I’m traveling to Ireland today for the Kilkenomics festival. This is a very strange but very fun festival in a picturesque little town called Kilkenny, in which Irish comedians and international economists and econ writers go on stage together. The econ people talk seriously about econ, and the comedians crack jokes. It’s a lot of fun, and it’s basically the kind of thing that only Irish people could think up. When I went two years ago, I wrote a fun post about how Ireland got rich:
Other than its startling economic success, another interesting thing about Ireland is the emotions it inspires in Americans. Even though most Americans don’t have an actual ancestral connection to the Emerald Isle, we all grow up steeped in stories about Irish immigration in the 1800s. So lots of Americans, consciously, think of Ireland as “the old country”, and have an almost inexplicable emotional connection to it. Bill Clinton famously claimed to be part Irish, despite no record of any familial connection; I feel it too, despite the fact that my ancestors are all from East Europe.¹
Anyway, this strange emotional connection reminds me a little bit of weeb culture, which is a bit of an obsession of mine. So when the pseudonymous blogger Cartoons Hate Her offered to write me a guest post about how she’s a “weeb for Ireland”, I thought this would be a perfect time to publish it.
Perhaps you’ve heard of a “weeb” or weeaboo, basically a Japanophile (usually a white person)² who has an outsized interest in Japanese culture. Weebs have been documented as existing as far back as the 1800s:
The first weeb, according to Wikipedia
Modern-day weebs are typically white men obsessed with anime and other components of Japanese pop culture. Weebs have been stereotyped as neckbeardy, creepy, and cringey, but there may be benevolent weebs who truly just love Japanese pop culture.
Noah Smith, himself a big fan of anime and Japan, wrote a great article about weebs and provided a nuanced portrayal of the weeb mindset, arguing that most of them are simply cultural enthusiasts with no creepy motivations, and that the “anime pfp” Nazis you’ve probably seen on Twitter aren’t emblematic of your average weebs. #NotAllWeebs.
But anyway, I came to the devastating conclusion that I am a weeb. Not about Japan, but about Ireland and Irish culture. My obsession has gone back at least thirty years. And like a weeb, I’m confident that no matter how obsessed I am with Ireland, I’m getting the obsession all wrong and don’t really know what I’m talking about.
I don’t even know where my Ireland obsession began, but
