Forum - View topicNEWS: Library Bars 43-Year-Old from Manga Club Meeting
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Zin5ki Subscriber Posts: 2184 Location: London, UK |
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What the smeg? I've been missing out all along? This changes everything. |
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Mr. sickVisionz Posts: 295 |
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| Ehh, that sucks. If he wasn't hitting on people they shouldn't have given him the boot unless members complained. Anime is aimed at more than teens... if "Teen" wasn't in the title or description of the club, he didn't do anything wrong.
Of course had I been my age and seen nothing but little kids and teens, I would have just gotten up and left and numbled something about how come nobody my age watches anime and lives in this city. Last edited by Mr. sickVisionz on Wed Apr 30, 2008 6:51 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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daxomni Posts: 2420 Location: The morally challenged land of cheap guns and expensive health care. |
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| Wow, is this story real?
I literally had no idea about the secret life of library clubs. Adults reading manga in Japan is considered a non-issue and unrelated adults and kids appear to mix freely over there in all sorts of situations. And yet in America it can apparently create a massive controversy of life-altering proportions. Go figure. I mean, isn't this club meeting in the library itself? If I had kids I'd be just as freaked out about protecting them as the next parent. However, it would probably be the babysitters, daycare staff, school bullies, teachers, doctors and other people who held positions of trust and/or power over them and could reach them in private that would worry me far more than some mature manga fanatic who only had access to them in public. What's he going to do, drag them into the bathroom when nobody is looking? It just doesn't seem very, well, plausible. Am I missing something here? Why is there so much backlash against this guy? Don't you normally have to do something bad before you’re seen as a predatory criminal? I’m not saying he’s a good guy, I’m just saying it doesn’t look like we have enough information to hang him just yet. Some people are saying if he didn't want any trouble he should have quietly left and never showed his face again, but if he really just wanted to get close to the kids for nefarious reasons why would he want to draw any attention to this? It seems that if you were some sort of child predator you’d probably want to quietly sweep your failed attempts under the rug and keep everything quiet, no? So, essentially, the conclusion that I'm hearing is that he's a pedophile drama queen who loves to draw attention to his unsuccessful attempts to get closer to kids? Wow. He must be the world's least successful wannabe criminal. And the moral of the story? If you're over 21 then don't attempt to join any manga or anime clubs unless they cater exclusively to adults, or you'll be sorry!  |
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MokonaModokiSubscriber Posts: 417 Location: Austin, Texas |
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| I was 40 when I went to my first anime convention. My only motivation was to have an opportunity to be around other people with similar interests, but for a month before it I was as nervous as a cat over whether or not I'd be treated like (or just feel like) a freak for being there when I was so 'old'. I pored over the con's website and forums for clues as to just how bad the experience might be for me, and always had a backup plan to flee home if it was as awful as I feared.
Luckily for me, I had an enjoyable time, and have gone on to become the guest relations manager at a couple of conventions here in Texas which happen to value my maturity. But this poor guy experienced my worst nightmare come true. If the library had created proper fliers, that would be one thing, but what they did was deny him access to a function that they'd advertised to him via a flier indicating no age restriction, at a facility that he pays taxes to support. That's demoralizing enough, but if they turned him away with any implication or suggestion that he was there because he might be a pedophile, then that is beyond the pale. That definitely warrants a ruckus on his part. And for the people saying that the guy needs to form his own club for adult fans of anime and manga... what on earth leads you to believe that this might not be his first (and under the circumstances, probably last) opportunity to connect with people who share his interests? What opportunity are we presuming exists to connect with more mature fans of anime and manga that is better than a community function advertised with no age restriction? And hikaru004, everything you've said in this thread is so 'special' that it isn't even worth trying to respond to. I'll just have to make do with comforting myself with the knowledge that in 30 years when you are 43 you'll probably be on the way to having a clue about what you are trying to discuss. |
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| la_contessa Posts: 119 |
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| I completely disagree that this fellow is automatically a pedophile--I'm just saying that regardless of whether he is, he wouldn't win a lawsuit unless the facts we aren't seeing are pretty extreme. | ||||||
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| Xanas Posts: 1311 |
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| When I first started college at 18 my best friend there was 30. I enjoyed talking to professors, etc personally as well when I had the chance. I think too many are afraid of "old people" who "aren't grown up." I think most of them are just fine. It's really the small minority that are creepy, and it's a shame we base so many clubs around those few to the extent we exclude everyone else.
I'm 27 now, and this is the kind of thing that would make me not want to interact with other fans, since most are going to be younger. It's not because I have anything against teens. I just tend to notice that most don't accept adults easily. I think that's a sign of bad parenting honestly. Too many parents aren't friends with their children, and so they look at other adults at a distance as well. |
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| MeggieMay Posts: 385 |
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I got the point you were trying to make. I also wouldn't be surprised if no lawsuit was ever filed. They guy probably is just saying he's thinking of doing it because he's ticked off. When he actually thinks about how much it would cost to actually do it he'll most likely let it drop. hikaru004, the map doesn't look to me to make the town look that isolated. Once again, do you live in the area, visited the area, or something like that or are you just guessing by what you see on the map? As to the pedophilia stuff - that isn't actually mentioned in the article. It came up in this discussion and has become more of a issue than it may be in real life to this case, IMO. The stated reason for the guy being turned away was his age and the library wasn't claiming any different. I also think the fact this was suppose to be a Manga group verse a Manga and Anime group is also getting lost in this. When I re-read the original article a moment ago I realized this guy brought Anime to the meeting, as well as Manga, but seeing it was a Manga club I'm not sure why he thought they'd even have a TV set to begin with, let alone any interest in watching it when they were there to discuss Manga. Other than he probably wanted to show his collection off to a captive audience and seeing he says he didn't know it was a teen group he probably was hoping for adults to do this too as well  .
I really think this guys problem is his ego verse being a pedophile. I could be wrong, of course - as several posters (myself included) have pointed out we really don't have all the information we need to know just what this guy was doing one way or the other. That said, this thread has probably been more interesting in the long haul than the actual news event. I think the thread has brought to light a number of issues about how posters view this fandom and the age of those interested (some seem to think that being over a certain age means you shouldn't be involved, which I find disheartening), along with the lack of outlets for fans (all ages) in some areas of the country to gather and discuss things verse other areas where all you need to do is pay a membership fee and you have easy access to others with your interest. The differing view points on some of this has been rather interesting . |
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Kenji_Ikari Posts: 94 |
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11 miles is nothing. I used to live in a suburb of Palm Springs/Indio, and the whole area of towns there was pretty much integrated. The main mall for the area was about 30 minutes away, for instance. |
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| jel123 Posts: 108 |
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If you look at the image that accompanies the article, which I assume is the announcement for this event, you can see that it says under "description" "Anime/Manga enthusiasts will meet in the Storytime room this week." So he could have taken that to mean that anime was welcome or at least some of the attendees would be interested in anime.
Yeah, he's probably pissed off right now. I would be too. But if this was to be a teen only event he should have left quietly after being informed of this - which maybe he did, the linked article says; "...Palmer said he was upset when he was barred from the meeting and furious at how he was treated by library employees when he tried to file a complaint." Makes it sound like two separate events; being barred and then complaining. It looks like most people here are assuming that he is a "quiet loaner" or a "creepy old guy". For all we know he is married and has 7 kids and was just looking forward to getting out of the house for a while.
Yes, I'm starting to wonder if anime/manga will ever receive mainstream acceptance if fans can't even accept each other.  |
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| MokonaModokiSubscriber Posts: 417 Location: Austin, Texas |
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Does it even matter? I lived in a place for six months that had 305 residents for the 2000 census, I knew about 20 people there. The whole notion that 'everyone knows everyone' in a small town is so nonsensical it isn't even worth pursuing. The concept is probably very foreign to any adult who has ever lived in more than one place. It might apply if you've spent your entire life in a community and can't escape people you grew up and went to school with, but otherwise you have no idea how many people a person might interact with no matter where they live. This is especially true for small tourist destination communities. Where I was living 85% of the homes within a mile of me were usually empty except on the weekends that someone might be using them for a visit to the lake to go fishing. At that time of my life I had nothing interesting happening in that community but UPS deliveries of DVDs and manga from Amazon.com a couple times a week. If the Llano County Library had put something on their web page called Manga Club with the description "Anime/Manga enthusiasts will meet in the Storytime room this week" there's a good chance that I would have wanted to go check it out, because with no further information it would have seemed right up my alley. Apparently in hikaru004's opinion this would have warranted an investigation into my nefarious background as a child molester. The whole line of thought is just wrong, as is what happened to this man. |
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Moomintroll Posts: 1007 Location: Nottingham (UK) |
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I agree that hikaru004's line of thought is more than a little disturbing. But, uhm, what exactly did "happen to this man"? As far as I can make out from the article he attended (through no fault of his own) an event that was for teenagers only. He was told he couldn't attend said event. When he complained about this he got an undisclosed response he didn't care for. Frankly, I'm failing to see how this person has been terribly oppressed. Proofing mistake + bad customer service does not equal a civil rights outrage. Or am I missing something? |
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| Goodpenguin Posts: 457 Location: Hunt Valley, MD |
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Moomintroll wrote:
No, that's accurate. The central issue is there's just something about the internet and taking every situation to it's most tortured, logical abstraction. And for the protests, I'd honestly be hard-pressed to think many people would be pleased, upon dropping off their 14 year old son/daughter to what you perceive as a comic club at the library, to return to see a 40 year old 'fan' hanging over their shoulder. I can completely grant it could 100% innocent, but there's a pretty simple issue of common sense and social decorum. |
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| daxomni Posts: 2420 Location: The morally challenged land of cheap guns and expensive health care. |
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Nobody is saying they should be especially "pleased" that an adult chose to take part but neither have you explained why they should be especially alarmed either. It must be hard to relax when you assume every stranger over eighteen is out to harm your kids. |
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Axe-336 Posts: 138 Location: Springfield, VA |
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| Suing is going to far. If he wants to be part of the meeting he should become a volunteer at the library and say "Hey, I'd be interested in running/helping with the manga/anime events." Or, y'know, find something to do besides unannouncedly bringing his collection to the public library event. | ||||||
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| MeggieMay Posts: 385 |
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If they're dropping off their kids to begin with, without first checking the club out, the parents aren't showing much common sense to begin with. Really, the type of behavior your discussing reminds me of when I was young and people who'd dump their kids at the rock concert and then wonder why said kids were stoned when they got home. If you really care about your kids you check out what they are doing before hand - you don't dump them anywhere, be it a rock concert, the movies, or a library run club. BTW, I'm involved in a library run anime club that's open to teens and up and your scenario doesn't mesh with the realities I see at my club. So far I've not heard of any problems with parents not wanting the older members around their kids (I'm not the oldest member of this club by far, BTW). I have heard there have been problems with show content (i.e. teens attending meetings when things were showed that their parents found out about afterwards and complained about), which has lead to strict enforcement of the signing of parental wavers (parents have to sign permission slips for the teens to be able to attend shows rated over their age - no parent permission slip = not allowed into the meeting for the showing in question) but the fear of adults being around kids just isn't a issue. Maybe it's because most of the "adults" are actually looking after the kids verse the scenario that they're "hanging over the kids shoulders." Then again, most parents come by and meet the people running the club before any dropping off kids happens. BTW, IMO the problem with where you seem to be coming from on this is that you seem to think any adult who would go to a meeting like this would automatically be hanging out with the kids trying to be their best friend. The reality is more like the adults group together and the kids group together and the two groups interact. They just don't usually interact like adults trying to be the kids best friend. There is a socially accept decorum for teenagers and adults to mix and it seems to kick in most of the time (I won't say all the time because there are always exceptions in all walks of life where someone, be it a teen or a adult, does their own thing). Maybe you don't realize there are existing decorums for this type of interaction but there are (teens and adults do mix at things ranging from sporting events to church/synagogue to things like 4H Clubs (i.e. more mainstream clubs that have this type of mixing going on)) . I think most people just don't think about how teens and adults do deal with each outside of school settings because the subject just never comes up the way it is here. |
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