anthony bourdain, danny choo

back when i had an active twitter i followed danny choo and anthony bourdain. since choo of course is involved in dds and anthony because he is an old school punk whos life was saved by becoming a cook and now has several tv shows offering his real (punk) perspectives on food, tourism and culture all of which i find incredibly intriguing.

 

one of danny choos posts was a picture of he and anthony bourdain with bourdains cnn crew for his show he was doing in japan and he had met up with danny in japan and in the picture danny had mirai with him.

 

now this got me very excited as i know anthony goes into sub cultures and talks about things that arent exactly common knowledge especially here in america. so i was hoping that at least 5 mins of his show would go into dollfies/bjds or what have you as long as it pertained to our subject. so seeing the picture i thought for sure american audiences would get a taste of what our hobby is like and that its not something to be looked at in an odd fashion.

 

alas i was disappointed as even tho the japan episode was pretty great, there was nothing pertaining to meeting with danny choo or even close to dollfies.

 

i mostly bring this up because even tho this was all a while ago, i still find myself upset at the missed chance we had to have a kind light shine on our often looked down upon hobby due to the overwhelming "grow up quickly, abandon all childish things" culture america has.

 

i also want to see what everyone elses opinion is about this subject and perhaps what you think would happen if it was brought out on a major network such as the cnn network bourdains show airs on.

shows like that often film a lot more than they need... cause after all you can't go back to do reshoots when you start editing.

 

Bourdain has done a lot of shows in japan I think he's generally intrigued by the layers of culture there, and of course the super delicious food. Though his latest one on the sex subculture was maybe a bit too dark I found. It probably didn't fit in the narrative of the episode he was doing.

 

Also, north american audiences can only take so much wtf before they start to point and laugh, rather than be intrigued and interested.

 

Such was the reaction of a lot of people when miku appeared on letterman. Fans loved it, even though the audio sucked and they picked a terrible song and nothing was explained at all. However, I doubt it brought anyone new to the vocaloid fandom. I've been following vocaloid since prior to miku's release and I felt the letterman appearance was very poorly presented and planned as did a lot of other long time followers. You have to think about how people not exposed to something so different will react when it's presented a certain way.

i think something that cutesy and girly doesn't really fit the image of his show (from what i've seen)

 

unfortunately i don't see much of a place in mainstream american for dolls

 

maybe on something like those antique shows with an audience of mostly older ladies who like cute things lol. i bet they'd be a little intrigued by the cutesy clothes

I don't see dolls ever becoming mainstream in America, and I don't mind it either. Things don't always take hold everywhere because cultures are different, and that isn't always bad.

I never really believed it would become a mainstream type of thing. I was more pointing to the idea that it would bring out the fact that it's not a subculture filled with weirdos who have no life or social ability as often seen with many "nerd" subcultures. It's not uncommon to see a news report on "waifu" or how it should be shamed to be into subcultures often associated with our own.

 

Honostly tho I've put up with odd looks and stereotypes my whole life being geeky, the clothing I wear, the tattoos/piercings, etc... I can deal with it. My main hope was it would make us look more human than the popular misconception has been. Of course you are correct, we may be a Country of many heritages but alas it has never been known to openly accept anything it finds foreign outside of an educated few at times.

 

I dunno I'm odd and just enjoy sharing many of the passions I have with those who have an open mind and most I know who enjoy bourdain tend to be of that mindset. So perhaps I had my hopes up for nothing, and yes I agree it was a fairly dark episode but I did enjoy it. Perhaps with bourdain being exposed to it he may come back to it someday in a lighter episode.