7. "ACGN" Wiki

7.1 Why "ACGN"？

Similar to the idea of a metaverse, ACGN can be considered parallel alternate realities where people can indulge their fantasies that are out of reach in the real world. ACGN genre has a decentralized narrative approach. ACGN doesn’t have a singular, textual, ancestral lineage. It’s a hodgepodge of different lineages, a constellation of various works influencing each other, in parallel and only sometimes criss-crossing to birth new imaginations of otherworldiness. Narratively speaking, there isn’t really an ACGN archetype that birthed them. From an ecological point of view, the ACGN that we see today is an intersection between a strong push by amateur authors and more democratizing efforts on these platforms, and sometimes how they’re written can be a byproduct of what audiences want and how they express what they want, but at the same time, it also gives people valuable insight into how the author - especially amateur authors - propose, conceive, and map out stories. ACGN works are community-engaged and incubated on a relatively decentralized platform, which fits well with the spiritual core of Web3, and with the technical empowerment of blockchain technology, will bring more prosperity to this creator ecology. Contemporary ACGN are more likely to be categorized based upon the elements they have rather than any singular driving ideology. These stories are written and understood not based upon the entirety of its message, but rather how its constituent parts interact with other constituent parts. We relate and understand specific elements differently, thus creating a sort of unique cluster of interpretation that varies from person to person. And it’s with this in mind that ACGN is more valuable to be understand as a collection of components rather than in any holistic fashion. ACGN works are often created in a more decentralized way than other fictions. This, in turn, fits perfectly with the concept of cultural Lego and offers enormous scope for diabolic creation, enabling the technical reconstruction of ACGN components through NFTs, each of which is the same component that builds the metaverse. The user can combine these components in any way he wishes, and based on them; endless possibilities can be born.

7.2 Philosophical Principles underneath ACGN

7.2.1 Databisification

The structure of the database model. The two-layer structure of "short story" and "setting" refers to the two layers of surface presentation and information. In the otaku culture, which is dominated by the consumption of stories, works are no longer judged on their own but on the merits of the database behind them. Since this database is different depending on how the user reads it, once the 'setting' is obtained, the consumer can create countless secondary creations that are different from the original. This situation, if captured at a superficial level, is an original work of art (the original) drowning in a sea of disorderly simulacra. In reality, however, it would be better to think of it as a phenomenon where there is a database (setting), and then, depending on how it is read, it can become either an original work or a derivative creation.

7.2.2 Simulacra

This characteristic is considered postmodern because of the high value placed on the secondary creation of otaku, which is very similar to the future of the cultural industry as foreseen by the French sociologist Jean Baudrillard. Baudrillard believed that in a post-modern society, the distinction between work and commodity, between originality and reproduction, would become increasingly blurred, and predicted that an intermediate form in between, or 'mimesis', would become dominant. Judging from the fact that otaku consume originals and parodies as if they were of equal value, it does seem that the parody level, which is neither original nor a copyconsumese dominant one.