I Was a Teenage Weaboo

I wasn't acting like a weaboo in my teenage years because I was too embarrassed to do that (or even to do normal things, I'm glad I'm not as anxious now). But actually I was really annoying my sisters and tried to make them watch too many anime. They got tired of me really fast and now whenever the topic of bf/husband is brought up they immediatly say I'm gonna marry a japanese guy or a video game character as a joke.

I started to study Japanese in high school because of that. Since I couldn't study german in college because of my mediocre level and the level required by the university,I decided to learn Japanese instead. I like learning it but college itself sucks so much. I can't say I regret it overall.

Tdlr: being a weeb made me actively learn english and japanese as foreign languages.

>Be 15
>Still loli because genes
>Only freinds are on internet
>Arrange meet freind
>Get persmission to bring grown-up
>Take train to capital city with chosen grown-up
>Greeted by 13 y/o weaboo with Deidara hair and her mom
>"Omg are you anon from middleschoolerboard?"
>Yoroshiku!11!!
>Realize 'Holy shit this is a bit weaboo'
>...
>It's first freind who gives a shit
>Meet first IRL otaku freind ever.
>And there was much rejoycing.jpg
>OMG KAWAIII!!!!
>SUTEKII DESU!!!
>LOL!
>Suggest otaku shopping
>Go to few extant magna outlets in country
>Last stop is a shop that sells sweets, lolita, games, and some manga. Let's call it lolishop
>Walk in
>It's Sonic's B-day some peeps are celebrating with cake and pizza in the backroom
>Try on lolita stuff
>Am fat loli, too fat to fit actual loli
>Huff at not being catered to as 'real woman'
>From the corner of my eye
>Holy shit
>There it is
>"Omg P-chan! Yaoi!!!!"
>"Awawhahaha!!! Yaoi!" ^0^)b
>Ear-bleeding squees
>Designated grownups enter
>Still squeeing
>They have no idea what yaoi is lol let's keep it that way
>BUT NOT STOP SQUEEING DESU
>Had awesome time, say farewell
>"Ja ne, let's talk on the message board desu!"
>Go home, warm feeling in stomach
>I can make friends.jpg
>Log onto otaku internet community
>Topic in general chat
>Title: Yesterday, at lolishop..
>"Yesterday I was at lolishop celebrating Sonic's B-day with cake, and these two weebs come in squeeing over yaoi. Nothing new under the sun, but then their moms appeared after them!"

>TLDR: Had a day so weeb it weebed Sonics birthday

I got my last job because looking for Japanese fanart sites instead of studying made me damn good at finding tricky pieces of information on the internet.

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>early teens
>watch kamikaze girls
>watch kamikaze girls several times over the years
>gained every bad trait from Momoko

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I learned how to tell the difference between someone who enjoys their hobby at a healthy level and the difference from someone who does not.

>Be me at 15
>Try anime club
>People seem friendly.
>3 weeks in, drama
>Factions are made
>Queen of our group wants us to troll other queen's comments
>Feels her interpretation of Gundam Wing yaoi is blasphemy.
>Anime club destroyed in 3 months
>Teachers have to break up fight in the hall between the rival girls.
>I step back and say fuck it.
>Leave the anime nuts
>Later find less hardcore fans to cosplay and chill with.
>Drama between the old anime club members stayed until graduation.
>Bitches hold bad grudges.

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Anime and stuff kind of helped me figure out my gender identity. Like...I'm not trans or anything but I was really tomboyish as a kid, and growing up I just felt more comfortable dressing like a boy, wearing boy clothes, and didn't mind getting mistaken as one. I just got along better with guys, liked short hair because it was convenient for sports, and I connected with a lot of anime protagonists who were lonely and such. My mom is very controlling regarding how my sister and I look and dress, so looking like a shota was the only way I could express myself that wasn't completely controlled by my mom. She was so dead set on making me into her vision of a daughter thing that I just grew to resent girl clothes, dresses, etc. My room was always decorated by her, I was not allowed to hang up posters, ask for things I wanted for Christmas, keep my hair a certain length, choose my own clothes, etc. She encouraged my siblings to make fun of me for looking like a boy when I finally cut my hair short. It led to me having a lot of self esteem issues and hating myself. I identify as a girl but looking like a boy was my comfort zone, people seemed to not police guys on their looks, and left me alone (I had a bunch of bad experiences with older guys hitting on me as a kid)
I obsessed over characters like Haruhi from Host Club, who just wanted people to like her for her. Winry from FMA was also my favorite and I really looked up to her, since she was so feminine and could do "guy" things like mechanics, or Terra from FF6 who was really brave and strong and pretty at the same time.

I just wanted to be able to figure out being a woman at my own pace and I didn't like how everyone was just shoving their ideas of gender norms down my throat. Nowadays, I really enjoy wearing skirts and dresses since I feel so cute and pretty, but that is only after I went away to college and could pick what I wanted to wear for the first time.

>>8725150
>Feels her interpretation of Gundam Wing yaoi is blasphemy.

That is a serious accusation.

>>8725178
Different anon, but it most definitely is. I remember getting into a heated discussion with a roommate once about the difference between 01x02 and 02x01. Mind you we were drunk, but we agreed that it must be 02x01. And that neither of us gave a fuck about Wufei.

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>>8725168

Similar story, became a trap to avoid growing up+having to look sexy(Because did not know girls could look any other way when no acess to lolita clothing). Eventually came to enjoy the aesthitic.

Sadly, most tomboys in the media were stereotyped as gay. What really annoyed me was when fans went 'dis character is gay because she dresses like a dude', and I would curse them under my breath, because srs buisness. And if they got boyfreinds, they'd go girly! Traitors.

Then I got a boyfreind, and guess who started getting more comfortable with feminine clothing..

Oscar is still a role model, and the brief but sad romance of her and Andre is still one of few shoujo romances that has ever appealed to me.

>>8725150
Gundam Wing yaoi is serious business. I used to cosplay Duo back in 2003/04, until someone assaulted me for hugging a Quatre cosplayer.

>>8725206
That's such a shame for you that you had to deal with the whole media stereotype of tomboys.
I love masculine-dressing girls, without starting a tumblr war, it seems hard for girls to present that way without seeming like they are something else lately. Please don't totally forsake your tomboy roots, I hope that you can feel happy in all clothes including super girly and super masculine from now on!

>>8725218
>it seems hard for girls to present that way without seeming like they are something else lately
I totally agree. In some ways I like the tumblr movement (so fucking shoot me) because they raise some good points, about gender roles, but in other ways it can definitely be a burden on people who are trying to do their own thing without falling into some weird new category by accident.

>>8725168
I thought I was the only one, wow. I have a pretty similar story, although my mom was less controlling. I've always been a tomboy, my parents forced me to wear dresses and I hated it, I also got pretty uncomfortable with my body once I hit puberty. I read a lot of "girl lives as boy for whatever reason" type manga, and I always identified with them.

Now I'm into lolita and haven't worn pants in a year and a half, it's pretty weird looking bad. I'm just glad I could figure this shit out in a harmless way rather than going full on tumblr-tier fakeboi.

>>8725239
*back.

Also to be honest, I fucking hate the fact that being a tomboy means you get stereotyped as genderqueer/demi-something/gay a lot, especially on tumblr. There's nothing wrong with just being a tomboy. I wear girly clothes now, but I'm still a tomboy at heart, so it just rubs me the wrong way.

I was not a teenage weeaboo. I was too repressed, and I missed out, somewhat. Now I'm approaching 30 and am like "fuck it, life's too short" found some awesome friends through lolita, and went to Japan with them for a few months. While I missed out on some things in my teen years, at least I have the money now to indulge and the maturity not to be an idiot.

>>8725197
I think you guys came to the correct conclusion.

On topic of weebing and Gundam Wing,
>be 13
>weeb friend and i are obsessed with gundam wing
>friend starts calling me Trowa
>tells me that she is my Quatre
>wat
>she wrote a poem about me

She grew out of the weeb thing, but now she's Tumblr cancer.

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>>8725102
>never watched anime
>played sports
>was fairly popular
>went to college on a tennis scholarship
>3.6 GPA in biomedical science
>just accepted to Physical Therapy school

Life is good tbqh

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>>8725178
>>8725197
>>8725208
>>8725253

You guys. It's the OP of Gundam Wing blasphemy. I never got the yaoi. And I never will. Lucretia Noin was my love. So much jerkin it to this one.

Despite majority of female opinions, over sexualisation of female characters made me comfortable in my own body.

All through high school i was objectified as tits and ass and I got super self conscious and started covering myself up to end the constant gawking. Flash foreward to year 11 when I discovered Fairy Tail (most importantly Erza Scarlet) and I was amazed how this boss ass birch got shit done and looked fine af and wanted to be just like her and forced myself to get over my body issues.

>>8725289
Reverse trap Oscar op here. Approves of your taste in women and that coat is amazing, I want her clothes stat.
>>8725218
>>8725237
>>8725239

Thanks for the support everyone! I'm so happy to see there are more of us out there(and people who like us)! I honestly thought I was the only one.
(I do dress girly if I want to, but that takes sooo much effort I'd rather put on a suit or jeans most days, lol..)

Though I find it interesting that that aesthetic in question is mostly celebrated in animu and mango.. Thank you, takarazuka.

My most outwardly weeby phase was when I wanted to try wearing decora fashion to school for a couple weeks. As you may have guessed, I looked ridiculous and awful. It took me an unfortunately long time to get a sense of fashion. Otherwise, I was too shy to let my power levels show very much.

Inwardly/with close friends, however:
>level 37 fujoshi
>drawing/writing graphic yaoi by age 11
>primary hobby was roleplaying graphic yaoi
>it was all Gundam Wing; Duo was my husbando and 13x6 was the best and all the girls could go die
>write notes in weebinese to my only two equally weeby friends

Other than that, some anime and characters helped shape my self-image, like Makoto being tall and not traditionally feminine-looking helped a tall, athletic girl like me feel better for example. There were several series that helped shape my world view in one way or another. And anime, cosplay, and cons all helped me learn to be more social and to come out of my shell a bit. I'd say aside from the few privately embarrassing parts of that stage that maybe three or four people in the world who I never speak to remember about me, my weeby phase had more benefits to my character than me just being a huge perv. At least I wasn't super loud and obnoxious about any of it?

>>8725168
I feel you on this one somewhat. My mother was always forcing her shit on me, when I was little she used to force me to wear make up and clothes I didn't like, she used to force me to diet with her and tell me no one will like me if I'm ugly and fat, etc etc.
So I rebelled, I wore boys clothes and was very tomboyish, I used to eat loads of junk food just to aggravate her because when I ate anything she used to get mad at me and say I'll get fat, she'll have to send me to fat camp etc (at one point I started deliberately gaining weight to irritate her, stupid looking back on it but she was frustrating me so much that I wanted her to feel frustrated too).
For a long time I rejected anything feminine and felt very uncomfortable in dresses/skirts/anything pink, because I felt so comfortable as a tomboy but also I really hated myself, too. I was not allowed to be myself and if I was myself I was teased for it. Not to mention even if I did wear anything even a bit feminine I got teased for it too like it was some huge deal, which discouraged me even further!
Nowadays I dress quite feminine and enjoy it, even though I still hate myself and my appearance a lot I'm trying to work on it. I'll have a fleeting moment of wearing some kawaii fashion and feeling like I'm cute, then I look at myself and feel hideous.
I think if my childhood self could see me now they would be shocked, I seriously thought I would reject feminine things forever.

I didn't really get to do anything in my teen years, as I was incredibly sheltered and overprotected until I became an adult.

>>8725501
You sound exactly like me. I hated anything feminine, loathed being called "cute" especially all throughout my teen years, and I think it was mainly a response to my mother insisting I be a lady and act ladylike. It wasn't as bad as some people ITT had it, like she ultimately let me do the tomboy stuff I chose to do instead of actually forcing me into being feminine at all times, but as often as she could, she would make me wear pink and play with dolls or let her do my hair and makeup. And she made it a lot worse by always making comments about my male friends being my boyfriends and rolling her eyes at me and changing the subject when I started protesting that I liked girls (a thing that hasn't changed in the ten years since).

I'm into lolita now and love occasionally dressing up to be super feminine, and pink is one of my favorite colors. I don't think I would have rejected it so thoroughly in my youth had I had the chance to choose it on my own.

I'm so sorry so many of you had to go through something similar/worse. I hope you're all able to come to terms with any lingering bad feelings.

>>8725168
My experience was the complete opposite, but really similar.

Growing up in a redneck town, it was looked down upon to be too girly. Like, in elementary school we'd be divided into "tomboy" and "girly girl". If you wore skirts, liked clothes, pink, or anything stereotypically girly, you were sneered upon. I was always very girly and cutesy, so I never fit in very well, although adults always liked me. Then I tried to be more like my classmates, so I got practically lived in aeropostale jeans, tshirts, and this really bland black sweatshirt. I felt awful, kids treated me the same, and it was just bad. Fast forward to middle school/high school, and suddenly all these shoujo protagonists who were unabashedly girly started to become my role models. I could finally embrace wearing dresses, skirts, blouses, and pink. I started growing out my hair (before, I was told it would be super lame and weird if someone had longer than armpit length hair. Now it's down to my tailbone lol) and became super feminine.

It also helped me cope with my shyness, because so many characters that I loved were shy. Likewise, Novala Takemoto's poems helped me cope with the fact that I had no friends...

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>>8725102

>2006-7ish
>printout of this motherfucker in catholic school locker
>cosplay Nagato during spirit week using actual uniform + matching navy blue collar???
>otherwise kept it pretty lowkey IRL; weeb phase and emo phase were simultaneous and kind of balanced eachother out

>>8725309
i feel this, sort of reversed in that i'm a washboard.
anime made me proud of that when i went through puberty and got jack shit. OP's pic pretty related!
doesn't stop me from wanting to cosplay major kusanagi.

>>8726036
Urgh, washboard.

>"Hi my name is Yukikana Chimichanga and I'm totally flat!"
>Every shoujo manga ever
>Plus Lucky Star
>Be flat
>No tits
>Source of pride
>One day, tits
>Freak out
>"Omg noooo!!!"
>So unfair
>How could puberty happen to me.jpg

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>>8725206
>>8725501
>>8725724
>>8725770
Terra poster, here. I'm sorry this seems to be so common. I always just assumed you're supposed to let your kid just be who they are and figure some things on their own, and encourage their hobbies and such. I just really couldn't connect with other girls as a kid, our interests were too different. I remember being curtesy invited to some birthday parties where all the girls in class are invited, and just being in a seperate room doing a puzzle as everyone else played with barbies. This one party the girl had hair stylists come, and you got your nails and hair done how you wanted. I asked for the girl to do my hair like Princess Leia and I was so excited when she did, and when my mom saw me it was so embarassing. She made me appologize to the host and take my hair out right away, even though I wanted to show my brother. I got grounded for embarassing the family, etc.

It's kind of jarring how much I enjoy wearing floofy skirts and dresses now compared to when I was a kid. Even the colors I like are different now. I spent so much of my life just denying being feminine as a good thing and resenting how my body looked. College was really a godsend because it gave me 4 years of being able to shop for myself, try on clothes, find out what I like and why. It was really cool having friends for the first time who I could talk about anime and vidya with, as well as going dress shopping at the same time.

It also helped that there's been this push in recent years for more female characters that aren't hypersexualized or shafted as love interest. I never really understood or realized how important those were until I started actively looking for them to help me.

>>8725309
Opposite for me. Konata's 'flat chests are rare' speech made me love my lack of tits. Of course, I discovered Innocent World around the time they grew to a c-cup. But it was something to hold onto when everyone else had huge tits or pushup bras, and I was too poorfag/repressed to do something about my chest.

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High School
>anime club pres jn/sn years
>very few female friends, mostly guys
>amassed gigantic collection of JRPGs
>would buy any cheap anime dvds at FYE
>would pretend to know about series I didn't read/watch
>went to a couple conventions and wore awful closet cosplay
>no weird clothing phases, just had whatever my older sister gave me

Present
>obsessively read manga
>mostly only listen to Japanese music
>rarely play videogames but still like them
>sold off anime collection, obtained figurines
>talk to friends maybe once a year, just work all the time
>don't talk to anyone about manga/anime outside of 4chan
>buy merch/artbooks/clothing from japanese websites but hide powerlevel outside of the house

I more or less went from being the American definition of an Otaku to the Japanese one.

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>>8726047
>Yukikana Chimichanga

My sides

If it's anything, my morals and stuff pretty much came from anime characters. I always liked how shonen protagonists were all about friendship and their bros, so that was the types of friends I strived to have.

Needless to say I've had a lot of shitty friends because apparently it is rare to find people who share the same interests and will have your back when shit gets real.
Believe it

>>8725206
Lady Oscar is amazing and I love her, only shoujo I've enjoyed.

I had a really dull teenage weeaboo phase.

>watch DBZ really young, don't know what anime is but DBZ is the coolest shit ever (young me doesn't register filler)
>12/13, discover what anime is by finding Touhou first (i know right)
>don't watch any anime yet, list a load of favourites on my social media profile regardless to be cool (jfc)
>watch Lucky Star and Death Note at 14, eventually trickle more anime into my system
>keep powerlevel low, make Haruhi Suzumiya hairband to wear but only wear it twice, nobody takes notice (thankfully)
>really want to go to the area's anime con
>no friends to go with
>too young to go alone (15-17)
>never make weeby online friends
>no money to buy merch
>print colour posters on school computers on the sly
>isolated bubble of low-level weaboo until I get to college (6 years)

On one hand I'm happy I never really made a fool of myself, but I'm also sad I never had that carefree phase of just enjoying myself at a con while young with a bunch of friends, doing awful cosplays, or having someone to share it with.

>>8726036
>>8725309
>>8726047
Honestly, anime made me feel better about being pretty flat

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I was just a huge narutard in middle school. I peppered badly pronounced Japanese words in my lexicon and of course did the hands behind the back airplane run in PE.

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Cosplay has pretty much changed my life in a big direction. My current job, relationships, and hobbies all root back to cosplay (if I go back far enough)

I'm not sure if that's disturbing or amazing.

Man, I feel sorry for all the tomboy girls in this thread that had to put up with that shit. I'm a guy and I grew my hair long as a teenager, partially because of metal, mostly because I liked RHCP and thought Anthony Kiedes looked cool. I used to keep my hair dead straight and while the intention wasn't to look girly, I looked pretty girly in all honesty with my soft features and red lips.

I used to, and still occasionally do, get a tonne of shit from my parents over it. They'd say some fucking hatefully, catty shit about how I looked and not in a caring "we understand, but we're worried people will pick on you for it" kind of way. It's not even as if I dressed like I was Judas Priest or something, it was mostly black band tshirts, cargoes and skate shoes, with long, well maintained hair.

I don't know if it was so much a fear of me being vaguely feminine, just a visceral "he's different, throw shit at him" attitude.
But yeah, that shit sucks. Girls always get it harder, but I can imagine.

>>8729921
I'm sorry you went through that anon. I'm not sure that tomboy girls really get it "worse", for guys it seems that there's a lot more pressure not be feminine than the opposite. Ultimately I think it depends on where you live and the people you're surrounded by.

>>8729397
Please tell me where you're finding anime with flat chicks. I can't stand anime anymore because all I find are ones full of loltittyjiggle

>>8729931
Agreed. Dick parents are everywhere, and they all suck differently in different ways. Tomboys are mostly called cool in some areas. Being called gay all the time(Lesbian tomboys, ur bros too but there is a community to back you) is just an annoyance in my area.

Long-haired boys are fucking hot. Long-haired boys with slightly girly features are also fucking hot. Please know that a lot of people find that hair hot.

>>8729943
>Catalog
2005-2010 period, pettan pettan. Most shoujo manga, Lucky Star, ToraDora.

Thankfully, my mom kept a lot of my weeby behavior at bay because she straight up didn't let me do a lot of things that I wanted to do. Never cut my hair into weird anime hairstyles or even owned a bottle of hairgel to do anything VK-esque, and most of my Hot Topic wishlist was immediately rejected.

I did, however, collect a lot of Sesshomaru stuff. Like... A lot of it. I had posters, a pillow case, a throw, you name it. If I knew dakis existed back then I'd have one of them too.

But I have some really great fond memories of weebing out to Moon Child, Gackt, and Miyavi with my best friend. I can't believe I'm feeling nostalgic for that time!

That being said, getting into lolita really helped my self-confidence. I always dressed like a tomboy because I wanted to "fit in" with the guys. Lolita helped me feel comfortable in girly clothes, when before, I'd just admire them and walk away because I assumed it wouldn't suit me.

>>8730025
You know I think that's kind of sad in a way. I never went fully crazy but I did do stuff like cut and dye my hair (I remember taking inspiration from nana from Elfen Lied), weebing out to anime and even for like a day I remember using the word desu because I watched fruits basket and tohru said it a lot, dressing hot topic-esque sometimes to look like an anime character... Just that innocent harmless fascination I had with Japan that I was allowed to indulge in. It's childish and silly but that's part of being a child, isn't it? It's not something I'll ever experience or partake in again so I'm happy I got to experience it.
I know everyone looks down on kids being weebs but really I think it's a little phase that most will grow out of fairly quickly anyway but there's something so youthful in nature about it that I think it's something most people lose when they get older. It's just a nice experience to keep in your heart.

>>8725102

I remember trying to wear lolita, i bought mostly the famous caguaii loli desu mini top hat, the pad headress and caguaii gloves. Also socks and garterbelts, i have always been an underwear and bdsm freak.

When i turned 16 i decided to be into fairy kei, so i wore huge bows with a bunch of hairpins which where retarded since i never had a fringe because curly hair and sweaty fatty.

Being poor sucks, but i'm glad i never ended up like a gross furry or a famous ita

>>8729943
Really? Pretty much every anime with multiple girls has at least one flat chick these days.

>>8725309
Yesss. I didn't really get over my body issues because of it but it helped.
My boobs grew exponentially when I was 13 and I was super uncomfortable with it, wearing sports bras and baggy shirts and eventually binding (though that was in part bc finding bras in my size that didn't have the underwires in just the right place to pinch my nerves was becoming impossible) because I didn't want to deal with the connotations of being Teenage BigTits or whatever. But I found my representation in characters like Tifa Lockhart and Tear Grants and all the other sorta shy but actually badass busty ladies. It helped, knowing I didn't HAVE to grow up to be hypersexual or a pornstar as a facet of my personality when that was the main "representation" I saw in the media.
I still had a reduction due to physical and body image issues (mainly physical. I'm freeee), but without having characters to identify with I would have had a much worse time in high school than I already did.

>>8729931
True. I grew up in a small semi-rural town. In the city were most of my friends lived, there was more tolerance for different strokes and you didn't get shit for looking like a surfer. It's something my friends really couldn't understand. It made me feel awkward in my skin for the longest time.
It's so dumb too. I don't know why in the 21st century people still thought long hair was this feminine/gay thing when all the long haired people in pop culture were dick-slinging rockstars or manly man warriors. Gay men were doing their hair up stylish with cuts and gel like footballers, which is how the "straight" boys cut theirs.
Dumb people are dumb.

>>8729962
;)
Thank you. I've found someone who likes my locks, thankfully. Most girls at my school hated them. In fairness, long hair or not, I was an awkward teen who wasn't fun to be around. Now in my 20s, s'all good and, not to brag, but I look good.

>>8726262
That's kinda hilarious. Still, glad you hide your powerlevel, it's always awkward af to work with someone who has no problem screeching about animus in public.
>>8729339
Same. Down to the DIY merch and printouts, except I was too chicken to print them at school.