Visual kei among friends

[God 264]

in high school, i used to make mix cds of vk bands and pass them out to my friends, acquaintances, and some random people.  i also used to show people pics of bandmen, but it was just entrapment to see their faces when i told them that whoever it was is a guy.  i was in this class called digital storytelling where you had to put presentations together using photoshop and premiere, and most of those were about vk bands too.  i’m sure my classmates loved me.  😅

[Ikna 1225]

VK was remotely popular where I live at the time I was in High school, so there were some "cool kids" that liked it and i know there were some meet ups in the local scene. But being shy and introverted I never went there. And at Anime+Manga Cons I only ever stared at the VK cosplayers, never interacted with them. 

 

At my school there was one class above me that had three girls who self identified as "Visus". That was when VK and Anime reached peak hype in the German speaking lands, so I guess between 2006 and 2008/9-ish. Youth magazines really tried hard to sell it as a subcultural movement thing, so you had people walking around saying that they are "Visus" and these three girls were fully into it, dressing in mid 00s grb and with way too much eyeliner every single day, bags donned with hundreds of band buttons and weaboo shit and whatnot.

 

I kinda admired it and envied that they had the guts to look like that. Nowadays I find it kinda silly though… most of those early attempts of foreigners to dress VK looked really shit (and more like Emo or Scene). And same with them. But they tried, I guess. So people at my school knew what it was, but apart from those "Visu" kiddos no one really cared that much and nowadays I doubt there's anyone but very few people left in this country who do. 

 

Ok, some of my classmates were mallgoths (and so were I), and they kinda thought Mana looked amazing, but they still preferred to listen to Cradle of Filth and Marylin Manson, lol.

Edited June 23, 2019 by Ikna

[deedlitmurata 86]

When I got into vk and Japanese music overall, I was in high school, I start to get some real friends once I asked my parents to put me in Japanese classes, there were people who liked japanese music there, I also had friends online, since I've always lived in small Latin America countries, it's not like there are big chances of finding big groups who enjoy good music at all lol, and I remember in my class, some classmates who were not into Jmusic found gackt interesting, and they thought he was handsome I remember lol so I was successful getting some people into Jmusic thanks to Gackt's good looks XDDD  but overall, some of my bests friends I met online, they were from other countries, later when I got old and became a working adult, I had to travel to one of those countries often due to work (Mexico) and we met in person, and it was awesome, last year we even went together to the Plastic Tree concert in Mexico and it was a great experience, so I am very grateful to Internet and the wonderful people that I've been able to meet through it.

[chocobuzz 752]

When I mentioned to one of my high school friends that I listened to visual kei, her reaction was "visual kei? sounds like visual GAY XXDDDD" and I never talked to her about it again lol.

My other friend doesn't listen to vkei either (or any kinda rock/metal at all) but she finds it somehow interesting how enthusiastic I am about it. She's mostly fine with it when I talk to her about my favorite bands and new releases and what's currently going on in the scene even though she doesn't understand a thing I'm saying.

[psychonnect_rozen 585]

17 minutes ago, chocobuzz said:

When I mentioned to one of my high school friends that I listened to visual kei, her reaction was "visual kei? sounds like visual GAY XXDDDD" and I never talked to her about it again lol.

My other friend doesn't listen to vkei either (or any kinda rock/metal at all) but she finds it somehow interesting how enthusiastic I am about it. She's mostly fine with it when I talk to her about my favorite bands and new releases and what's currently going on in the scene even though she doesn't understand a thing I'm saying.

I never got the whole gay comments. My friend teases me about VK a lot but I love talking about VK drama with friends. I told one of them about Kisaki and he laughed his ass off.

 

I hate it when people call things “gay” when referring to something lame.

Edited June 29, 2019 by psychonnect_rozen

[Zalemu 236]

In high school I managed to get my best friend's boyfriend into An Cafe for a while. I think he lowkey had a crush on Bou. The girl who sat next to me in history class always wanted to know about the pictures of Kisaki and various "women" glued to my agenda/planner. Even though it was just the standard "yeah, I know he looks like a girl but he's a dude" conversations with her, I was damn excited to have someone to talk to about visual kei and my grades in that class kinda suffered for it. Oops.

Edited June 29, 2019 by Zalemu

[psychonnect_rozen 585]

18 minutes ago, Zalemu said:

always wanted to know about the pictures of Kisaki and various "women" glued to my agenda/planner.

Lol Kisaki 😂

[Zalemu 236]

That was wayyyyyy before he got exposed so don't even come for me, lmao.

Edited June 29, 2019 by Zalemu

[Kuro 45]

When VK still was quite a thing in Germany I also had some friends. I made the first ones when I started learning Japanese and they also did, I had seen them at lives before and remembered their faces. I do have contact with one of them still but seemingly life took its toll and they focus on other things.

 

In my recent course (which means the past three semesters and the next one, if enough sign up for it, it's the same thing about hoping for this each semester) there's one who's also interested and we just recognized that there's quite some bands we're both interested in so I'm curious on how things turn out, if we'll start seeing every now and then aside from learning Japanese. But that's it for people where I live that I regularly could meet up with.

 

It was pretty much fun in the past when bands regularly played in my city and we met up. As well as the regular meet ups in a small shop that sold quite some J-music stuff which now is more focussing on Korean stuff. Things changed and well, I guess I got used to it.

[avaritonista 116]

On 6/18/2019 at 12:26 PM, secret_no_03 said:

I guess it's safe to say that everyone here generally don't have VK friends, which is what brought them here and now have several acquaintances. You could also say that all of us make up a family...or a Cult.

You've got to be kidding !

On 6/19/2019 at 7:51 AM, Gesu said:

I remember showing a VK guy to this guy in my class last year at college and he didn't really think much of him until he put two and two together and realised he was a guy, not a girl. Oh, lordy, I'll never forget the way his face contorted in utter horror and confusion.

lol

On 6/19/2019 at 6:01 PM, God said:

in high school, i used to make mix cds of vk bands and pass them out to my friends, acquaintances, and some random people.  i also used to show people pics of bandmen, but it was just entrapment to see their faces when i told them that whoever it was is a guy.  i was in this class called digital storytelling where you had to put presentations together using photoshop and premiere, and most of those were about vk bands too.  i’m sure my classmates loved me.  😅

You win lol

[psychonnect_rozen 585]

So turns out I’m not the only J-Rock fan at my school. A friend of a friend actually listened to The Gazette and surprisingly listened to Disorder. So I’m not alone yay!

Edited September 18, 2019 by psychonnect_rozen

[astra☆ 26]

I'm sorry to hear about some of the very dumb things said about vk and about Japanese music in general! I didn't know people could be that ignorant about it.

So, some positives is that I've actually gotten girlfriends solely because they liked the way I dress! Some people that I hadn't talked to in years remembered me because I wear aristocrat style, they recalled how they respected me at the time because I was 'unashamedly myself' and wasn't afraid to stand out. So there are people who are open to vk as a fashion thing, at least. These have mostly been girls, as to be expected. However, a friend once called me a tranny after seeing my makeup, though he says he was joking. Still, it was a thought that came to him so that did hurt. Other male friends have been generally supportive!

I have also made it a point to share Japanese music with people. I've found that Gackt is really popular. Almost everyone likes him when they hear his music. Malice Mizer seem to intrigue people, people are fascinated with the costumes. Raphael and L'arc en Ciel also seem to also get really good reception. One of my exes really liked Kimeru, who is on the pop side of things; she was a Mana fangirl, despite not really listening to MM.

Overall I really just think people don't know much about Japanese music as it hasn't been pushed in the USA as much as say, k-pop has. They've mostly been content with keeping things in Japan since local music does well there. Hyde is touring the US as an opener for a band called Starset (US rock group), and I've seen way more comments about Hyde than I have about the main act! I think really Japanese music just needs exposure, especially now as westerners are growing more open to foreign language music. Japanese music in particular has gotten a bit of a cult status through smaller genres like vaporwave and future funk. I also see anime becoming more mainstream, which inevitably will lead to more openness of foreign music. There's anime merch and movies selling at our biggest retailers in the US! This is something I'm very happy about.

[hopefully_benign 56]

I wouldn't expect a random Japanese person to understand the nuances of outlaw country or new orleans sludge metal, so I don't think it's fair to chalk up confusion over vk as ignorance or malice. Those kinds of reactions are a normal and healthy part of disparate cultures intersecting.