What have I gained by running an anime blog. Vastly improved writing skills? Self-actualisation as an otaku? The respect and adoration of millions of anime fans? Sure I’ve achieved these things (or at least, on the way to achieving them) but these are all intangible gains. Great for the soul but worthless for the wallet. This year, having an anime blog got me somewhere. Hosting a space where I write about anime on the internet gave me something tangible.
It started way back in January when, out of nowhere, I was notified that I was nominated for the Irish Blog Awards. I’ve still got no idea who nominated me and originally I was rather dismissive, thinking that a blog about foreign cartoons was not the sort of material they were looking for prospective winners. Yet I made it through the shortlist and into the final round of judging, up for a spot as the best youth blog (19 apparently meaning you’re a youth, which rather surprised me). I’d even got myself hyped up for a prospective resounding victory, only to fall at the final hurdle to some nobody. Not that I’m bitter or anything. Why would I care about getting an award from that bunch of circle jerkers anyway?
Some of the Irish bloggers, or people who kept an eye on the Irish blogosphere, must have noticed clear brown paper envelope pushing that resulted in the grave miscalculation in the result. Word of mouth spread about this Irish Anime Expert, eventually reaching the ears of a project called Ignite. The person who ran the event, a fella called Conor Noughton, e-mailed me and asked me to take part in this project of his called Ignite. In it, experts from various fields gave 5 minute presentations with a slide show that includes 20 pictures, each one staying on the screen for 15 seconds each. It forces the speaker to really shoot through their subject and keeps it short enough to keep it interesting.
As you can probably tell, this story has been fabricated in parts. I’m not entirely sure how I got from a runner up in the Irish Blog Awards to taking part in Ignite, but suddenly I was there. At Electric Picnic, a music festival for people far too artsy to see ‘popular’ bands, in the science tent of the spoken word section of the festival, talking about cartoons. There was me, some kid with a big mouth on the internet, mistaken for an expert and giving a talk alongside people who actually were inside their respective industries. The curator of the Cork Art Museum. A lecturer for genetics in Dublin City University. BP Fallon, a guy with his own friggen Wikipedia page, who was the publicist for Thin Lizzy and U2 at different stages. U-fucking-2! (amusing titbit about BP Fallon: He missed his cue to go on stage and they had to move him to a later slot because he hadn’t finished his joint). And in amongst all them was Scamp, The Cart Driver. Petrified I’d trip over the microphone stand, or that everyone would start talking amongst themselves as I explained Miyazaki’s significance.
But hey, I did it. They paid attention, laughing at Miyazaki’s infamous samurai sword he sent to Disney with Princess Mononoke. More importantly though, I had gotten into this festival for free. Once I had attended my duties, I could enjoy myself. Not that I had any interest in the pretentious music played at the festival. I spent my time camped out in the comedy tent, watching famous stand ups (well, famous in Ireland anyway) like Regineld D. Hunter, Karl Murphy, Gift Grub, Rubberbandits (the guys who sing the horse song that the public are trying to get to be Christmas number 1 in the UK and Ireland instead of the X Factor song) and a host more. A ticket to all this would have cost me about €200. My moment in anime #11? The Cart Driver getting me a free ticket to see stand up comedy acts.
Oh, and here’s the video of my talk. I didn’t want to put it up on the blog originally because I was embarrassed by my endlessly waving hands. But I guess, after 30 months in the blogging business, it might be nice for my readers to get the face behind the name Scamp.
48 Comments
Gotta say it was a brave thing to stand up there in front of a crowd you’d assume would be quite skeptic about cartoons.
Well done and I found it to be an interesting bit
You always looked like Hare in my head.
Dammit.
Switching back to my good old Hare avatar then~
eh, Arakawa season 2 letting me down means I’m kinda bored of Nino now
This once again proves that when you have an accent, you will succeed in life.
DAMN YOU american roots.
You could try and adopt a heavy Texan accent.
Well, this was in Ireland so everyone kinda already has Irish accents…
So does the standard American “non-accent” sound exotic there?
Nah, most people in Ireland associate the US accent with dumb drawly overweight tourists with bumbags and baseball caps. Hardly what you’d call exotic
First off, your hat.
Second off, don’t worry about your hands. I’m worse. I can’t talk unless their moving XD
It was at a music festival. It’s about the only oppertunity I have to wear that hat
My friend, your hat is glorious.
My friend, your hat is glorious.
AGREED.
Dat accent.
you looked real nervous but pulled it off nice work.
I actually was expected you to be a girl.
You were very nervous, if taken out of your comfort zone your voice shakes. But realm men stand firm until the end.
BTW, were going to say Pikachu instead of pokemon?
What, you learned that we can all stalk you anyway, so you gave up hiding?
Nice presentation, actually. It’s funny how people complain that something like the history of anime can’t possibly be fit into a short space (and in some ways, no, it can’t), but you pulled it off well.
Also, your hands were fine.
Also also jealousy. Nice chance, you expert.
I didn’t have one mention of any mecha anime. No Gundam or Evangelion or anything. Not a very complete history without them but eh~
Gundam, what is that. 8D
Anyway, wouldn’t have taken that much longer to do that neatly too.
It would have been hilarious if someone gasped in anger at the accusation of The Lion King lifting stuff from Tezuka.
If they did, you wouldn’t have heard it on that bloody video. When I pause for laughter, they are actually laughing! You just can’t hear it for some reason…
ironic since disney later sued some graphic artist for making a logo with a lion that looked like the lions from lion king. GO PLAGIARISM GO~
Ohhhh~ Your accent *___*
Seeing you so shy is cute~ You were nervous, right? But you did a great job, man.
Am I kawaii uguu~?
You’re a hipster! :-O /nunz stonewall/
But seriously, real cool stuff. Nice job with the presentation. THe hand waving thing isn’t bad, and it probably would’ve felt/looked more natural if you weren’t holding onto that piece of paper.
You are very kawaii mokya~
I’m very impressed! Not just because you were brave enough to get up in front of an audience and talk about anime, but for having to do so in such a quick, condensed way. The time pressure with the pictures and all would have made me really nervous 0_o I did something similar several years ago except I talked about the differences between anime and American cartoons in Japanese in front of a Japanese audience. However, I had much longer to do it. So I commend you for making a good “history of anime” speech in only five minutes.
Also, it’s great seeing the name behind the face too =)
I always imagined you as some 30 yr old dude but your actually really young and decent looking xD Good job on the presentation!
it must have been pretty scary~
Great little speech, I’m surprised you nailed down all the main points in such a short time and amazed you pulled it off so well. At age 19 I’d have probably turned to stone, a la The Nunz, or curled up in the foetal position on the floor, lol
Including all those jokes was an smart touch for the more casual viewers, it was a bit hard to hear the crowd laughing, but it was obvious they were. I certainly was.
I think the big point that hit me overall was how clueless I seemingly am with anime history. I’d seriously never heard of that Miyazaki sword anecdote before. Noob!
Huh, your name DOES sound like a boxer’s.
Have to say, it’s a pretty cool name.
I’d have spent all my time in the comedy tent of Electric Picnic too
Nice concise presentation, and kudos to you for actually doing it — its not like there are all that many anime fans floating around Ireland afterall (and especially not at Electic Picnic!). Great to put a voice & face to the name too.
The presenter said, after my speech, that Howls Moving Castle was one of her favourite movies of all time, so there was at least one anime fan in there
So, if I understand your presentation correctly, in the 4-minute lifetime of anime, there are 30 seconds of Tezuka, 1 minute and 30 seconds of Miyazaki/Ghibli, 1 minute of sex and violence, 15 seconds of TV, 15 seconds of pirating, and 30 seconds of streaming Baccano.
Also, you could probably pull off a pretty good cosplay of The Cart Driver.
I wonder if anyone would get the reference if I cosplayed as The Cart Driver
I was watching that video and thinking, “Man, tough crowd today.” We’ll just have to take your word for it.
After seeing how quickly you got through your presentation slides, it definitely gives a different pace to how I read your posts. On the other hand, when I give a presentation I talk slowly and tend to go much longer than I’m supposed to.
They were laughing! They’re just all hipsters who only laugh quietly or something…
I love your blog though i don’t read it much. Your vocabulary is very extended therefore i have to highlight and paste and search. lol. Your blog is really enjoyable though. It is pretty fun to read what you come up with. Sometimes stuff you say i don’t even know about it… so that’s why your awesome.
And it’s awesome that you got elected for the contest. Your presentation is way better than what i can do. When i present myself, i’m always stuttering and not looking at the crowd. i’m too shy. Not only that, i have the habit of saying umm.…. ummm… for also all my sentence. This is a bad American habit. Well… anyways, you did pretty good on the presentation. >.<
I think I’m gonna quit stalking Glo and start stalking you now. Heh Good to see you finally. You look just as great as you write.
Just by chanced, in the meeting I had at the office today, I was picked to organize an event with anime as it main focus. God knows where did they got the idea I’m into anime
But yeah, so now I’m in the process of trying to get the local merchandise stores and cosplayers to get involved and probably invites few of my anime blogger friends from Singapore and Malaysia to participate and show off their collection of figures. I plan on collaborating with the Japan club and make the event as some sort of a summer festival vibe. There will be movie screening and some sort of introduction shit about anime. It would be cool to have you, Baka-Raptor and Glo to come just for the heck of it but the distance fucked up that plan of mine
Tsk, you didn’t answer if you were going to say Pikachu instead of Pokemon!!! But it was pretty obvious so it doesn’t matter xP
I can’t answer every comment =[ but yeah, I’m pretty sure I almost said Pikachu
the…accent…why are americans always facinated by western european accents anyways?
you don’t exactly look how i pictured you…not that i’ve thought a lot about how you really look lmao. but nicely done! certainly if something like that happened here outside of a con people would be like “oh it’s one of THOSE kids who watch THOSE cartoons…meh.”
and lol @ miyazaki’s katana. i’ve never heard that one before.
Now the voice in my head has become your actual voice everytime I read something you’ve written!
Dammit.
Fellow bloggers aren’t allowed to be attractive. You’re suppose to be fat and unappealing, and only have a blog out of social desperation.
I’ll have to kill you know.
Well done!
Hey congrats and thanks for putting up the vid. I really enjoyed it, I thought it had a good pace and was a very engaging into. to the subject. I forgot to ask you before if you ended up meeting any bloggers/ commenters at the Leeds film festival — if not, I guess they’re even more likely to come and say hello to you now if they spot you, which is pretty cool, eh. And, again, I second Luffy’s love-in for your hat, ’tis indeed glorious.
I found your blog through Arakawa and I have to say I’ve been entertained by it ever since. You’re really amazing, and I love your blog. That said, I’ve always felt that I, myself, don’t have a “talent” to contribute to the anime world. If an elitist met me, I’d be the one they’d all declare the noob. I’m not very internet savvy, I sound like a pretentious dick every time I try to post online, and I can’t draw. However, with this video, I guess I’ve had an epiphany about life–everyone has a talent and something they’re good at, so there’s never any need to feel inadequate or jealous!
I am much, much better at public speaking at you. Hence why I am President of the anime club at my high school and talk to real people about anime all the time.
I’m being really sincere. Your blog has not only provided entertainment and information about anime, it has also given me invaluable life lessons and helped me become a better person. I’ve also learned things like Hetalia=world peace, cooking is good, and that high school girls should be wary of forming contracts with cute, fluffy, white aliens.Thank you.
p.s: I’d love to meet you someday. We’ll welcome you in California!
Why thank you for the greatest backhanded compliment I have ever received