meta post summary
Ok, so it turns out that on some level I can't stand the idea of collecting so much data and not trying to summerize at least a little. If anyone else has been crazy enough to wade through that post and wants to help, no objections whatsoever on this end! (ok, so if you don't want to admit having read through the whole thing. help with parts
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I was active in the fandom during the whole Pikame vs. KAT-TUN. I didn't recognize many of the screen names who commented to you so I'm guessing they came in later. I just thought I'd give you a little background on the whole Akame/Pikame/Pin divide.
Have you ever noticed that there are two Pikame communities? Pikame and Kamepi? There's a huge backstory to this.
Before Nobuta, the English KAT-TUN fandom was A LOT smaller, and in terms of ships, it was 99% Akame. All these girls were riding high on the Gokusen 2 Akame love and were praying for KAT-TUN's debut.
But then Shuuji to Akira was announced.
You know how most Akame fanfics portray Jin when he finds out about Kame debuting with Pi? That's how a lot of the fans reacted. A lot of them were sick that Kame was debuting. What about KAT-TUN? What about Jin? Why does Kame have his arm around Pi? He only does that with Jin!!!
So there was a lot of that feeling among kattunlove members, but at the same time people who wanted to talk about Nobuta had no other place besides kattunlove and news_jpop. So people started posting a lot about Nobuta and Pikame on kattunlove.
Needless to say, some of the Akame and Jin fans were not happy about this.
Two of the big Akame fanfic writers got sick of it and made kamepi without knowing pikame already exsisted. They basically told everyone "If you wanna talk about that do it over in kamepi. We don't care and don't wanna hear it." So you had a community created by two people that hated the subject it was about. They handed it over to real fans, but the damage had already been done. It turned into a pretty big (at the time) wank. On one side it was I'M SAD KAME'S DEBUTING I HATE YAMAPI and on the other it was WHY ARE YOU TRYING TO KEEP US OUT KAME'S A PART OF KAT-TUN. I'm not really exaggerating, if you go back and look at the October 2005 kattunlove posts I'm sure it's all still there.
Fanfiction at the time reflected this attitude as well. At the time I remember there was a popular fanfic about Pi raping and abusing Jin and keeping him away from Kame. If I recall correctly, Pi also tricked Kame into sleeping with him thinking it would get Jin back. That wasn't the only one like that. I remember saying to my friend "what's up with all the rapist Pi fics?" Fortunately most of these have been hidden by the flood of new fans that came after Nobuta.
A lot of new fans came after Nobuta and I think while most of them were lured in by Pikame, they saw that Akame ruled kattunlove and became interested in Gokusen, etc. Would it have turned the same if Pikame hadn't been unofficially banished? Probably. Nobuta was over soon and Kame and Jin were back on stage together. But I think that wank over the Pikame communities still lingers on today. At the time a lot of popular fans were saying "I hate Pikame because of this, this and this. Akame is true becuase of this this and this" and new fans saw this. Now I'm not saying people can't make their own decisions, but when you join something new, you usually take advice from the people that have come before you. So I think in a way, that way of thinking still lives on.
Pikame's mostly dead now, but the Akame-only feeling is still there. Some of that has to do with a one-and-only-love idealism, of course, but it still makes you wonder...
Of course this really doesn't apply to newer fans, or many fans at all. It's just a small portion.
I hope that made a little bit of sense.
Oh and fyi, I like any form of Akamepi and read more badfic than I'd like to admit.
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In almost all the JE pimp posts I've seen or when ever someone tries to get someone into JE they usually say "look at teh gay! aren't they so cute together? it's true love~~~" and show a bunch of fanservice pictures proving their point. Outside dramas, this is usually how girls get into the fandom. Some actually believe they're truly in love, most don't.
Most KAT-TUN pimp posts always use Akame because:
1) they're both in KAT-TUN
2) they're the leading men
3) they're the most attractive in most people's opinions
4) PICTURES OF THEM IN BED TOGETHER!!!!!1
I hate these posts more than anything.
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You know, that's a really good point. it never really registered, but that is how most pimp posts go. I wonder if that says something about where most of these new fans are coming from (or expected to come from), because i don't think you'd pimp something like that to mainstream society.
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That's exactly why I dislike them. They're only catering to slash fangirls and no one else.
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I never noticed that actually. I've never been active in terms of pairing communities, so I didn't even think about them. In some ways I can't believe that anyone would bother making a comm for a pairing they hated, but I do see how it could function to get them out of their hair.
That's very true. You learn the ropes from the people who are already around, and, to some extent, their likes and dislikes as well.
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And thank you for doing this. It was a fascinating read.
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Thank you again for commenting!
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