Why are you scared isnt this what you wanted

• ;

• 2020 (under construction)
  • graphs of desire / collector cultures
  • why are you scared / isn't this what you wanted?
  • GANime girl portraits

• 2019
  • objet petit (omega)
  • a shrine in 3 words
  • the cheese grater paintings
  • home video
  • a thousand unblinking eyes
  • map piece (après yoko ono)

• 2017
  • moiré landscapes

• c.v.

• about
  • contact

built with Indexhibit

2020's digital edits

I think these memes highlight that the worlds of anime, video games, and vtubers truly are escapes from reality. They can never even hope to be reality, they appear uncanny and horrific in the real world as seen in the pics. Putting these characters in the context of the real world takes away the sensation that escapist fans chase, the lack of real world complications.

Even in the way they are made manifest in the world, the intricacies of the world hurt and distort the 2-dimensional (literally and metaphorical) anime appeal. What was once a beautiful abstract depiction of a girl is now horrific, with shadows, lighting, and 3 dimensions showing the distortions that are applied to those designs to make them a perfect escape. The cute eyes become oversized, glazed, emotionless disks, the lack of a nose becomes even more apparent, and the clothes that at first seemed whimsical in 2d are now strange alien garb.

On top of that there's the clear idea that under all of these distortions is a person, someone trying to appear like a fantasy or to appeal to an ever growing desire to escape the ugliness of reality by making fiction real. Different from even a cringe body pillow or figure, as those retain a sense of fiction or are clearly understood as objects (even in the case of the Waifuism guys I would say that they are in love with an object/concept rather than a living being, even in their own minds). The figures in the memes convey a feeling that reality isn't good enough, either for the person under the costume or the person viewing. It's a futile and disturbing frantic grasp at bringing fiction to life.

It's interesting to think that these people are only different from vtubers and cosplayers in a few ways. Most of that lies in the relationship between reality and fiction. Cosplayers know that they can't try to directly make their face look like the characters does in the anime, it would have an unspoken weirdness to it, and so they remain tied to reality mostly. The vtubers try to become the fiction, not bringing it into the world but rather making themselves part of it and investing themselves in the fantasy of the internet, where it doesn't matter that everyone knows that behind the 2d big titty motion tracked girl is a real person, even a man.

Sorry for the rambling essay, interested to hear what anyone else has to say.