Unaware? No. Agnostic? Maybe? Prioritizing other things? Most likely.
I just came back from a JILUKA concert, so obviously they know we’re out here! But there’s something subtle that happened last night at the concert that I want to compare and contrast with what I think is one of the best topics started this year - GreatNorthernVK’s 2024 Live Report Extravaganza.
Where am I going with this? Take (almost) any post in that thread and read about one of her days when she’s going around Japan taking in the sights and absorbing the visual kei. There seems to be this level of personal connection between her and the musicians that we do not get over here. She gives them Cheezies, lines up for 2-shots, even having small talk with some band members. Compare this with what I experienced last night (which was awesome), but to even get a fraction of that, you had to pay for VIP. And, much to the dismay of someone who was asking where the 2-shots were after the show, JILUKA walked out of the venue ten minutes after it was over and into a facility across the street.
What I’m trying to say is that these are two fundamentally different scenes, even though they overlap in many ways, and so the band men conduct themselves differently. In Japan, I’m confident you could have a better chance linking up with them after the show. In the US? Pay for VIP beforehand if you want that experience.
So I feel like it’s fair to assume that this translates online. They may be more aware of us than ever before, but I feel that a lot of their attention and time still lies with their domestic fans, with whom they’ve built up a relationship and history with. They get prioritized over us accordingly. Nothing malicious lies at the root of it; they just have a budget for attention and it’s already been spent!
That’s why I feel like it translates over to this discussion. I believe @Dorian described this perfectly. Let me quote.
This is exactly what it is. There are a lot of parallels, but it is not a true mirror, or reflection, of what we’ve got going on here. There will be some things that are way different, things we may not prefer, and maybe even some disappointments along the way, but if you’re really about being a part of this (larger international) community, then you’ll take the good with the bad.
There was also something else that happened last night. Something completely separate, but still worth bringing up in this context. There are a lot of people out there that both listen to JILUKA and don’t know we exist. I have no idea where these people hang out, but I linked up with several different fans last night and almost no one knew what JROCK ONE was. @Axius did a good job in promoting us to one potential fan, but we couldn’t reach everyone.
So if there are English-speaking fans in my area that don’t even know about this community, that’s another layer between us and our favorite musicians. They might know about their fans on Twitter, but do they know about us here? Do they take the time to read my rants? Or are they a little intimidated by the length? Maybe some do! Maybe some don’t! But in that same vein, even though I could, I don’t go to Tanuki and translate every post to get a better idea of what’s going down in Japan at the moment. Some of us do! Some of us don’t.
The grand conclusion is…frustrating inconsistency lies at the heart of this topic.