What is a wota?

Well, yesterday evening a discussion flew through the electronic-ether that is Twitter, about what it is, to be a Wota, or what (if any) 'boxes' you have to tick, to be recognised as a Wota, so I thought I'd put a few more points in to express my point of view, about the things people think 'make' a Wota - with a final summing up (probably stolen from someone else because I'm too indecisive to make my own conclusion)

This will be a bit of a ramble, so you may want to skip to the end now :P

A lot has been said on the subject of what it is to be a Wota, and from what I can gather, the 'generally approved' viewpoint is that a Wota is someone who obsesses unhealthily with one specific Idol, or group (or sometimes more - like an umbrella group like the Hello!Project), to the point of wearing photo's of their Idol of choice pinned to their clothes, doing crazy, choreographed dancing called 'Wotagei' and chanting during songs, making 'shrines' of their houses/rooms dedicated to their Idol, buying multiple copies of the same single/album/photobook, going not only to concerts, but to specially planned 'handshake events' where, for a fee (normally the purchasing of a new single/album), they get to shake the hand of their Idol, and say a few words to them, making cakes dedicated to their Idol on their birthdays, and covering their cars/vans in murals or paint jobs showing off their Idol to every passer-by who cares to stare in stunned shock.

Ok, lets break all this down into it's component parts, and look at each one seperately.

1) Wearing of Photo's of their Idol on their clothes.
Ok, to many people, this would be a very wierd thing, and to me, coming from a western background, I must admit that it does seem a little strange, but also, with me being a little older than many people who are fans from the west, and having more life experience (sorry youngsters - but you will get it, eventually!), I can actually see why they do it.
Here, let me explain in my wierd tangential way.
In the past (we are talking Medieval times here, folks - yes, even before I was born!), in the west, anyone who worked for a specific Household would wear their 'House Colours', i.e. a specific uniform, showing their allegiance to their household.
Even on the field of battle - of which there were lots in those time - soldiers of each household would also show these, and in some circumstances, small banners with the house colours/insignia on it would be displayed on the shoulders or over the heads of these troops.
This helped them be distinguished in battle from the enemy, or by followers of aligned houses.
"But what has this to do with Wota wearing pictures of young girls around their necks, and having photo's clipped to their Hapi's" I hear you all cry.
well, it is this.
It wouldn't surprise me if Japan had a very similar thing (I'm not a student of Japanese history - but I do know that the country did have a strong military history, and different colours or logos on your uniform help with identification - so it stands to reason that they would do this), and in a way, the photos can be seen as a 'house' colour - with the house being their favourite Idol.
You see it in streets in this country too, in all walks of life.
People will wear clothes of one specific brand, because they think they are better than all other companies - so proudly display their colours, or a shirt of a specific football team. They are fans of this team, and want to show their fanaticism off - so where is the difference? The obsessive football fan will have a car with stickers in the windows of their team, they will be wearing their teams shirt, and so on. The Wota will have the same, just with a different target of obsession.

2) Wotagei & Wota chants.
Again, to draw from the world of football fandom, is not a large group of Wota doing wotagei very similar to a large group of football fans all pointing at the referee of the game, as a certain thing happens in the game, and they all chant "the referee's a wanker"? The movement of the hand is normally in time with the chant, and they all do similar movements as goals are scored (or so I've heard - I hate football, so really don't know) Or the chants that are made to inspire certain players to better themselves and their game?
Ok, it may look very different, and the chanting for Wota matches whoever is singing at that point in the song, but it is a very similar situation, except Wota are chanting for a pretty girl, rather than a sweaty man (mark up on for the masculinity & normalness of wota vs football fans there!)

3) Making shrines of their rooms or houses.
Right, not much to explain here. It's bloody obvious, and if you can't reason it out yourself, then you are thick.
They have a house, they like the girls (alot). The house is private - what better place to have lots of pictures of your favourite piece of eye candy?
And if you hadn't worked it out already, please go and kill yourself. Now.
Seriously, it's extremely logical that the home is the best place for anyone who is obsessed with anything, to show their true colours, and so they do. Alot. god knows I do too (but then again, I do class myself as Wota - and as far as I know, I am also classed by others in the know as the same).
And yes, my room in my (shared) house is a shrine to my Idols, containing all my CD/DVDs, photocards, photobooks and posters, although with me being older, I frame all my posters, lol.
Yes I even have a few photos in frames by my bed of Ishikawa Rika (god she's so sexy!)


4) Wota buying multiple copies of the latest release.
Again, it's not really rocket science to understand this one. Everyone wants their favourites to do well, and it's a well known fact that - especially in Hello!Project circles - alot of groups have lost alot of their former fanbase, so the hardcore, dedicated fans buy lots of copies of the latest single or album...TO HELP IT GET UP THE CHARTS!!...Also, people have been known to buy multiple copies of photobooks too - again, I'm sure this helps boost the Iol's profit margin and certainly sends her up the merchandise sales charts, but there are other sides to this multiple purchases thing that many might not be aware of, which ties in with;

5) Going to special 'Handshake' events
To promote the latest release, the Idol industry has special events where the fans can 'meet & greet' their Idols, and here's the sales trick... in exchange for purchasing a CD!!
So, if you want to shake the hand of your fave Idol twice (you only get 3 - 5 seconds with them each time), then you have to buy two copies. get it yet?
Since a CD single isn't that expensive, and holding the hand of a beautiful girl - especially a famous one who you adore more than anything else in the world, while she looks into your eyes as you struggle to think of something coherant to say - is always of a greater value than that of the cost of a CD, it makes sense to buy lots of copies!

6) Making cakes on your Idols birthday.
This is one thing that seems the strangest to people outside the way of life, from what I have seen - apart from the pictures attached to clothing. Every time I decorate a cake for my Idols (I am crap at cooking, and I want my cake to be delicious! - but I can do decent Kanji & Kana writing with Icing), my long suffering housemate looks at me like I've lost my mind. I have noticed it doesn't stop him helping me to eat it though!
But to me, it's a celebration of that most important day of the year, for the most important people in the world to me, so I really want to share it with them, and feel joy for them, in any way I can - and since I don't think they'd appreciate a party with a couple of hundred middle aged fanatics, it's about as close as we wota will ever get (apart from when they hold special birthday events - which sometimes happens).

7) Having their cars painted to depict their favourite Idol
I first came across this one when I was a fanatical Hamasaki Ayumi obsessive, and was blown away at the amazing airbrush work done of a customised van, depicting Ayu, and I've since seen it with other artists, so I know it's a fairly big thing over there, and again, it's just another way of saying how much you adore this person.
A persons car is very like their second home - but one that is meant to be seen, and drawing from the football fan thing again (I may as well flog this horse, now I've killed it), they have special items you can buy for your car, depicting their obsession, so why not for musicians too? At least they are creating something worthwhile!

At this point, I really don't know where I'm going - I've started to ramble a bit, but to sum up, after the discussion that raged across Twitter yesterday, no one seems to know exactly what the definition of Wota really is, if there is infact one at all, but suffice to say that a friend of mine hit the nail on the head, so I will post the important part of his summing up here;

"I say a wota is someone with an 'above normal' level of devotion to idols. Other than that I doubt there are any specific conditions." :CDevil4

Bloody good response there - and it took a lot less time to read than my random and pointless waffle. I bet you wish you'd just skipped straight to it, huh?

A lot of outsiders (people who have no real idea about the drive & passion behind the Wota) seem to think that wota are disgusting perverts, (I hear the phrase Kimowota bandied about - literally meaning 'disgusting wota'), and I suppose with the Idol industry being filled with what are - and lets be honest here - very good looking/cute/pretty girls, many of who are very young (read - illegal/jail bait), it would be very easy to tag everyone with the same title, as disgusting, lecherous, perverted men.
In my next blog post, I hope to try to light a fire under that argument, and put it to the test (and hopefully to bed) - using myself, and my own wota-dom as a test subject.