puss_nd_boots | (no subject)

It looks like we kindasorta have another Gaze wank on Tumblr again. Somebody apparently posted something to one of those secret/confession communities accusing Ruki of being "too mainstream" and saying the person "missed the old Ruki." This led to a few long, angry rants being posted that amounted to "Don't blame Ruki for everything GazettE does! He's not the whole band!" (This was a bit educational for me, because I learned there had been a big wank about Shiver being used as an anime opening - the release of that song predated my entry into the fandom. Seriously - why is a band doing an anime theme a BAD thing? That's how the fandom grows - I wouldn't be into any J-rock at all, period, had not Alice Nine done the season 2 opening for Meine Liebe).

I'm just kind of baffled as to where they got "too mainstream" from. Visual kei, by its very nature, isn't mainstream - it's a niche culture, same as punk and Goth are here. Is it because GazettE toured South America and Europe? (International appeal doesn't equal mainstream. Anime is still considered niche despite having devotees all over the world). Does it have something to do with Black Moral? (Definitely not mainstream. Far as I know, you can't buy Black Moral in Hot Topic - dammit. It's still marketed just among the fans). Is this just the latest, veiled version of "OMG GAZETTE'S NEW MUSIC IZ TEH SUXXORS WHYYY CAN'T THEY GO BACK TO HOW THEY WERE!!111!!!1!!!!???"

Whatever it is, I hope it blows over quickly, because it's a pretty pointless wank. Come on - Ruki, who's an independent thinker and iconoclast, is about as far away from "mainstream" - especially the Japanese concept of the term - as you can get.

Threaded | Flat

I knoooooooow! It's ridiculous, right? *sigh* It's one thing to not like what the band or Ruki himself is doing right now, but to call them sell-outs and mainstream? o.O Like you said, they're VK and VK is NOT mainstream in any interpretation of the word! I think part of it could be that these people are so used to GazettE themselves, listening to the music every day, only hanging out with other fans, only talking about them online, filling their waking hours with the band in some form or another all the time... that they lose sight of the fact that most people around them have no idea what the hell the GazettE is. Maybe they miss the indie days, maybe they miss the titillation they experienced when they first started listening to the band? I don't know, just speculating to find some kind of logic in the craziness.

The uproar about Shiver was in parts about how the Gazefandom would suddenly have an influx of bad, icky anime fans! Ewww, anime-cooties!!! ;) The band was happy to get a new audience for this one song, but some of the fans were not because the GazettE is their band or something and anime fans are not worthy. That was the gist of it, and it was ugly as fuck. It's bad when Ruki has to address it, right?

What went around today all of a sudden, was a rumour that Black Moral was closing, despite the fact that Gaze staff, Ruki, Aoi, the BM twitter, OHP, etc and so on, have not said anything about such a thing happening. *sigh* It seems to have started with one person with too much time on their hands and a desire to upset people and cause wank, and then it spread quickly over Tumblr. As things tend to do. One reblog is all it takes, isn't it? And then the ball is rolling downhill...

I love this.
All of it.
(I also died at "OMG GAZETTE'S NEW MUSIC IZ TEH SUXXORS WHYYY CAN'T THEY GO BACK TO HOW THEY WERE!!111!!!1!!!!???" so thank you for that)

<//3

I recently explained the GazettE's situation to a coworker as the following: "They're very popular at what they do, but what they do isn't very popular." (Was I channelling Wolverine there? Possibly. >_<) I do think the internet is to blame here - just because we know them and can get hold of their stuff easily doesn't mean that everyone in Japan knows who they are. Plus look at Twitter - Ruki has 200,000ish followers. Sounds a lot, but compare him to Gackt who has 600,000ish. So... Yeah. VK is still niche, and we need to remember that a bit more at times.

Oh honey, they can suck my dick and I don't have one LOL :D Fuck them! We are true Gaze lovers :D hehe :) <3