>>19 Yes it does. By definition, an otaku is a social pariah with an unhealthy obsession with one thing or another.
>>21 >>22 I'm not talking about that cute, quirky kind of deranged, I'm talking about one that prevents you from functioning as a human being around other people. One who has given up on true social interaction in favor of their personal interests.
Those who consider being an otaku a good thing are being ironic or are using the wrong definition. A bit of history: the term itself comes from a news report of a
man who killed and raped the corpses of four young girls, supposedly inspired by the five thousand or so tapes of violent anime and slasher films found in his home after the fact. It was shorthand for referring to a
deranged man with an
unhealthy obsession.
Of course, whether or not he was truly inspired by it is a debate in and of itself. He was mentally unstable from the get-go. But the meaning of the word is unchanged, as it was used to describe a deranged man.
The recent trend of glorifying the term was a tongue-in-cheek joke made in certain anime that was misunderstood by its western audience, or people who hadn't heard the origin. The only parallel I can make is that those who use it remind me of 7 year olds who use the word "rape" to trash-talk their friends before even learning what sex is. Like, I use the term to jokingly refer to people who are really into stuff - but I don't know a single respectable person who proclaims it with pride.
I'm not just making fun of people who really like anime, if that's what you were thinking. Because I really like anime myself - I just don't like being lumped into the same group of people that think real mental instability is desirable, even if they're saying so by mistake.
