Must-know for Japanese fandom: the meaning of "proship" and the concept of "proshippers" in Western fandom
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| Title: | 日本のオタクに知って欲しい、西洋のオタクスラング「Proship」という単語の意味と「Proshipper」という概念 (Translation: Must-know for Japanese fandom: the meaning of "proship" and the concept of "proshippers" in Western fandom)[1] |
| Creator: | マロミチャン (maromi_ika) |
| Date(s): | 19 February 2023 |
| Medium: | Note.com (blog) |
| Fandom: | |
| Topic: | Anti-ship |
| External Links: | |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
Must-know for Japanese fandom: the meaning of "proship" and the concept of "proshippers" in Western fandom is an essay article written by マロミチャン (maromi_ika) in February 2023.
It describes how maromi_ika, the Japanese-speaking author of the article, who is a fan artist, was harassed by English-speaking anti-shippers, who accused them of being a proshipper. maromi_ika then learned about the associated discourse previously unknown to the author and other fans in Japan, and decided to take a stance against anti-shipping because the author doesn't want fanworks to be censored. In conclusion, it recommends other Japanese fan artists not to engage with people who start interactions with proship accusations.
It was written in Japanese to inform Japanese-speaking audience, and it soon got translated into English. Both versions were widely shared, prompting reactions of many Japanese-speaking fans and English-speaking fans and discussions about the larger anti/pro-ship discourse. Most of the reactions were supportive to the author.
Before publishing the article, maromi_ika tweeted in English a summary of what had happened and their thoughts about it: February 16 twitter thread, Archived version. In the thread maromi_ika describes the episode as a result of cultural differences between Japan, where "[A]ll that is required to publish a work (...) is zoning" (separating spaces by the use of warnings, ratings, tags, etc), and other countries where that is not enough. However, other fans tweeted further explanations of the terms anti and proshipper to the artist, and the essay itself contains sections acknowledging that they had initially been misled: "Thanks to my statement about proshipping, I was able to hear from many people, and was relieved to learn that antis are just a small part of English fandom, and that the attitude of so-called 'proshippers' is in fact the default."
maromi_ika approved [2] オレンジア (orangiah)'s translation[1].
Topics discussed
- Anti-ship
- Anti-anti
- Harassment
- Problematic
- Western fandom and Japanese fandom
- Don't Like, Don't Read
Reactions
This article or section needs expansion. |
Among mainstream creators, Gengoroh Tagame,[3] a gay manga artist, and Yasuhiro Nightow,[4][5]a manga artist known for Trigun shared the article.
The original essay contained a reference to a Japanese term, "feelings yakuza", and the conclusion that anti-shippers were just "American feelings yakuza". The translator explained that it was an "internet slang term referring to 'those who turn their personal discomfort into a social evil and try to erase the target completely'". A lot of English-speaking fans commented that they liked the term and discussed whether to adopt it instead of "anti-shipper".
Fail_fandomanon discussed the essay and their feelings about "feelings yakuza" here and here.
dorkery shared a link to the essay in a tumblr post that had over 28K notes as of early March.[6] This reblog had another fan commenting positively on the term "feelings yakuza".
Reportedly, Japanese fanartists on twitter spread the word and recommended blocking anyone with "proship DNI" in their profile.[7] Then news spread on English twitter that anti-shippers were removing the DNI and replacing it with something less recognizable so that they wouldn't be blocked from seeing Japanese fanart.[8][9][10][11] (It is unclear where this news originated, and one person whose tweet was screenshot as proof protested that "i'm not an anti. that's why i took it out of my bio. On account of i changed my opinion on the matter months before this current discussion was a thing. Sorry i didnt give you all the memo".[12]) Some people then posted updates on the new keywords to use in identifying and blocking antis.[13][14]
References
- ^ a b https://note.com/orangiah/n/n437e262ce2ce
- ^ マロミチャン (maromi_ika), https://twitter.com/maromi_ika/status/1627738799769001984
- ^ Rainy Studios (SamAburime), https://twitter.com/SamAburime/status/1627828231838613506
- ^ Dimitri Monroe (DimitriMonroeZ) https://twitter.com/DimitriMonroeZ/status/1628350141609480192
- ^ Evidence on the Internet Archive. https://web.archive.org/web/20230220210137/https://twitter.com/nightow
- ^ I have never read a more excellent article, Archived version by dorkery, 21 February 2023. As of 6 March 2023, this tumblr post has 28,814 notes.
- ^ Starting to see tweets from Japanese artists telling their fellow jpn followers to block anyone with "proship DNI". It's sad that this has even reached eastern online spaces and they're now mass blocking anyone they consider as "mind mafias", but honestly, I don't blame them., tweet by espasolnikaeya, Feb 19, 2023.
- ^ Antis removing the 'proship dni' in their bios just because now they're realizing that we're using that to block them and they can't secretly look at our art anymore is hilarious., Archived version, tweet by ProfictionPuppy, Feb 21, 2023.
- ^ If you drop the "Proship DNI" from your bio just so you dont get blocked by JP artists youre actually extremely weak and have no moral backbone. Like if you GENUINELY believe that proship=real life endorsement of those abuse you wouldn't do that just to see some anime art., Archived version, tweet by unashamedfully, Feb 20, 2023.
- ^ Antis changing "proship dni" to "problematics dni" to avoid being blocked by jpn artists 💀💀💀💀 first witnessed this from that Sockoroni account, Archived version, tweet by espasolnikaeya, Feb 24, 2023.
- ^ tweet by revitandroll, Archived version, Feb 25, 2023.
- ^ tweet thread by ritzcuit, Archived version, Feb 27, 2023.
- ^ "一部のアンチは [proship dni] から [problematics dni] に変更されているようですので、それらにも注意してください。必要に応じてブロックできます " Machine translation: "Some antis seem to have changed from [proship dni] to [problematics dni], so keep an eye out for those too. Can be blocked if desired". tweet by reiuwu2, Archived version, Feb 26, 2023.
- ^ Beware some are starting to change their description from "proship dni" to "problematics dni". Sometimes they also use "profic dni" or "comship dni", Archived version, tweet by kankanryuu, Feb 26, 2023.