Author: Rodney (Page 1 of 6)

Unit one

In the anime world, there are two different groups of people. There are the weebs who are casual people who watched one or two animes then there are the otakus who are really into more than just anime but the Japanese culture overall. These two names have been the top subject for anime watchers for a while so definitions get weird and hazy. All you need to do is be really into anime and the culture, in general, to truly be an otaku. Overall otakus love to gatekeep anime from new watchers 

For example when people gate-keeping anime by calling them a weeb. One day when one of my friends got really into anime we had a conversation with some of my non-anime friends. “Have you seen the new episode of demon slayer yet it’s really good?” Said my friend as he showed me a clip from the new anime episode where two of the main characters were in trouble. We continue to talk about how we want the rest of the fight to go down but our 2 other non-anime watchers join the call and see us talking about anime like usual and tell us to stop being weebs. It’s annoying. (a weeb is someone who wishes they could speak and be more Japanese) Anata wa baka o shitte imasu ka (what do you know idiot) I say as a joking argument starts. “Oh now you wanna talk in Japanese right,” he says as I continue to yell at him. I just love to watch anime. What’s wrong with that? As I look to my right I see my posters and figures. There is nothing wrong with having a hobby you love. What about your sports addiction? I saw it with one of my friends. Sports are different, he would always say when we have this talk. It is still a hobby you are addicted to, therefore you are an otaku, my friend. I think that’s different, he says again. Well, anyways I didn’t feel like explaining this basic thing to you anyways loser.

Another time where I feel the two words was a big impact on a situation was when I was hanging out at anime con and we were cosplaying around as anime characters just having fun. It was a nice sunny day when we first walked in. All I saw were anime posters. To my right was a giant crowd waiting to get inside the convention. All around me there were people who shared the same common interest. When we finally got inside the convention we saw a group of people having a discussion. They were talking about the difference between a weeb and an otaku. My friends walk up because we always have this conversation and my friend says, an otaku Is someone who is well-versed in Japanese culture and actually wants to know more about it. On the other hand, a  weeb is just someone who watches anime and wishes they could speak Japanese. They then say does an otaku has to speak Japanese. He said yes but in my opinion, I feel like you just have to at least show interest in actually learning and actually know about the culture in general. We then explore the rest of the convention and have fun taking pictures with other anime watchers. We got lots of posters and figurines that day. Near the last day of the convention, we meet the author of this really cool anime and she talks to us about the discrimination of weebs since they don’t really want to take that much of an interest in anime but enjoy it in their own way. Since most otakus make fun of weebs. 

lastly, near the end of the long years of gatekeeping and segregating where people finally excepted the differences and realized that it wasn’t a problem. I went to a comic con, it was a very cold time. My friend and I had to walk through many people since the line was really long. When we finally got in we got to see everyone’s costumes and their favorite characters. I ended up seeing people who were super into their characters and they all really loved what they were doing since they had some actors/ voice actors there. They also had posters and figurines and most of them sold out on the first day since it was a 3-day thing. I even ended up getting some posters of my own, being an otaku in the anime community is often seen as a good thing some believe it is only anime-related but it really can be used for any hobby. Like how I am really into most of my hobbies and I always want to know more about them. There is nothing wrong with it but people still find a way in my community to make fun of people for having something they want to see more of or learn more of and it’s really sad. It all started around 2017 when anime was kicking up and people were really getting into it before then people didn’t think of anime as something that was normal. People that were always into anime were gatekeeping newcomers from getting into the community and learning more about the culture. That was where the terms weeb and it was used to differentiate new people from people who “cared” about anime truly.

even though I was a problem I was once one of the people who gatekept anime the last time I did it was the time I went to watch an anime movie when the first one was allowed to air in the united states. It was a warm day at around 12 pm, I had just walked into the theater and sat down with my friends. Right before the movie starts and I and my friends look around and jokingly say look at all of these mainstream weebs.  We continue to laugh for a little and joke here and there at people’s reactions to the movie since we have already seen it. Since then I never really used the word in a negative way since most if not all anime watchers find being called a weeb super insulting. Overall the talk about weebs and otakus died in my friend group and everywhere else for that matter. Sadly there are still the few though who do gatekeep.

At the end of the day, all you need to do is be really into anime and the culture, in general, to truly be an otaku. The title almost all anime watchers want and need to feel good about their anime addiction. I find being an otaku very really ridiculous at this point in my life but I still end up using it anyway since it is so engraved in my hobby. I am proud nonetheless because I get to feel somewhat rewarded for being a true fan of the Japanese culture and language. Being an otaku is the best and I wouldn’t change a thing about it. Gokigen’yo (have a nice day.)

unit two

Don’t you love technology? What if someday it was gone. No more hardware no more cars and no more silicone-based products. Well, that’s what almost happened when covid came. It lead to a lot of things being sold out even things like basic appliances. For many people, especially gamers and big technology people this is an issue.

When covid went in full swing the demand for things like hardware went up. It caused silicone and other materials to be drained. No company could meet the demand of consumers, Except for the bigger companies as you could call the tech giants who had a big part in the market and had control over where the resources went. In the end, there was a big backlog of orders and no one could get what they wanted. My main concern is if big companies should be able to control the flow of everything even if other smaller companies need it more due to demand.

There weren’t anything companies could do “Even while manufacturing declined, demand boomed. Silicon chips are in nearly every computer, smart-home product, wireless gadget, and gaming device. As the pandemic shifted the places people work and seek entertainment”. In short, there was a manufacturing decrease because people wanted more. while people were in lockdown with nothing else to do there was a big demand for things like games and computers. There was also a need for things to just keep people busy and in the time we are in that would be technology. sadly there weren’t enough resources for people to get all that they wanted expressly for companies like Sony and for graphics card companies like Nvidia. which made things harder for companies to meet demands and with that, they were forced to lower the value of their projects. They had to lower things like heatsinks as well as the release of new products such as the new steam deck that was going to come out in 2021 but had to be delayed. It wasn’t even just computers and consoles that people couldn’t get. People wanted new amazon technology and other companies’ electronics but due to Amazon’s huge hand in the stocks, they were able to buy enough of what they needed to make.

While all of this is going on there were things like “The silicon issue also captures how the global energy crisis is cascading through economies in multiple ways. The slashing of output in China, far and away from the world’s biggest silicon producer, is the result of efforts to reduce power consumption.”. With the increase in demand, there was also a bigger push to the global energy crisis. This was also one of the reasons why they slowed down production, they wanted to slow down the flow of people buying electronics. They have even done other things to try and fix it such as lowering how much electricity people can use for things like the internet and overall data usage.

As people complained about people not being able to buy products that they want some started to come up with plans “I think that they shouldn’t be closed off to people just because of stock value, there should be a first come first serve base but with a cap on how much you can buy.”. All the people that didn’t have the out-of-stock new products were upset so they tried to come up with plans to make things work out since now it’s still kind of a problem. We are just arent at the point where companies can go back to the old values of products. This really affected the gaming community so much that it made people start scalping and selling them for way too high of a price, for example, there was a bot buying out PlayStation 5’s and selling them for 1000$ when it costs 500$. “I feel like after 4 months or so of them not being able to make what they needed to make the people who control the flow of reserves should give them more than other companies that are well of in products.” With this idea, there was a plan to give the companies that were struggling to meet demands the things that they needed instead of the companies who only have bigger stocks being able to buy more than others. It even created a backlog for some companies since some had yearly updates in hardware but since there wasn’t enough they had to delay it and make it way later than it should have been. It was a really dark time for some people with all the scalpers taking everything and the actual gamers not being able to get the products that they paid for and not being able to do anything with china not having enough production rates to meet the demand for silicone.

It really got so bad that people started to question if we will get any new technology for a while. “People were furloughed or laid off in 1Q & 2Q. When demand started to pick up, companies were not able to get the manpower needed to produce products to meet demand. Covid-19 quarantine protocols had a significant impact on manpower. Many companies reported up to 5-10% of the workforce were in mandatory quarantine over a 2-4 month period. In addition, additional federal unemployment assistance made it less attractive to come back to work.”. what this shows is that silicone produces were not able to keep companies stock. There weren’t enough people making things for the demand needed. I feel like covid really messed with people’s minds and it was all a big chain reaction of bad things coming at once. People were stressed and they needed more things to do since they got let go from jobs and there wasn’t anywhere to go other than doing things inside. It was just a big problem in general with the main cause of the lack of silicone being the workers who produced it were cut in half with only some people still there to continue making the silicone

Covid really hit gaming companies hard with the drop in silicone and manpower. It really got to the point where the future of technology wasn’t looking so good it was really a scary time with people losing jobs and the gaming community trying to fill some of the gaps but not being able to without the resources to do so. With the world finally slowly going back to how things were, I think the resources will come back if not already. So when these companies are back on their feet they can continue to make things without the struggle of fighting bigger people to get the products they need.

unit three

I think the process for my podcast is going well I have made a really good script and I have made a really good plan for how I want to record it. There were also some times when I got some word blocks and I didn’t know how I wanted to have some of the interactions go but it was a fun process since all the people I asked to fill roles all liked the topic. I really took a lot of inspiration from some of the more popular podcasters since the ones I was watching have been covering topics that were much like what I was covering. changing around some things such as the cast since I got 2 extra people. I also had to change what parts are where so that it was entertaining for people to listen to.

The silicone drought is my main point and I chose to make a podcast because it would really speak to people who would care about the production of silicone-based products. Mainly because gamers and most people who are into cars like listening to podcasts while doing other things. I originally wanted to make an infographic but I thought a podcast would fit more since it would be a little entertaining and something that people are used to at this point. It was also something I thought would be fun to do since I have some fun making scripts and acting out things.

I learned how to better meet the needs of the audience attending and I’ve learned that I’m good at making scripts. I hope my audience learns how much covid actually affected us.

Final reflection

I realized that the majority of my fall semester classes will be in person when I was registering. This piqued my interest in attending in-person classes. I haven’t been able to attend in-person classes for the last two years because of covid, and we have all had to do online classes for the last two years, which I liked at first but became a nightmare for me as time went on. We have lost our social lives as a result of covid, which makes most individuals miserable. I believed that college would include in-person classes after a year of online high school classes. However, due to the terrible state of the covid situation in New York City, CUNY has decided to provide the majority of fall semester sessions online. Students cannot learn as much in online classes as they can in in-person classes, in my opinion. And my fall was entirely virtual, and it went well. Soon after my autumn semester, CUNY announced that the spring semester classes will be 70% in person. The majority of my classes became in-person after the spring semester began, and I began my first semester of college studies in-person.

I’ve learned a lot about myself as a reader, writer, and researcher this semester. Before this semester, I didn’t love reading long blogs, articles, or essays. When I read something long, I usually look for a summary of the post or article because I believe that reading the synopsis will help me comprehend the entire piece. But when this semester started, I had a different experience, so when I got my first essay or huge assignment to write in English and started writing without reading or gathering necessary materials, I was having writing problems and didn’t know how to finish it. When I started composing it, I couldn’t think of anything to say. My teachers then underline the importance of reading the entire document before beginning to write on it during the meeting.