On Being O.G. in the Post-IW Age of Wota

I began blogging on idols and Japanese music about seven years ago. In 2006 I went from being a casual fan of Morning Musume and the Hello!Project idol collective, to touting my sometimes humorous and oftentimes problematic opinions on Livejournal under the moniker "Pink Wota". I still identify with that blogging alias, to a large extent, though finally the gulf between 'wota' and 'idol fan' is gaining some size, and I definitely find myself on the less fanatical, less patriarchal 'idol fan' shore.

When I started blogging, there was no live streaming from Japan. When I started blogging torrents hadn't even picked up steam. What you had to rely on for idol news were a few dedicated blogs and message boards; the parity between news blogs and opinion blogs was obvious (I was an opinion blog -- reacting to news, mostly, or playing with criticism and theory). The hub of International Wota was the touchstone of idol blogging in those days, and you loaded it up religiously to find out the latest.

I loved writing in a time when the learning curve was manageable; which isn't to say the learning curve is impossible these days. However, I will note that the blogging community had become more visible, that information has become more easily accessible, and above all that blogging is now something that is treated as par for the course with having a presence online.

Much more than I want to whine and moan about how the blogging community has become so audacious that I withdrew my hand because I felt like opinions no longer mattered, I want to sit back and express the wonder I feel after this morning's livestream of the *48 sousenkyo.

Being O.G., I'm amazed that I was able to log onto something other than IRC in order to react in real time with other idol fans. I am amazed that it was possible to react in real time. Some notable O.G. idol bloggers saw this future years ago -- a then-far-off reality in which events and concerts and important announcements would beam to us live. It was Pata who posited that the idol group to harness this technology would win.

Last night just made me a more ardent supporter of AKB48 and its sister groups. It made me happy to be an idol fan again. It made me remember the camaraderie I once felt, sharing posts two days after news was finally filtered through translators and double checked for accuracy.

We all got to see the original SKE48 Team E dominate the rankings. We all got to watch as Miyazawa Sae announced that she rejected the concurrent position in AKB48, choosing to remain loyal to SNH48. We all held our breath as Shinoda Mariko announced her graduation, and somehow we were all shocked by it. Our keymashes and Twitter jailings echoed together as Sashihara Rino achieved the impossible.

Seven years ago? Not even a chance. I would have been sleeping. But that feeling was worth it. It wasn't, you see, about getting to see the news first. It was about experiencing it with my fellow idol fans -- people I'd never meet in the place where I live, but people who understand something I love so deeply.

I've been able to be a part -- at the expense of my circadian rhythm -- of two AKB48 milestones this year. The streaming of the Request Hour Live 2013, and now the 5th General Election. Both ended in extraordinary upsets and surprises. And guess what? In both cases, we had a hand in that. We voted. We were able to make our voices heard.

Sometimes it feels like being a Western fan makes you a silent sliver in the supporter pie chart, but as time goes on and technology advances, the *48 family is realizing more than any other idol institution that all fans deserve the right to be a majority.

The days of wota as the majority are numbered. Idols have crossed over.

And my, my, my, does it feel amazing to be a documented part of that.