John of the AnimeNation Anime News Blog is among the most interesting and knowledgeable writers about anime that I’ve read. Today, he posted a reaction to the recent OreImo leak, and though not about spirituality, his comments bring up some interesting ideas regarding the hearts of anime fans, and really, all of us. John writes,
Anime fans, and all fans of entertainment media, are naturally selfish.
I think this is a blunt and true statement about the human spirit. What’s wrong with the world? If we take an introspective look at ourselves, we’ll realize what’s wrong is us. More specifically, what’s wrong is how much we love ourselves.
I believe this is the result of a selfish culture, particularly in the west. Look out for number one, right? And, I’ve got to do what’s best for me.
Our first instincts (for most of us at least) is to think through our own lenses, to focus on how we feel about a situation instead of empathizing with others. What makes empathy so difficult (at least for me) is that it’s unnatural. We want to serve ourselves first.
I have a friend who has recently experienced a great deal of pain, physically and emotionally, in her life. A friend’s response to it was, “At least you’re not dead.” How does that help her? If that person put him or herself into the friend’s shoes, he or she might realize that she needed much more than that meaningless phrase. The toughest thing for me about that story is this:
That very person could’ve been me. I’ve said the very same before.
Now imagine a world where people thought of others first – no war, no famine, no heinous crimes. Very John Lennon-esque, eh? A pipe dream, for sure, but that doesn’t mean we can’t change our own lives to think outward instead of inward.
Let’s take an anime-related example. I recently made a post about OreImo that praised Kyosuke when he took it on the lip (literally) for Kirino. Did he save the world? No, but he made something good happen by thinking of himself last.
Most of the great religious figures have had something to say about this issue. Jesus, who’s ministry was about love, told us to love God most, and secondly to love your neighbor. Loving yourself was nowhere in his advice.
Today, I’m sitting at home and there’s something I just need to tell my wife – a little bitty that will get her riled up and angry. But I need to tell her cause it’ll make me feel better. You know what? I’m gonna drop it. It’s not that hard to do. I’ll make this little decision to think about someone else first, and hope that it’ll begin to trickle down to every matter of my life – to relationships, to work, to charity.
I’ll leave you with a famous quote by a man of peace: “Be the change you want to see in the world” (Mahatma Ghandi). What about you? Will you think of others today? What will you do to think outwardly instead of in?
To read all of John’s terrific response, go here:
AnimeNation Anime News Blog » Blog Archive » Ask John: What’s John’s Take on the OreImo Leak?.
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Sorry, I had to stop reading that, because that guy is (as far as I understand) completely wrong. He says that they “hacked” ANN’s server and “illegally” accessed it. Um, no.
From what I understand, this is how it worked. Let me use one of my favorite sites, Homestar Runner. Homestar Runner has a semi-regular feature called Strong Bad e-mails. The standard url for these emails is the site domain, followed by say, /sbemail45
Anyway, TBC (the guys who do Homestar) had been building up to email 100. So, in an effort to find the email sooner, before it had been put on the site, people were going to the site and typing in /sbemail100 to try and access it even if the site didn’t say it was up.
TBC actually put up a cartoon making fun of people’s efforts to find the email early because of it. Anyway, the point I’m making is, from what I understand (and correct me if I’m wrong!) people were taking the URL from episode 1 of OreImo and just replacing the 1 with a 2, and bam, they had the episode.
That isn’t hacking. It’s not illegally accessing anything. Now, the distributing it bit, yes, I’ll admit that’s illegal. But the actual acquisition of the episode itself was NOT illegal and not hacking.
As for the parts about distributing anime being wrong and stuff, I’ll keep my mouth shut about that, seeing as how I have a few Canadian and European friends who have changed my view on that. Besides, I’m watching fansubs of about five different shows at the moment so I have a biased perspective. XP
Nate, actually, that was the earlier word about what happened. ANN’s reply to the situation revealed that it was a bit more complicated than that. I’m apt to give ANN more of the benefit of the doubt and trust that what they say is true.
As for watching fansubs…that’s certainly not a black and white issue. And I think you’re alluding to the lack of legal streaming anime for those outside of the U.S., further complicating the issue. It can be quite a conundrum for some of us…
Anyway, thanks for the insightful comments as always, Nate. 🙂
So I actually read the procedure on what was actually done. It wasn’t trivial, but there was no actual security to speak of, which is a glaring incompetency on their part. So no, there was no hacking involved, since there was on security to be circumvented.
Thanks for clearing that up!
I feel really weird about the whole thing, as I didn’t watch the episode when it was leaked. I waited until the third episode was out and watched. I have strange morals.
I don’t think those are strange morals…I think it’s a little thing maybe called “character”? Ha. That’s a good thing. 🙂