Connect the Thoughts

So I was going over my thesis from last semester in preparation for a process paper when I noticed some interesting connections from it with my current thesis. With the books involving hacker culture, I found a quote I forgot I wrote down stating that the internet is the ideal media for contemporary youth to express themselves because it engages their imagination, their ideals, and reality all at once. Bring in Murakami's quote about how otaku lifestyle tends to lead to a fantasy world overlapping with reality, and you have the reason people construct avatars on the internet in the first place when given the appropriate tools.

I was originally looking for any information about cosplay in my old thesis, but it looks like that was never really utilized. What little notes on the subject I still have all point to the Trekkie fanbase, specifically the fans that go out of their way to dress up as Klingons and learn the alien races language through special interest classes. The documentary of the same name actually shows a group of fans dressed up as Klingons order fast food AS Klingons, complete with dead pan stare and confrontational tone of voice. Kind of wish I had a better example than that, because very few people will take that as a serious academic example in the context of creating a new identity in order to be or act in a way you cannot as your normal "non-Klingon" self.

It's a good thing I blog, because now I need to search my past musings to see if I can't make the connection I'm looking for at the moment. Who knows, maybe I already made that connection and didn't know it at the time.