exist is increasingly hostile. The internet is bigger, more public, and less forgiving than it used to be. I understand what it’s like to exist online now as an adult, but not what it would have been like to grow up this way. Rather than try to talk to young people about what I think they’re going through, I’m trying to listen to them.  

At the bottom of this epiphany is probably that I need to make a much-needed update to this website. I haven’t really made updates since 2017, and it’s incredible how much the web has changed in 4 years. If you’re doing one of my free courses or reading one of my ebooks in 2021, remember that this advice is coming from a different time. I’m not planning on deleting stuff (yet); I don’t think realizing that I’m old and out of touch means I have to fade into obscurity. But it certainly means I could stand to acquaint myself with fresh perspectives before I create something again.

Photo via Pexels.

This is fandom reporting in 2020

Recently a brand I mentioned in an article praised my coverage and asked if they could send me some of their products as a thank you. I replied by asking if instead, I could have an opportunity to interview the founder, and attached some of my most burning questions about the company. They probably won’t reply, but it felt like progress.

For me, this was one small step toward a bigger goal. Lately, I’ve been itching to sink my teeth into long-form reporting again, to tell a true story about fandom that feels relatable to fans within the community and teaches those without it something new. In short, I’d like to get back to the kind of work I started writing for this blog ten years ago.

I’ve got some leads, but I’m not there yet. My current work/life balance scale is still tipped dramatically onto the mom side of things. But in the meantime, I’ve been making a renewed effort to read the kind of writers whose work I consider to be at the very top of this field.

Long after I carved my niche into “otaku journalism,” the oeuvre of fandom reporting has grown more creative and clever with each passing year. I used to have a list of around ten obscure publications to pitch about fandom topics. Now you can read about even the most obscure internet communities in the New York Times. 

To me, good fandom reporting is about empathy. It’s easy to be a goggle-eyed fandom tourist, posting tweets and nasty observations with zero interest in a deeper dive. I particularly like to read about fandom from self-identified fans: they’re better equipped to serve as tour guides into subculture communities that often have their own lexicons. 

This is by no means exhaustive, but here are some of the fandom reporters whose work I have read and admired lately. 

Lynzee Loveridge. I have previously interviewed Lynzee back when her name was Lynzee Lamb. Since then she has moved up to Managing Editor at Anime News Network and has differentiated herself by not giving a fuck. She covers difficult, messy stories in anime fandom that other people are afraid to touch. Her explosive investigations on Vic Mignogna and Eric Torgersen brought to light abuses of power that had previously lived only in whisper networks. Her nuanced, careful research helps to bring justice to their victims. 

EJ Dickson. EJ is not only a fellow Daily Dot alumnus but a fellow mom, so her current prolific coverage for Rolling Stone gives me hope that I, too, can get back in the game. As the recent founder of a podcast about Cats, a movie I’ve heard is endearingly awful, she knows what it’s like to be way too into a niche interest. She brings this empathy to her fandom reporting, particularly this kind, tolerant treatise on furries that I genuinely wish I had written.

Gita Jackson. Gita recently left Kotaku, the site where I did my first internship, to move to Motherboard, where I am sure she will continue producing the searing hot video game takes she is known for. Her story about abuse claims at EA could be a tutorial on investigative reporting. Meanwhile, her recent personal essay reviewing Fire Emblem: Three Houses through the lens of abuse feels especially vulnerable and brave. 

Aja Romano. Like many Extremely Online people, Aja has gotten mixed up in their share of chaos, and I’ve always applauded the grace with which they acknowledge and grow from their past mistakes. Currently, they’re at Vox providing some of the most informative news you can use on fandom controversies, like the recent Romance Writers of America implosion that I’m not ashamed to admit, I couldn’t begin to understand before Aja’s explanation. 

Elizabeth Minkel. It’s so hard to write well about fanfiction, a secretive, Othered space that’s always evolving and evading a mainstream definition, but I’d consider Elizabeth an expert. Her coverage last summer of San Diego Comic-Con gave voice to the creeping commercialization of what it means to be a fan. I’m also a huge fan of Elizabeth’s Fansplaining podcast, co-hosted with Flourish Klink, and weekly newsletter The Rec Center, co-written with Gav. 

This is a really short list, and I’m sure I’m forgetting some very deserving writers who should be on it, probably including writers I know personally (sorry in advance). Please tell me about YOUR favorite subculture reporters in the comments so I can read their work, too. 

Lead photo by Andrew Neel on Unsplash

What happens when your feelings get in the way of your reporting

I want to start by saying there’s no reason for me to get nervous about being on the radio.

I started making semi-regular radio appearances when I worked at tech blog ReadWrite. If they thought an article I’d written recently was timely, I’d show up on WBEZ 91.5 Chicago and talk about stuff like the Apollo 11 spaceflight. After I moved on to Forbes, I got to talk about topics closer to my heart, like Isao Takahata’s legacy as a Studio Ghibli cofounder for BBC radio, or this extended interview on cosplay for CBC radio’s q show.

I’ve also been on TV—a local Fox News channel interviewed about my book and then again about cosplay in general. I still haven’t watched either video, so there’s probably something emotional to unpack there but that’s not the point of this blog post. 

The point is that last Thursday morning, I found myself processing my feelings about the horrific Kyoto Animation fire in front of a live international audience in my worst radio interview ever. 

Here’s the episode, though I’m not sure how you listen outside of Canada. Host Tom Power covered the basic facts and then asked me for details about why the studio had made such a big impact on the anime industry. As usual, I’d been prepared in advance with the questions and even did a rehearsal. But about halfway through, I think it was after Tom asked me something like, “What’s the fan reaction to the news of the fire?” I froze. Mentally, after years of public speaking, I knew logically that I only stopped talking for about two seconds. But two seconds feels like forever on the air, for both you and your listeners. I had been simply repeating my prepared notes when suddenly the impact of the question hit me. I’m one of those fans, too. 

I found out about the fire around 3 AM. I’m pregnant and uncomfortable enough that I wake up at 3 AM pretty consistently most nights, check Twitter, and go back to bed. Our world is such a hellscape nothing I saw on Twitter interrupted my sleep, until Thursday night. As more details unfolded, I couldn’t look away. I ended up giving up on sleep at around 4:30 and started work for the day. Around 8, I heard from my contact at CBC, who asked if I could provide some background on Kyoto Animation’s legacy and appeal. I didn’t think twice about accepting, because I’ve been on the radio so much in the past. 

What I didn’t think about was how, in my sleep-deprived state, I had mostly been considering the situation as a journalist—just gathering the facts. I was upset, to be sure, but more in a numb way. It wasn’t until halfway through that interview that the full reality of the situation hit me. After I got off the radio, I finally cried for the lives lost, for the senselessness of this attack. Talented creatives whose only crime was bringing entertainment to millions—gone. 

Since 2011, I’ve spelled out my personal credo in what I call the Otaku Journalist Manifesto. The news landscape at large has changed immensely since then, but I still love this part where I champion authentic, not objective, reporting: “I’m not saying to take sides. But don’t be a cold observer. Bring yourself, your experiences and intuition, to the article.” It’s a great sentiment, but not one I’d ever examined this deeply. How do you report on a story so close to your heart that you’re barely holding it together during the process? 

I have immense respect for the reporters like Crystalyn Hodgkins who kept covering the tragedy all day. I couldn’t do it. I took time off until evening, when I wrote a piece for Forbes including all the things I wanted to say on the radio but couldn’t. This is not one of my blog posts that wraps up with a neat solution: nothing can undo the KyoAni attack, and it’s not something I or anyone will stop grieving overnight. But I wanted to share what it felt like when something I care about personally came crashing into the work I do. Please take time for yourself to grieve. Send a message of support to KyoAni through Crunchyroll (I’m told they’ll be translating as many of these notes as possible). And be kind to your fellow fans—including the professionals still working despite this—who are just as frustrated and wrecked by this news as you are.

Photo credit: Matt Botsford on Unsplash.

You’re allowed to grow out of your terrible opinions

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Magic: The Gathering Fifth Edition

Recently I got an email from somebody trying to read one of my locked older posts.

The post in question is “Why Don’t More Women Play Magic?” which I wrote in 2010, nine entire years ago. I was 23 at the time, and well, this post is not exactly progressive or even feminist. My conclusion was that I personally am not very competitive, other women probably feel the same way, and maybe that’s why they don’t play on a tournament level in the collectible card game Magic: The Gathering as often as men do.

There are many reasons I no longer believe this. Aside from the not-so-revolutionary discovery that I don’t share identical life experiences with everyone who happens to share my demographic, it’s undeniable that there are incredible women and nonbinary people proving me wrong every day. Magic is attracting an increasingly diverse audience, in part because of the game’s parent company, Wizards of the Coast, making deliberate, consistent efforts to make harassment a bannable offense. They’ve also worked repeatedly with artists to expand the perceived gender and ethnicity spectrum of the denizens of the Magic world in card illustrations. I wrote about this in a 2016 article for Forbes which I’m far more proud of than the 2010 blog post, since actual research and nuance went into it.

It shouldn’t be a dark, shocking secret that I once held uneducated opinions. I think that’s a part of growing up, and in our always-online world, a part that increasingly occurs in public. But the problem with the internet is that it skews the passage of time. You could use the Wayback Machine or check out one of the forums that discussed the post to still read it in 2019. I feel like I’ve moved beyond this opinion, but once something is online, it’s here forever.

That’s why I’ve tried to take a semblance of control by privatizing that post, and all of my posts written before 2014. In Your embarrassing former self, I explained my reasoning this way:

“At their best, my old blog posts needs a good editor. At their worst, they’re just plain offensive… I don’t owe anyone to store my posts in an unchanging, museum-like archive. This is my blog and I can run it however I want.”

The internet is forever, but we don’t have to be. I am forever evolving, becoming a better writer, a more intersectional feminist, and a more empathic member of our fandom community. My husband John and I make it a habit to remind each other, “You don’t have to be the same person you were yesterday.” Even if yesterday I overslept and said something dumb on Twitter, it doesn’t mean I’m the kind of person who can never get up in the morning or ever apologize for a stupid comment. Unless I double down, my mistakes do not have to define my permanent identity.

Sometimes when there’s a debate raging in fandom, I feel discouraged by what I perceive as misinformed comments on an issue. How can I ever see eye to eye with somebody who believes that pirating anime is a good idea, for example? But what this viewpoint ignores is that people change. Somebody with that opinion today won’t always feel that way. I’m still not going to engage with them—in fact, I think if somebody had made a tweet thread shaming my crappy, arguably sexist blog post, I would have felt defensive rather than prepared to immediately rethink my view. But it makes me feel hopeful to know that anyone can choose to change.

I was able to change in part through educating myself more about feminism, meeting more people in the Magic: The Gathering community, and improving my ability to express myself through writing. Are there any views you used to hold that embarrass you today? I’d like to know, what made you grow out of them.

(Image credit: me. Fittingly, I took this photo of my first Magic deck in 2010.)