The sad thing is I'm not a troll. If I may offer some final, unsolicited advice: Don't underestimate the value of a good reference and don't ignore questions about your examples or points. A decent source would have given your definition a persuasive edge and a few explanations would have shortened this exchange considerably.
First of all, What I said is "facts that can be proved." Anyone can take the evidence that I provided and confirm it to be true. You basically proved to your dimwitted self that you're wrong. Seriously, you are such a stupid idiot. How you even graduated from college is beyond me.
Second of all, there is nothing to debate about. This is where you misunderstood the most. What you're talking about is how people define Yaoi and not what Yaoi actually is. In my definition, there is nothing to debate about because everything is facts. In your definition, everything is opinionated and that is why you keep trying to debate.
To ultimately put it, you think that the definition that comes from people's opinion is better than the definition that is dictate by facts. Seriously, I hate stupid people who try to parade their opinion as though it is facts and impose it onto others as though it is somehow better. The only reason why people would do that is to boost their pathetic ego and feed their stupid pride. And that's exactly what you're doing. END OF STORY.
I did perfectly told you apart. You're the stupid idiot that is trying to pass opinions as facts. That's the reason why we've been arguing this whole time. Because you won't admit that what you're talking about is not the definition of Yaoi but how people define Yaoi through their narrow opinion.
It's because you're stupid like a TI-30 that you can't interpret the words of a super computer.
Sad. You're a college graduate and you use two source without any credibility to prove your pathetic definition. Not to mention that even after graduating college, you can't even think for yourself and have to rely on other people to see the facts. Not that what you present is even fact to begin with.
My basis doesn't need to come from someone because anyone can prove that what I said is fact just by confirmation alone. It's the equivalent to gravity. Unless you're one of those stupid people in the middle age, which you seem to be, you won't need a stupid paper without credibility to understand the effect of gravity. It's an observed phenomenon base on experimental facts.
This is the difference between a social studies major vs an science and engineering major. Talk about college graduating, I haven't heard that words for more than a decade now.
First of all, your reference is shit because it came from a source with no credibility. Secondly, you are a stupid a troll and I can prove it.
I quote you:
"Well, super computer, invest in a grammar checker. I've made some mistakes, but it's sometimes hard to understand what you're trying to say."
If your intention isn't to anger me with that quote and troll me then I don't what is. Face the facts loser. Stop trying to escape reality and stop lying to your pathetic self. There won't be anyone in your pathetic life time that can so accurately and precisely interpret other people's words than me.
My advice to you is to drop out from your stupid social studies major which is 100% base on subjectivity and actually go to the science field and learn some actual facts.
I took quite a few science classes when I majored in engineering, but thanks for the advice. I wanted to revisit this discussion one last time because it upsets me that it devolved into petty attacks. I gave up after you kept criticizing my posts in a way that made it impossible to respond (you were attacking people and we disagreed on the fundamental nature of definitions), so I resorted to passive-aggressive gibes in frustration. I apologize for that. It was stupid and counterproductive, mostly because my irrational stubbornness overshadowed any rational thought. When you said I was a troll, it occurred to me you might really think that. After all, I ultimately succumbed to my own childish impulse to defend each post after I concluded you intended to derail the conversation while hypocritically presenting everyone else involved as anti-intellectual saboteurs. Perhaps I was wrong, and weaknesses in my own posts contributed to the impasse, making it impossible for you to respond in any other way. Perhaps revisiting earlier arguments would explain why it was so difficult to have a constructive conversation.
When I entered this discussion, I felt everyone was defending valid points, though you seemed to ruffle feathers by being especially patronizing. As someone who had encountered similar debates before, I questioned the notion that only one definition was legitimate. You first claimed, “Yaoi is simply the adult counterpart to Shounen Ai like How Seinen is to Shounen. It doesn't have to be porno so long as it has maturity. Just take a look at Super Lovers.” When spacesapphire assumed you were relying on questionable website tags to classify Super Lovers, you responded, “Can't believe you're gonna put the credibility of Mangago, a manga site that specialize on BL, over a site like mangafox. Needless to say, you are yet wrong again. Super Lover is publish in Kadokawa Shoten under Ciel magazine and now Emerald, two magazine that are notorious for Yaoi and not Shounen Ai.” Your second sentence was worth exploring.
When I revisited your Super Lover argument later, I forgot some of this early exchange. I apologize for that. I wrote, “Claiming Super Lovers is yaoi is debatable, since it’s featured in BL/shojo magazines that may not use the term yaoi. In fact, you could even argue that it’s not shonen ai or yaoi, based on the definitions I’ve referenced above. Who decides that it’s yaoi? Wikipedia calls it shonen ai, Baka-Updates calls it yaoi, and Mangago calls it shonen ai and yaoi. What informed your assertion that it was yaoi in the first place? What is the source of your definition?” Later, I included two of your other examples when I wrote, “Following your argument, I have tried to determine the intended audience for the manga you referenced, but how would I do that through observation, as you suggest? It seems easiest to look up the publishers and magazines. Both Kadokawa Shoten and Hakusensha produce shojo and BL publications, so I’m not sure who the intended audience is (especially since I cannot read kanji or kana), and all three examples deal with high schoolers and feature some shojo themes/artistic styles, so it’s not clear they’re marketed for adults exclusively.”
You did imply that you were also relying on the publisher to determine the nature of the manga, so I was wrong to suggest otherwise. I was frustrated that your replies to me did not address these points until the very end (even then, you just repeated yourself), but perhaps you felt you exhausted the topic in your responses to others. My problem was that the language barrier made it difficult to determine how Kadokawa Shoten labeled its content. Some promotional materials for Emerald advertised the inclusion of shojo and BL content in one magazine. Ciel was obviously a BL magazine, but was it exclusively BL? Moreover, were we now claiming Yaoi was the same thing as BL? I did not see the terms shonen ai or Yaoi used anywhere, except on English or French sites.
Suddenly, I realized the approach I recommended—consulting publishers—presented obstacles. First, English-speakers may have trouble determining how Japanese publishers classify manga that is not licensed in the United States. Second, the classification of non-commercial content on websites would have to be determined by someone or something else. Third, publishers’ classifications may not be meaningful to readers choosing manga based on the nature of its homosexual content. It made sense for independent websites, fans, amateur writers, or anyone operating beyond the stringent requirements of the publishing industry to develop their own labels for their own purposes. Would such definitions, if they were both useful and popular, be wrong? If so, why? What or who determined the legitimacy or correctness of a definition?
I have tried to argue that the words we use to define reality are socially constructed. People decide what things are called both implicitly and explicitly as language develops and changes. Therefore, defining or analyzing each of the terms we are discussing seems to require a four-step process. The first step involves searching for current definitions recorded in dictionaries or other sources, which inevitably leads to evaluating the reliability of the sources. The second step involves investigating the etymology of the term. The third step involves examining the application of definitions through the formal and informal classification of manga. The fourth step combines findings from the previous three steps and any other related considerations in a final evaluation of the definition based on some criteria, such as its usefulness or popular usage. When discussing definitions here, I spent a little time on each step.
(1) Definitions: I started with a basic Google search and found definitions at manga sites, reference sites (including Wikipedia), blogs, and online articles or papers. Through my university library, I accessed academic articles and papers. I also searched for the names of professors whose works were mentioned frequently. I knew of Matt Thorn from his interviews with Moto Hagio, whom I discovered back when I was first introduced to the history of shonen ai, but I ended up focusing on the compilation of essays I mentioned and a couple other articles instead. The volume’s introduction and essays were by familiar authors who presented definitions that synthesized what I’d read elsewhere in a succinct way. Moreover, the authors were summarizing the results of surveys and interviews they (or other researchers) had conducted with people who pioneered certain movements or authored BL manga in Japan. Their comments reinforced my impression that popular definitions could vary. I briefly referenced Baka-Updates and Cathy Camper’s definition to illustrate the perpetuation of yaoi definitions in which sexual content was a defining characteristic. I did check to see if Mangago included a term glossary, but I did not find one (I should check again). I also looked for term glossaries at English publishing sites like VIZ Media and SuBlime (the latter seems to use yaoi and BL interchangeably, but my cursory search did not yield much information).
(2) Etymology: Though I had some basic understanding of the history, which is documented in multiple places, I found that James Welker, Fujimoto Yukari, and Kazuko Suzuki each offered a different emphasis in their descriptions of the Year 24 Group and later generations. Suzuki’s study included long anecdotes from interviewees about their experiences writing BL professionally that underscored the defining characteristics of contemporary terms.
(3) Classification: I investigated how your examples were classified by publishers, distributors, and websites like this one, though I did not do much beyond that. As a longtime reader, I have a general impression of manga labels, but I am not familiar with how manga is tagged at different websites. When trying to learn about the submission process at Mangago, I gathered that users submit content via links to site contacts or moderators. I am not sure how the labels are determined, though. That would be something worth investigating.
(4) Evaluation: I did some cursory research beyond what is presented in my posts, but it is not enough to claim any single definition is the one everyone is or should be using. At best, I can acknowledge the existence of different definitions in different circles at different times and try to identify common themes or reasons why fans might choose to accept one definition over another, such as authenticity (the definition is faithful to its original or current meaning in Japan), authority (the source is widely respected, giving the definition credibility), common practice (people, including consumers, writers, and publishers, implicitly rely on that definition), and applicability (the definition is easy to use or it presents meaningful categorical distinctions). I could certainly spend more time and energy on each of the four steps, but I am not sure more research would result in different impressions or greater clarity. Moreover, I am less interested in arguing the merits of a definition than understanding how publishers and fans categorize manga in practice. You have asked me several times to admit your definition is right, but I can’t do that without knowing what makes a definition right in the first place. Everyone must agree on that before we can evaluate definitions.
By continuing to reply to you, I initially hoped to explore how I could tweak or improve my points, perhaps changing my mind in the process. In fact, I did start to appreciate Kazuko Suzuki’s definitions, among other things. When you said I was only interested in my own opinions, I tried to show I was relying on other sources and documented history. When you ridiculed one of those sources, I emphasized I was sharing multiple sources. When you claimed an unspecified reference was unreliable or lacking credibility, I asked why and included reviews recommending the reference I thought you were describing. When you dismissed everything as mere opinion, as if opinions could not be validated, I questioned why you were presenting the uncertainties in your own arguments as certain. How were your comments different from mine, apart from my effort to explain and support my observations with research and historical accounts? It was this effort and approach I was defending more than anything else.
You offered analogies to support your claim that labels are self-evident. I don’t see how definitions of marriage and gravity support that view, though. Marriage may be defined differently depending on popular religion or legal jurisdiction, and the legal definition of marriage may depend on local laws, public opinion, or some other factor. Also, since human governments and religious institutions give us the concept of marriage, I question the notion of animal marriage. Perhaps you were criticizing the use of history to support or dispute any current definition, but I was simply suggesting contemporary fan definitions may reflect each term’s origins to some degree. Whether that makes those definitions “right” depends on how you define right. Similarly, gravity has been defined by at least three schools of thought: Newtonian physics, Einstein’s general relativity, and Quantum Mechanics. Sure, anyone can test gravitational phenomena in a lab, but each person is not discovering and redefining gravity on his own. I tend to think gravity is a poor example anyway, because this topic falls under humanities, not natural sciences. I don’t think any of our points can be definitively “proven,” with or without the scientific method, which is also subject to debate (see Popper, Kuhn, and others).
Finally, it was self-indulgent of me to perceive your attempts to correct another as an invitation to debate the terms you insisted had certain meanings. Since you were presenting your arguments as unequivocal truths, you were not entertaining questions, alternatives, or the investigations of a curious, noncommittal commenter. It was my mistake to pretend you were, and I should have kept my comments to a few succinct observations.
Can you shut up, that person gave ACTUAL facts from professors, the history and origin of the words, and sources on a silver platter. All you did was dodge their questions and insult everyone that proved you wrong. Also advising suicide and joking about it, you're truly a disgusting person, all this because people proved you wrong. I don't know whats bigger your ego, or ignorance. You're the one basing it off YOUR OWN ASSUMPTION AND OPINION. honestly are you a child? because it seems like when you're being proved wrong, you resort to grade school level insults. all you did was state your own opinion and play the 'you're wrong I'm right' game and repeat 'facts are facts' you're not right get over yourself, you seem like the ignorant idiotic otaku.
I actually never cared about the sex in yaoi XD it was boring most of the time anyway and I skip most of it. I only cared about the Relationship in it. sooo...I guess I miss the point you all think it's porn. I guess you...don't know what "porn" is ╮(￣▽￣)╭ yeas there is yaoi that is a pure porn with no plot at all, but really? you think all yaoi don't have plot at all???
porn don't have PLOT guys, most yaoi does have plot. so.....you can't really called it porn. whatever it have sex or not.
I guess you need to watch a real porn to see the difference ╮(￣▽￣)╭
You're just blathering on without substance like the stupid idiot you are. Even after all that, you've failed to disprove anything that I've said and only go on about how much of an idiot you are. To plainly put everything that you say here into simple words that even you can understand, you didn't argue with me because you disagree with what I said but how I said it.
Typical of a pussy. You're mad that your "friend" didn't treat you nicely? Wanna suck your mama's tits? BOO HOO! No one is under oath to show you any sort of manner, especially when you have none to begin with.
Like I say, if you want to troll than we can do this all night. You already admit that you're wrong and I'm right. I'm already the winner and you the loser. But that's no surprise. It was the obvious result.
"I'm already the winner and you the loser" lmao you really are a child.
Then prove to me that what he's saying is facts and not opinions.
Seriously, you people don't even understand what he's trying to say. He's talking about how people in history define Yaoi and got a wrong and is continuing to search for a better definition. In other words, he understand full well that everything he says is an opinion.
The only argument he's making is that the definition of Yaoi is opinionated and can't be define through facts. Which I disprove him of because my definition is define through facts. Facts that he can't and won't be able to disprove.
I already prove to that what he's saying is not facts but opinion. And I already prove that what I said is facts. It is him who's blathering out on his own. Open your eyes for god sake.
Pathetic little dimwit who can't read the mood. Had you actually take the time to look through the conversation, you'd understand inside your little Pee-Brain that we're no longer arguing. We're just trolling now. So of course I'd be acting like a kid.
Unlike you who's actually a kid and can't even read between the lines. What an idiot.
My point exactly.
lmao, its obvious your trolling dumbass. and is 'idiot' all you can come up with? im not the pathetic dimwit here. anyways im muting this convo but have fun ig, kids shouldnt stay online too much
Got your ass trash and now you're leaving cause you can't make a clever comeback. Typical of a stupid idiot. Stay in the playground kid, you can't compete in the big league.
I'm more baffled by your hostility than anything. I was interested in discussing definitions, not trading insults or competing with you. You do not need to reinforce the impression that I wasted my time. Since I have apologized for any misunderstandings or poor conduct on my part, I have nothing more to say. I hope you enjoy the rest of the webtoon.
I'm even more baffled by your stupidity. I was interested in discussing facts, not trying to pass opinions as the truths and parading to be the good guy even though you're really not. Like I say, there is nothing to argue or discuss about. You just have to accept the fact and move on. If you have nothing to say then please take your exit so that there will be one less troll in this discussion.
That was my attempt to end the discussion, so please stop trying to provoke me. Neither of us liked it when I responded in kind.
This is the thread that neeeever ends, it just goes on and on my frieeeends, some people, staaarted arguing so very long ago and since they started arguing it goes on and on and so this is the thread that never eeeeenddds, etc., etc., etc. Yaaawn, this is soooo fucking pointless at this point, he doesn't agree on the definition and apparently never will, why even try anymore?
wheres the steamy sex scenes tho....