Rotten Girls

Molly sends along this interesting article about fujoshi, the female otakus:

http://uk.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUKT30561220080229?pageNumber=4&virtualBrandChannel=0

Here are two pretty great video clips:

http://darkdiamond.net/web-notes/the-world-of-fujoshi-the-female-otaku/

Interestingly, whereas those two links equate fujoshi to "girl geeks," the Wikipedia entry on fujoshi is only concerned with their interest in slash fan-fic:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fujoshi

I wonder if the Reuters article does this to whitewash the term, or if Wikipedia has confused effect for cause. That is, Harry Potter nerds are ALSO interested in romantic couplings of (underage) fictional characters, but by and large that's an offshoot of their fandom, not the reason they got into the world.

I suppose the truth is somewhere in the midde, but a good rule of thumb is: If you have two explanations, and one of them is "Wikipedia sucks," always choose that one.

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Speaking of, librarians have ANOTHER reason to hate Nicholson Baker: he loves Wikipedia...

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/21131

Actually, this article--a review of a book called Wikipedia: The Missing Manual, the existence of which makes my head explode--is an interesting read, full of great observations, even if I don't share his enthusiasm for the faith-based encyclopedia.