[ SECRET POST #4438 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #4438 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 07 secrets from Secret Submission Post #635.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[fscom]

06. https://i.imgur.com/sUMvEjR.png

[(Anonymous)]

It seems like they're talking about making up a fake name for yourself? Not calling yourself by the name of a pre-existing character? Those seem like distinct things to me

[(Anonymous)]

Even if that's not the case, what difference does the origin of your handle make?

Like... seriously. Does it matter where it's from? Does you using a Japanese or Korean name/word automatically make it worse than using a Finnish or Spanish name (assuming you're not Finnish or Spannish, obviously)?

Who even caaaaaares.

[(Anonymous)]

I think there are probably times where it's weird and exoticizing and othering, or claiming some kind of an identity, and I think that's a lot more likely with Asian cultures than with Spanish ones, and I think it's at best silly and often kind of shitty. I don't think it's intrinsically racist but it's a high risk category.

[kaijinscendre]

Uh oh. *stares at screen name* I'd be in trouble for stealing TWO languages. D:

[(Anonymous)]

There isn't anything wrong with calling yourself an original Asian name that you like either, as long as you're not pretending you're actually Asian yourself. People pull online aliases from literally anywhere. It's also like, what if you "invent" a name that just happens to be a real Asian name and you don't know that? Are you a racist because you thought the syllables "Kana" sounded pretty together and didn't know that was a real Japanese name? It's not worth getting so vitriolic about.

[(Anonymous)]

In some context: This is against an American artist that made himself an "Asian alter-ego" to work in a company, not an artist that calls themselves "John 'Neko' Doe".

[(Anonymous)]

Okay, that's pretty wrong.

[(Anonymous)]

Well, the tweet sure makes that clear! /s

[(Anonymous)]

It's difficult to interpret things in the internet sometimes and that's OK. Just gotta roll with it as reasonably as possible

[(Anonymous)]

I went by a Japanese name at my old job because I worked for a Japanese company and my actual name is difficult for Japanese people to pronounce. After enough of them stumbled over trying to pronounce it we decided it would be easier for me to just pick another name to go by. A lot of Asians (Chinese especially) have "American" names for this exact reason. So... that doesn't sound odd to me at all.

[(Anonymous)]

AYRT: There's a difference between having a Japanese/Chinese/Korean fake name to work in an Asian company than having a Japanese/Chinese/Korean to work in an American/English-speaking company. The dude I was talking about did the second.

[(Anonymous)]

If I'm thinking of the same thing as AYRT, this was the (American) (not Asian) editor of Marvel passing himself off as a Japanese man so he could work on comics which were then represented to the public as being created by a Japanese man

IIRC

[(Anonymous)]

NA

If that's the context, the tweet... makes no sense. The problem with someone using an Asian alter-ego to work for a comic book company which then uses his adopted Asian name to pass off their products as authentically Japanese ISN'T the person being a "freaky fetishist weeaboo". As a Japanese person, I don't give a fuck if you're a freaky fetishist weeaboo. You do you.

However, I do think there are serious issues with someone passing themselves off as Asian to access the credibility that comes with Asianness, and with a company not being willing to pay money to an actual Asian person for that same credibility. That's just... really really racist. Fetishism and weeabooism and cringey fakeness of the author hired has nothing to do with it -- it has to do with who a corporation is willing to pay to get cultural credibility. If the answer is "I'd rather pay a white person with an Asian name than an actual Asian person" that's suggestive of some serious racism (of the "I have a sheer preference for white people" type -- like, I'm talking about serious serious racism here) on the part of the employer. The artist can be as cringey as he likes; I don't care. I do care about how the employer comes off. If society is seen to tolerate that level of racism, that's a bad sign.

By blaming the artist for being culturally insensitive or weeabooish or just embarrassing, and viewing THAT to be what's wrong with the situation, we're letting the way more serious case of racism off the hook.

[(Anonymous)]

It's confusing because there was a level of self-dealing in the decision making - the person was basically publishing his own work and using a pseudonym to get around rules - but at the same time, the marketing and pub definitely traded on the supposed authenticity and foreign ness of the author.

What I would say is that I think all of these things are different aspects of the same thing, some of it is less bad but it all contributes.

[(Anonymous)]

AYRT

Yeah, I looked more into it, and it seems like the person in question not only pretended to be Japanese and deceived the company but then went on to write really fetishistic plotlines featuring white characters in Japan. If the person had just been really weeaboo and embarrassing, that's fine, but trying to pass his personal fetishistic plotlines off as being written by a Japanese person has additional problematic implications.

I still think the tweet is missing the point by calling out behavior like adopting a Japanese moniker or pretending to be Japanese or loving Japanese media so much you identify with it -- that's cringey but it's not racist. The serious issues here is (1) that he managed to get published with these tactics at all, and (2) the things he published: in this case, fetishistic plotlines that misleadingly purport to be a Japanese take on Japan, when they're not. That affects how people interpret Japanese culture in a more stereotypical/othering kind of way, which is bad.

[(Anonymous)]

"As long as you don't use honorifics or pretend to be another race"

Well. That's an interesting grouping.

[(Anonymous)]

Internet usernames and white guy using a Japanese penname at his writing gig at a big comic book company are two COMPLETELY different things.

Why are people so allergic to nuance and context?

[(Anonymous)]

If we're going to discuss specific shades of nuance and word choice, the tweet in OP says "a name that you put on all your social media handles", not "a username".

NAYRT

[(Anonymous)]

... A "social media handle" is literally a username for a social media site.

[(Anonymous)]

A social media handle isn't a writing gig at a big comic company.

[(Anonymous)]

Why are people so allergic to nuance and context?

Because the posted secret makes no mention of a "white guy using a Japanese penname at his writing gig at a big comic book company".

You cannot accurately claim people are allergic to nuance and context when no context or nuance was provided in the original post.

[(Anonymous)]

NAYRT

I understand what you're saying but I also think that the interpretation of the tweet that secret!OP made, in the secret itself, was pretty tenuous. Especially because secret!OP presumably did have access to the context of the original tweet, whatever it was.

[(Anonymous)]

So I wonder what the original Tweeter thinks of Asian people who make up fake Western names for social media? Is that any different?

[(Anonymous)]

should we also dogpile on asians who dare take european names? (i know many more of those than the opposite)