I dont see how having hair excessively long makes you an otaku. Maybe having the hair in certain style. ;)

Damn, I am not otaku enough!
I was expecting camera throtting to make it up that list though.

“He tucks his shirt/T-shirt into his trousers”

This is common in the UK and besides, it’s compulsory to do it at skool here.

Ok, 1, 3 & 5 are dead giveaways. But the rest of them seem a bit bizarre to me.

Long hair = otaku?

People actually wear/use waist pouches / fanny packs?

Nice to learn something new, I guess. :)

1. Dont own anime clothing
2. Dont own *any* shopping bags
3. Dont own a fanny pack… or anything gay
4. Dont own a bandana
5. Dont have anything on my bag
6. I’m black. I keep hair short to avoid people asking to touch my “fro”
7. Rucksack? Guess not…
8. Dont have bad eyes
9. Its only mature to tuck in (shirt) shirts, whereas t-shirts are not.
10. Chemical wash jeans look gay. Don’t own.

Wow. Seems… I’m not an otaku whatsoever. Ok.

Okay a lot of those are kinda stereotypical. Some dangerous tale-tale signs mentioned from another blogger in Hong Kong:

7 - rucksacks and bags are good taletale signs, especially those who wear them tight to their back like schoolbags - I use one too so I suffer from the problem, but I mostly avoid having it worn like a schoolbag whenever possible.

Other symptons include wearing old clothes (i.e. several years old and are getting worn out), trousers that are getting short, strange colour combinations, oversized clothes, and even square shirts! Sounds like common sense to avoid them but it’s likely that one may appear like so, and such attires can cause people to have prejudice against you, sadly to say.

these are just typecasts and stereotypes. It would be rude to generalize the otaku community just by using these as a criteria, don’t you agree?

I say yes to 1, 5, 6,7,8. I still agree this are dangerous stereotypes. I mean come on I know people that none of these fit on too and yet still i would say they are an otaku

“He wears his rucksack over both shoulders”

I’m sorry but my 20 pound physics text doesn’t give me a whole lot of options.

“He wears chemical wash jeans”

All I’ve got are jeans…Ok that’s my fault I admit it.

I’m only guilty of those two. My hair will only get long if I’m forced to stay at school and unable to go home to get it cut (it’s getting to optimum length now but it will get long when christmas arrives). My glasses are…normal…I don’t like the thick frame ones.

these stereotypes are as it says, for males and taken from a japanese perspective. i’ve seen plenty examples of what would be called “otaku” in Japanese videos so it actually makes perfect sense seeing what was on that list.

but it’s from a survey of 4,000 Japanese, not non-japanese. so from my perspective, i’d say the long hair makes the most sense (though it’s not the idea intrinsically, but understanding what is meant that molds the Otaku image). wearing a backpack with both straps is universal, it can look extremely geeky/otakuish or it can look normal. it really depends on how you look and your swagger.

Upon further inspection my frame are cheap thin metal frames.

I guess I’m not an otaku by appearance based on that. xD