hetalia | The Hetalia Fandom

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The Hetalia Fandom

I have no idea if this is appropriate or not, so if mods think it should be deleted I understand. (It didn't seem quite right for the FAQ, though...) If it's kind of iffy, I will gladly post more icons to pay for the crime. >>

So, I am writing my final paper for my anthropology class called Media, Culture, and Society; in it, we're supposed to pick a media technology and talk about how it affected society and culture (or continues to do so). I have chosen LJ, with a focus on how it's affected fan bases and fandoms, Hetalia included.

I would like to know everything you guys know about the evolution of the Hetalia fandom. How did you first hear about the fandom? Where did you go to first? What were the qualities of all the communities you've gone to (for example, ff.net versus LJ )? What WERE the biggest hubs of fans when you first joined, in your point of view? What are the CURRENT hubs of fan activity, in your opinion? What made you pick LJ as your resting place, or one of them? Do you think the LJ fandom has any affect on Hetalia, be it in Japan or the US?

Any and all thoughts, opinions, links, histories, and stories would be loved. <3 <3 If you'd rather comment on my personal LJ, then click on my submission of a Russia/Belarus cosplaying pair icon.

Thank you~!

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Well, I first got into Hetalia in March a year ago.. I had heard about it first in January when a lot of deviations on the front page of Deviantart were Hetalia fanart. It made me go 'Hmmmm...' and then the next day my friend noticed it too and went 'Hmmmm...'
So we decided to watch it! Together! And we instant messaged about it and how funny it was and continued through the next 8 episodes. We LOVED it since!
(It was kind of funny though, we thought it was going to be a srs-business show because the fanart we looked at was all serious. Not quite anywhere what we had in mind. hahaha)

There weren't.. too many fans when I joined. I didn't really take notice to how they behaved.
Now, it seems more crack-ish. So much.. randomosity. Definitely not as quiet as we were back a year ago. But we really do have an impact on the world now. Look at Hetalia Day last year, there were so many participants! Livejournal definitely has an effect. :) We finally got recognized and licensed for an English Dub and manga!

Now if only we can recognize Sealand as a nation..

I first heard about the fandom quite a while ago on tvtropes.
I actually started looking into it after my best friend's sister started cosplaying for it and asked us to as well. That was in january of '09.
I've been in this fandom for a while now. ^^
I had no idea where to look at first, to find out about it, but was eventually directed to this comm. I read the whole thing from the beginning, ugh, which took several months.

I stayed here because I like the people here best, site-wise and fandom-wise.

I'm extremely glad for having hetalia, because I was interested only in *very* specific periods of history, and this fandom gave me a reason to be fascinated by all the rest. I wasn't any good at following current events, and I'd certainly be failing US History right now if it weren't for my interest in hetalia. (Hetalia has also gotten me drawing again, which is so wonderful I can't even say.)

We have all of the problems of any other fandom, especially a large, widespread one with lots of opinions, but many of us can make that work and grow from it.

And this wonderful, wonderful group has made my days, weeks, months, and nearly single-handedly restored my faith in humanity be reminding me that there really are all of these other charming, talented, enthusiastic, hilarious people to share this big wide world with.

And again, I wouldn't be getting high marks in my history class if I didn't have the hetalia perspective continually engaging and captivating me. It makes it easier to focus, study, and remember.
It makes me care about the world.

I don't know any other fandom I can think of that has such a global nature-- and anyway, isn't that really what APH is about at the core? Bringing people together?
We just have to work through the irritations is all. (Another thing, I would have been far too cynical to say something like this without hetalia. I've got life lessons now~!)

"The only thing that sorta irks me about this fandom, is the tendency of how some fans whine due to it being dubbed."
Oh, you'll get that anywhere. *sigh*

How did you first hear about the fandom? Where did you go to first?
I joined when I saw a huge wave of fanart from deviantart around...2008-ish. When I heard that it was a warped version of history (or history on speed) I checked it out.

What WERE the biggest hubs of fans when you first joined, in your point of view? What are the CURRENT hubs of fan activity, in your opinion?
I say deviantART and Livejournal : aside from this community there are other livejournal communities dedicated to portions of this fandom (like the RoChu Squad or what_the_fruk) There are also a lot of deviantART groups dedicated to portions of this fandom as well

I got into Hetalia about a year or so ago. I was probably about a few months before the mass came into it.

As time went on, I got to know so many people from everywhere and I can relate to them. One thing I like about the Hetalia fandom is, that we are an educated group. We realise that the series itself is inaccurate. We do research on history to make an accurate fanfic or fanart. Another is that we love this fandom because we are accepting of other cultures and history.

The things that annoy me is because of the mass of yaoi fanart, others think we disrespect history and that's what Hetalia's all about. Boy on Boy action. Another is how the people who just got into it complain about the English dubbing news. If you love a series, you wouldn't care, right?

Not that it's something we look forward to at all, by any means.
But I'd be hard pressed to find a fandom today that hasn't or won't ever experience that, either for dubs or for translated manga.
It almost begs the question "Why bother complaining anymore?", after a while.

I got into Hetalia around September/October last year, because I had a friend who had a wonderful cosplay of China and I had absolutely no idea what she was talking about. :) I started with the webcomic, I've only watched one episode of the anime, and I like the drama CDs.

One thing I love about the Hetalia fandom is that we're, well, as one person said before, educated and mature. We don't base all our facts on what we see in the comics, and in fact we're spurred on to research more to verify if what we see is correct. The thing with Hetalia is it develops your imagination and creativity while helping you learn things you wouldn't even be vaguely interested in before. I'm of the opinion that if everyone in the world were Hetalia fans, we'd have relative world peace. :D

The Hetalia fandom brings together crack and seriousness like I've never seen any other fandom do. It's amazing, really, and seeing so many different styles and takes on history lets you open your mind further.

I guess there's one thing I don't like about the fandom though- when people troll ships. It's rude and immature and I think that if you really love Hetalia and what it stands for, how it connects people from different cultures, you shouldn't be so tactless (especially where shippers can see). But mostly the fandom is made of wonderful, intelligent, gracious people with diverse backgrounds and personalities and it's amazing how well we all get along. :D

Psst...if you're in the HP fandom and don't mind answering the questions for me about your thoughts on that, I'd love to hear it. If you feel you've done enough, that is perfectly okay. I'm lucky you were nice enough in the first place. <3 You're awesome!

Oh, do you mind if I quote you, or would you prefer I not? If you're okay with me quoting you directly but would prefer a screen name, that's okay, and if you'd rather I not quote you directly, that's okay too. :)

Thank you, you wonderful, fabulous person you~!

Would you mind if I directly quoted you, or would you prefer I not? I'd just use your screen name unless you indicated something otherwise, but if you're not comfortable with that, that is perfectly okay. :)

Thank you! Your screen name is wickedly awesome to say, btw.

Would you mind I quoted you, or would you prefer I didn't? O:

Thanks for your answer~! <3

Would you mind if I quoted you, or would you prefer I didn't? O: Either is okay with me. :)

Thanks for the response! You're awesome. :D

Would you mind if I quoted you, or would you prefer I didn't? O: I would just use your screen name unless you said otherwise, but if you aren't comfortable that's okay. ^^

Thanks for the response! <3

Would you be okay with me quoting you, or would you prefer I didn't? Either is okay with me. O:

I've had the series on my waiting list for close to a year now (discovered on TV Tropes) and I read a few of the strips ages ago, but I was in a big phase of another series and so didn't focus much on it, and it wasn't until about two or three months ago that I actually watched the anime and got into the strips. (lol I remember the first strip I ever read was the one with Korea and the binoculars and I didn't get it at all xD)

Pretty much the only thing that annoys me about some Hetalia fans is how some people I've come across who were into the series before it got popular sort of think that they're better than the new fans and say stuff like it was 'their' show/fandom/whatever. I mean, a lot of the new fans are fangirls just in it for the yaoi, but there's also the people who are just as intelligent and mature as the rest, but just happened to come across the show a little later.

...not sure if that information was relevant at all to what you were looking for, but um yeah. Good luck on your paper ^__^

Yep, I still lurk around the HP fandom (my icon's a dead giveaway isn't it? XD) and I'd be glad to answer any questions! :D XD Thank you!

I don't mind being quoted, real name or screen name, as long as I don't have to reveal my real name in very public places on the internet D: :) Whichever is more appropriate for what you're writing.

Not at all! I would feel honored if you quoted me! :D

(and, BTW, you have an awesome icon.)

Sorry, LJ was down for a while and I couldn't answer. XD I'll go onto your personal LJ to answer the HP stuff since it's off-topic here XD

I got into Hetalia in January of 2009, when it was just becoming very visible on the Deviantart/LJ scene. I was doing my high school senior research project about political cartoons and national personifications. It was inevitable that I would discover it, really.

I'd loved the concept of personification for years, and I'd been frustrated because I thought I was the only one. So I suppose I'd been looking for a long time for something like Hetalia. I was initially a bit disappointed that it was an anime, of all things, and, IMO, a rather stupid one at that. I admit that while the anime has grown a bit on me since then, I still kind of think that way. I'm really in the fandom for well, the fandom and all the awesome, intelligent things that people create.

I've noticed that some Hetalia fans seem to divide other fans into categories based on why they're in the fandom. There are those who came for the history and stayed for the history, those who came for the history and stayed for the yaoi, those who came for the yaoi and stayed for the history, those who don't care about anything but the yaoi, etc. The history fans like to complain about the fans who only care about teh boy sex, saying that they're totally ruining the fandom and all that.

As a fan who came and stayed for the history (okay, the yaoi is definitely a plus) I tend to share those sentiments, lol. There are plenty of other series out there where you can get your fangirl fix of gay sex. IMO, what makes Hetalia special is the nature of the pairings, and the fact that they're countries and all the dynamics that that brings to the relationship. If you don't care about that, then it's no different than any other anime out there.

But whatever. I'm not going to tell people they can't like Hetalia because they "like it wrong" or whatever. If you like it, you like it and at the end of the day we're all Hetalia fans and we're all awesome because Hetalia nerds are awesome.

Oh mannn. So I've been here since ... er, June? of 2008. Back when you could read the whole community in an evening and still have delicious dinner and watch some TV. A friend posted some art in her LJ, and I was intrigued (hey, I like history. And flags. And oh, there's some history with each little four-panel? Well okay!) and started investigating. BEHOLD~ only a few translated strips (aaah including the America's Storage Cleaning stuff, which when it broke my heart I knew I was lost) at the time, and everyone was pretty friendly. (I was like the 2nd person..? That posted cosplay stuff here, and the first UK :D. Takes me wayyy back)

Since then, this community, and the fandom itself, has EXPLODED. There's more fanart/fanfiction/roleplay requests than I could ever look at and still have time to breath (and honestly, I scroll past 98% of it). There are more discussions than there used to be - some interesting and good, some cracky, and some that end up full of wank. And some that pull people together and make friends. Now there's an anime, and it's been licensed, and this silly series has brought me closer with friends and strangers alike because of cosplay or just chatting about it. I've fallen out of the fandom before, just tired of the intensity of it, or the prolific nature of its exposure, but I keep falling back in love.

Really, murdered? I think this is wonderful, and pretty much the reason I stayed. I'm not so much for the pairings, but the implications of it - something like Austria and Hungary's ex-marriage, or France proposing to UK - it means something, and it's not just lolgay. Which is interesting.

Whoo /high-five

I got into Hetalia in January (2009), but hadn't any idea of what other people thought about it. I wasn't a part of the fandom (actually, I'm not even a part of it nowadays). Hetalia was like a weird hobbie, I just started to give more attention to it around May. The fandom was tiny in my country and I didn't make anything to change it, but today the fandom is so much bigger!
I check Fandom!Secrets often and I noticed that Hetalia has got a very bad image increasing maybe it s something to do with this series gaining so much attention.

Sorry for my bad English, I'm veeery sleepy.

Thank you <3

Of course you can quote me :3

I got into Hetalia last May. My friends had found in on the internet somewhere and had been bugging me to watch it since January, but it was the Hetalia skits at MCM Expo that made me go 'whyyyy aren't I watching this yet?'

So first of all, I already had friends who were interested, and I chatted with them. Via cosplayisland.com and the mcm expo boards I found out about the 5th August meet that Kitamurin arranged last year, and then I hit LJ on the way home from that. XD

I guess all of the while I've been involved most people seem to be involved through the LJ, or that could just be my screwed perspective because it's where I'm involved. I know that all of my friends IRL except for two use it. Facebook is pretty damn huge too. And yes, it does have some form of impact because it's so big, but also because people use it to advertise their stuff/meets.

Early morning response is bleh (I'm actually on the way to a meet that hasn't been arranged through LJ XDDD), but I hope it helps a bit. XD

How did you first hear about the fandom?
ffffffff I first heard about Hetalia on 4chan in 2008, around early July. Just the name was mentioned in connection to a picture and I thought something along the lines of "'Axis Powers' wtf", checked it out, fell in love.
Where did you go to first?
I first went to lj because it was the only real community at the time, had the best and most of fandom (which was, at the time, like 3 icon posts and a handfuls of fic, heh), and I already spent some time on other lj stuff.
What were the qualities of all the communities you've gone to (for example, ff.net versus LJ )?
tbh All the communities for Hetalia that I've been to have been sort of "meh" in quality, including this one. But with a fandom this large that's just to be expected - the few gems are outweighed by all the suck. The lj community is still probably the overall best however, with ff.net being shitastic (like everything connected to ff.net).
What WERE the biggest hubs of fans when you first joined, in your point of view?
See "where I first went".
What are the CURRENT hubs of fan activity, in your opinion?
I'm not super up to date with the fandom at the moment, but I'd say that the lj comm is still the most active part of the US fandom, if the flood on my friends page is any measure.
What made you pick LJ as your resting place, or one of them?
Yet again see "where I first went".
Do you think the LJ fandom has any affect on Hetalia, be it in Japan or the US?
Well the sheer numbers here may have helped the decision for it to be brought to America. Big fandom = big profits? idk though.

You must mention the wankapalooza that was fandom!secrets in regards to Hetalia a while ago. If you haven't heard the comm was being constantly flooded with Hetalia secrets and a lot of the comm goers who didn't otherwise give a shit about the series/those who flat out hated it got REALLY annoyed. The flame wars were hilarious, horrible, and, most importantly, NEVER ENDING. I think this seriously may have been the birth of a real Hetalia hatedom.

Oh, and also the drama over that charming incident with cosplayers doing the Nazi salute over Passover. Every snark comm in existence noticed and quite a few were understandably upset.

Ahaha, the first time I randomly heard of Hetalia...oh god, somewhere between the end of 2007 to beginning of 2008. An artist's blog I frequented mentioned it. I didn't really get into it until summer of 2008. Truthfully, I kinda just waltz into Himaruya's site to kill some boredom. XD;; After flipping through some strips (ex. America's Cleaning storage and Bloody Sunday), I was instantly hooked.

This led to me to try and seek out other fans/place/etc. for the series. The first place I found was this community. Back then, it was very small and practically the only posts were mainly the profiles for the characters, save a few rare fanworks here and there.

I really only frequent the LJ comm., Pixiv, and a bit of DA for this series. What I like about all is that through here, I have meet so many amazing people and it has even gotten me closer to some of my existing friends. Also, a good majority of the fanworks, whether fanart/cosplay/fanfic/etc. , are generally very well done. Some have just simply amazed me with the sheer amount of work and research that went into them.
Then, I think LJ was the main place for fans to gather. Now, I think its here and DA. I'm not totally sure about other places, since with the vastness that is the internet and all.

I love this series for its fanworks and ability to have a general effect of bring many different people together into the fandom. A global aspect if you will.

"Do you think the LJ fandom has any affect on Hetalia, be it in Japan or the US?"
I think because Hetalia technically doesn't really have a set storyline/plot, that what keeps it going IS the fandom. How to explain...I guess because of the serie's openness of sorts, fans are free to interperrate and extend the series itself.

Even with all this, the fandom does have its flaws, like the series' sudden influx of fans. I was surprised at first, but I've gotten used to it. What I haven't gotten used to are some recent issues (like the series being localized) have caused issues, wank, and out right conflict over the matters. I mean, everyone is entitled to their opinion and I understand most of the reasons for opposition and all, but when people start fighting and complaining over things like that, it just gets ridiculous in a way.

Even so, I don't think I can leave the fandom. I enjoy it way to much to part with it just yet.

Sprry for the long comment and if I just ended up ranting at some point.

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The Hetalia Fandom

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I'm probably going to get murdered for this.

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Re: I'm probably going to get murdered for this.

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Long comment ahoy