We Didn't Start The Fire.

[pyrrhiccomedy]

I still like my fandom.

Not a lot of people are saying that today, and you probably already know why: at Anime Boston this weekend, several girls cosplaying as Germany and Prussia attended the Hetalia photoshoot and seig heiled the camera

Comments

[twistedsheets10]

THIS.

A THOUSAND TIMES THIS.

As bad this kind of behaviour is, I'm still proud to say I'm a Hetalia fan. Screw those idiots, screw those who think all Hetalia fans are idiots, I love this fandom. Hetalia has enriched my life with so many positive people and things, and as embarrassing as this incident have been, I refuse to have my experience, my love for this fandom be ruined by stupid people.

(If anything, in my mind, this incident just showed that idiocy in Hetalia is not a commonplace. Of course we'll have some WTF fans. EVERY fandom has them. But that doesn't mean we should fold over.)

Thanks for posting this. I felt a little depressed that some people were going "I'm never gonna cosplay Hetalia again!" or "Now I'm more embarrassed to say I'm a fan!". No guys, no. We shouldn't hide at a time like this. Instead we, the saner fans, should be more visible out there. Hiding ain't gonna make this go away.

/edited for grammar

[pyrrhiccomedy]

I knew you'd get it. ♥

we, the saner fans, should be more visible out there. Hiding ain't gonna make this go away.

Absolutely, this. We're a big fandom. That means more stupid people, and more stupid people doing stupid things. It also means more awesome people, and even if we can't drown out the stupid people (because it's...hard to drown out something like seig heiling in Prussia cosplay), it is at least within our power to make sure that the people we know have a more balanced view of the fandom.

[din_84]

Word to everything you said.

I tell ya as a German in Japan I shocked everytime I run into a Nazi cosplay or see jackets with "Blitzkrieg" on it for sale.
It gets worse when you actually get into an argument over this and people don't even get why you are appalled and say it's just "for fun" or "fashion".

[din_84]

Ups posted too early.

What I want to say is that Hetalia actually made many people reexperience history and talk abourt politics etc. and that's why it is fantastic.
Sure there's always gonna be some people who are almost able to destroy it for other one but this fandom is too great to let something completely idiotic take away it's energy.
There are so many intelligent, talented, interesting, open and kind hearted people in this fandom that it would be a pitty to be ashamed of it.

Clearly those two cosplayers missed everything Hetalia is about and are pretty uninformed in general (to say it nicely), they shouldn't be taken as an example for the millions of other Hetalia fans out there.
I love this fandom and some idiots won't be able to ruin it for me. They are not worth that kind of attention.

[pyrrhiccomedy]

Ffff you commented to your comment while I was counter-commenting, curse you

But yeah, /signed. Exactly. I'm not ashamed to be a Hetalia fan. I know way too many totally awesome Hetalia fans for that. And I believe that so do the rest of us.

People will be dipshits, but we choose how much we will allow that to reflect on us personally.

[pyrrhiccomedy]

Oh, God, people's lack of sensitivity about Nazism and the Holocaust boggles my fucking mind, and that's a whole nother issue. People raged pretty hard about it in the thread I linked up top. (I expect FandomSecrets to explode with this in about a week, full of people unanoning about how they "don't understand why people are still so sensitive about Hitler!")

But this is like...even though that was completely and totally not cool, that doesn't mean we have to slink into the closet about being Hetalia fans, you know? The good fans shouldn't hide themselves away. We should try to be more visible, to remind people that, you know...goose-stepping dipshit teenagers are not what Hetalia is.

[mithrigil]

Honestly, a lot of my trepidation about the fandom right now is due less to the stupid fuckers who pulled this off, and more to the ongoing issue I've been experiencing with some former friends over the course of a year. I really didn't like the actions of those cosplayers on multiple levels, not the least of all that they're just plain ignorant and the scene speaks ill of all fans, not just Hetalia fans. But said former friends have used my fandom in Hetalia to insult me and to emblematize what they think are negative changes in my personality and quality. That the actions of those ignorant fans make my former friends right about Hetalia, and right about me for playing in Hetalia, is incredibly frustrating

[pyrrhiccomedy]

Oh, let me be absolutely clear: this isn't a personal attack on you, or Puel, or Linden, or Teca, or anyone else in my friends list who has written about this incident with dismay and disappointment. I know you girls are under a ton of stress right now, and as individuals, everyone has extenuating circumstances. (And...more to the point, if I wanted to start a conversation with you ladies specifically about what you had experienced, I would not be so crass as to make A Speech about it on my journal. I would e-mail you. ♥)

This is about--well--I read that entire thread. All six hundred-something comments of it, at the time that I read it. And after "What the fuck, that was so offensive and retarded of them," "I'm ashamed to be a Hetalia fan today/I don't intend to go to shoots anymore" was the most common sentiment I saw expressed. And I know why people feel that way, it's a sensible reaction, but it's a reaction I hope people will think about a little more, you know? If the stress of participating in Hetalia cosplay and photoshoots

Here's a Poland. Yum yum.

[digiphantom]

Very much agree with this.

I mean, we're all on the same page here guys. We all think it was wrong, we're all condemning the actions of the accused cosplayers, this has the potential to leave it's message (Hey, seig heiling, not so great, let's try to be more on the ball with respecting history and understanding lines you do not cross), and we could move forward.

But why let it leave such an ugly stain, by forcing the more thoughtful fans (the majority) into the woodwork? And since when has, "if you disapprove of what's going on, belt up" helped anybody? I mean, we all know it was messed up! Even the "minority" are not people who are defending them, but people that just say that this was bound to happen eventually, and I think that's how you cure cancer BTW, with apathy.

Basically yeah, if the vocal majority are on the same page, wouldn't stepping down would spotlight the uh, heiling types?

And Pyrrhic, I swear, you are a God among men. I wish I had a thousand-million Polands for you.

Re: Here's a Poland. Yum yum.

[pyrrhiccomedy]

Signed, signed, signed. Most Hetalia fans are not like this. NOBODY I hang out with in the fandom is like this, and I hang out with a lot of fans. And I hear people talk about how Hetalia fans are all brainless dumbasses, from time to time, and I just think, wow, who are you talking to? Because it's nobody I know. My FList is packed with some of the baddest motherfuckers on the internet.

So like. Let's speak up. Sieg heils are lame as hell, but we should not allow our detractors to forget about the Bad Motherfucker contingent.

[sadlygrove]

I'm proud to be part of a fandom that takes something like this to heart and doesn't just shrug it off. That was really all I could come up with in the comments to that post that hadn't been said.

As for the photoshoot thing... I'm still going to avoid them like the plague, but that was a decision I made long before this happened. Nothing crazy beneficial comes out of them, except maybe meeting one or two people and striking up a nice convo while hanging to the far, far, far back of the mob. I think most people who like them, though, will end up going to photoshoots once they're in the spirit of the next con they go to, despite what they say now.

[pyrrhiccomedy]

I think most people who like them, though, will end up going to photoshoots once they're in the spirit of the next con they go to, despite what they say now.

I hope you're right. And maybe this will all be to the greater good, since I'm sure they'll all remember even more now to be sensitive about things like this!