Otaku culture

What is Otaku?
Original meaning of the term Otaku is "individuals immersed in something professinally". But in korea society, the meaning changes. the otaku receive a "negative" attention. They seem like a social misfit and dirty, fat person. For example, when we think the otaku, We can remember the man holding a pillow with female character on it. (The man appeared in a TV program-화성인 바이러스. After broadcasting, The man attract a large crowd.)

Anamation otaku
There are various kind of otaku in korea. Generally speaking, the otaku is anamation otaku. They go beyond loving animation and its character, They buy character's clothes and behave as if they are character in animation wearing the costume. It is named "costume play". In korea, there are also some places holding a costume play contest.

The need to change awareness about otaku
In korea society, the otaku still receive a "negative" attention. But they are not wrong but "different". Anyone loving and immersing something could be otaku. When we look around, We can find some kind of otaku. Besides the otaku achieve recognition in many ways. Now we should accept otaku generously.

(extra) Reset syndrome

 It is a compound word syndrome and reset, which means that it is returned to the initial state of the system when the computer has caused an error. So it refers to the phenomenon that have an illusion that we can reset if there is any number of incorrect or wrong parts even in the real world as to initialize the computer. They are displayed mainly by a generation familiar to computer, Sometimes it leads to serious crime.

 

 This term is firstly made in Japan, 1990. It was widely known by becoming clear the criminal, a junior high school student(14 years old) in elementary school, of mutilation murder case is maniac of a computer game occurred in Kobe, Japan in May 1997. From the late 1990s, the term appeared in Police White Paper in Korea. Currently, cyber investigation team of the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency has been defined reset syndrome as a kind of Internet addiction.

 

 Exemplary features of the reset syndrome is that they can not distinguish the real and virtual worlds. People who have reset syndrome show social maladjustment phenomenon that attempts to restart easily by discarding relationships or work which do not like his own.

 

 Committing the crime, they can not recognize that is a criminal act in a terrible case. They consider it just a kind of game when they do theft, assault, even murder. They think if they reset the guilt conscience of their own, there is no act of their own too.

(extra) Hikikomori

It is a term that started out in Japan since the 1970s, has emerged with solitary hermits appears as a social problem the mid-1990's. Hikikomori is the noun form of the Japanese "Hikikomoru" meaning "hidden". It refers to people who can not adapt to social life, live only in the house.

 

Symptoms are similar to "Bangkok jog"(people who live cooped up in a room) that began to appear in Korea in the late 1990s. These have in common that life remains cut off with the outside by creating a fence of their own against society. Ministry of Health and Welfare of Japan are classified into Hikikomori that people seen these symptoms for more than 6 months from 2001.

 

There is an example to spend while being trapped in a room for more than 3-4 years or even 10 years by terrible people. Typical symptoms are these. ① avoid talking with people. ② immerse watching TV or in the Internet at night and sleeping while the daytime. ③ show depressive symptoms and sense of loss and self-loathing. ④ behave like a spoilt child to parent or even use violence.

 

Researchers point out several factors as the cause that rapid growth of society, psychological burden by unemployment, an introspective nature, discontinuation with neighborhood and relatives and so on.

(extra) Bystander effect

 

 It is also referred to as audience effect. Dictionary definition of the bystander is a person who just looking at near without any participation. Thus it is a phenomenon that if what was happening around, people do nothing and just looking at near. Commonly used in particularly when you do not help a stranger who placed difficult circumstance among the various phenomena that occur by remaining indifferent.

 

 Several factors such as personality and ability that can help acts to help people in danger. However, according to the results of a study, in general, the probability is low that help the people who are facing difficulties, if the so many people stand around. And idle time until action becomes longer even going to help them. Because of psychological factors that there are many people who keep an eye on, even in the absence of my own, someone would be help him. In this way, the psychological term that to avoid their responsibilities refers to "diffusion of responsibility".

 However bystander effect is not displayed to everyone. The contrary, there are some people who come forward if the more people watching, the more actively in the everything. Politicians usually belong to this type.

 

 It is also used as a medical term. In this case, it refer to phenomenon when apply radiation to the cells, the surrounding cells that are not directly exposed to radiation are affected similarly with the cells shot radiation directly.

(extra) Heat island

 The downtown that densely crowded population and buildings appears its temperature higher than other regions in general. In this way, heat island is the region that represents specially higher temperature than the temperature of the surroundings. the heat island phenomenon is clear in autumn and spring that diurnal range is greater or winter than summer and appear badly at night than daytime.

 

 The meteorologist W. Schmidt of Austria confirmed the fact that the temperature is higher when go to the urban center by investigating the temperature distribution of the capital Vienna in 1927. Thereafter, climate of downtown was found to have a unique phenomenon that different from the surrounding.

 

 In the city, ① changing in the ground surface heat balance with increasing construction, paving ② increasing emissions of artificial heat, the pollutant due to fuel consumption ③ greenhouse effect by atmospheric pollution ④ making so many high-rise buildings ventilation is difficult affect heat island phenomenon. Because ground covered roads, buildings, concrete plays the role of the reflector which absorbs and stores solar heat and reflects more than soil contained water.

 

 In particular, the smoke of the city is the main substance that causes heat island phenomenon so it is also called as "island of pollution". The velocity of the wind, the amount of the clouds, the size of city also influence on heat island phenomenon. If density of building increases 10%, temperature of downtown increase 0.16°C. Most tropical night also appears in heat island.

(extra) Ringelmann effect

 It refers to a phenomenon that the competence of the population and the increase in the members of a group is not proportional. That is, the competence of the individual decreases as the size of the population bigger. It is the opposite concept to synergy effect. It is a concept that began with experiments of psychologist Maximilien Ringelmann of Germany.

 

 Ringelmann carried out a tug of war experiment in order to measure the contribution of the individual belonging to the group. According to the experiment, in a group of two people belonged, the magnitude of the exerting power by one person was 93% of their own power. But in a group of three people belonged, the magnitude of the exerting power by one person was 85% of their own power. Thus, Ringelmann found the fact that the more participants engage in a tug of war, the less power exerted by each individual. This proved individuals do not their best when they are just one of several people.

 

 This Ringelmann effect is utilized, such as strategies for constructing in business management. For example, constructing team members as a small number or form that are not placed in the team such as a certain number or more of talent corresponds to this.

[Extra] Power of minorities

Minorities are very influential when they are persistent and consistent. They need to make their case repeatedly so that people can see its continued relevance. Major social changes, such as the abolition of slavery, began with the influence of just a few people, but as they stuck with this principle more and more people became convinced by their arguments, until eventually social change was able to happen. In the case of national wars, these minority influences may take considerable time to have an effect, but over time they begin to challenge the generally held belief that the war is justified. It took several years, for example, for the minorities opposed to the US war in Vietnam to have an effect, but eventually they were able  to convince enough people of their case that the US government perceived a need to end the conflict.