Defending Lain

[Corvid]

Lain gets a bad reputation by association with what others have called the "Internet tranny aesthetic". This is all certainly true, but I think it's more an accident of the animation and style of the show rather than a serious evaluation of its character development and themes.

[Image: https://64.media.tumblr.com/e16628ffcb0f...1_540.gifv]

Serial Experiments Lain is a response to the development of the Internet as it occurred in Japan during the late 1990s, the sociological implications of which were up in the air at that point. The protagonist, Lain Iwakura, is a perfect fit for this transition as her father is a computer engineer and she herself is a rather introverted teenage girl. She starts out not knowing much of anything about computers and then the events of the first episode get her started by logging into "The Wired", with her father's assistance. Throughout the course of the series she modifies her Navi computer into a behemoth taking over the whole of her dark bedroom. Lain delves deep into the mystery of what the Wired is and who created it, and facts about her own life and existence. She struggles with alternative personalities and dissociation, the lines between her "real" and "Wired" self are blurred in addition to a third "evil" Lain. Upon understanding her nature as told by the architect of the Wired, she decides that it would be best to destroy herself rather than merge the real and Wired worlds.

The story can be interpreted as a cautionary tale about the Internet. Expression online is freer than in the "real world" and there is a real possibility that users can dissociate themselves from their real-life behaviors through online avatars. "Real" Lain observes her "Evil" counterpart attack her friends which causes her great distress and she suffers the consequences of this. The viewer has sympathy for Lain when she watches these characters or personalities grow beyond herself and ultimately she has to destroy herself; it's not a good outcome. Internet use causes people to dissociate, especially anons, and construct false images and personalities through which they can express one facet of themselves or another through seemingly meaningless avatars. It has great foresight for 1998.

The "Internet tranny aesthetic" being based on this is really a strange inversion of what the series was about. These are people whose entire lives are online expressions dissociated from reality, perhaps only being able to live insofar as they can maintain a facade that their identity requires. It's demonstrably unhealthy and "weird" for Lain to be so hooked into her Navi all day and to assume these personalities. Perhaps they think themselves as the "computer goddess" too, but necessarily fall short? I think it's worthy of investigation because I really enjoy Lain and wish it had a better culture surrounding it.

[Svevlad]

It would be befitting of the tranny to obsess over material that actually is against their existence, yes - something they also accuse us of doing...

[WelderBomber]

Lain gets a bad reputation by association with what others have called the "Internet tranny aesthetic". This is all certainly true, but I think it's more an accident of the animation and style of the show rather than a serious evaluation of its character development and themes.

I say it's the opposite, Yoshitoshi Abe, the one that designed the characters for Serial Experiments Lain is not particularly popular in tranny internet groups. The only other series he has worked on that is remotely popular in such circles is Texhnolyze and that is because of its cyberpunk themes rather than the art.
[Image: https://img3.gelbooru.com/images/42/50/4...1e1493.jpg]
Welcome to the N.H.K., Phenomeno, Haibane Renmei, all illustrated by Abe but mostly unknown to the anarcho-trans-humanist Lain tranny [personally I see Misaki from Welcome to the N.H.K., pictured above, as an anti-thesis to the Lain tranny].
The animation in SEL is different from other 90s anime but still fits into the aesthetic genre and again, the only 90s anime I see discussed by cyber-nihilistic Deleuzean anima possessed transsexuals are the ones that deal with A.I. and technology. This happens because the average Lainer was raised by cartoons and the internet first and foremost rather than parents or peers and so he exists more in the wired than the meatspace. He is a deadbeat weedbro programmer thinking "bruh what if I had vagina, but it's man-made it's like cyberpunk and im gonna adopt exaggerated female stereotypes, that way ill have less responsibilities". The morals of the show might be misrepresented but subjective interpretation is a leftist's favourite tool.
The show does entertain interesting ideas and something having a bad fandom does not necessarily mean it's bad but the internet tranny aesthetic is not accidentally associated with the series because of the animation.

[Svevlad]

The reason why the nutrannies are so into Lain because it simply depicts someone "everting" into the virtual, and we all know nutrannies all have female internet avatars... They want to become their "character" and not themselves. This is why the suicide rate of postop troons is so high - they can't ever be this facade they constructed for themselves on the internet in real life

[Leverkühn]

The story can be interpreted as a cautionary tale about the Internet. Expression online is freer than in the "real world" and there is a real possibility that users can dissociate themselves from their real-life behaviors through online avatars...The "Internet tranny aesthetic" being based on this is really a strange inversion of what the series was about. These are people whose entire lives are online expressions dissociated from reality, perhaps only being able to live insofar as they can maintain a facade that their identity requires.

The thing is, even within the series, the idea of being an 'alternate' self mainly deals purely with personality. When the idea is first presented, Lain's friends are talking about seeing someone who looked just like Lain except they acted completely differently. And as Lain gets more involved in The Wired, you see her acting with an air of authority in a way that she doesn't in the 'real world.' It's not meant to be about modifying how your body looks, but about finally feeling the comfort to express who you are on the inside, and letting the physical world melt away in a sense. As much as trannies might pretend this is the same ideal they strive for when they say they 'just want to be who they really are,' it's obviously not. A transwoman wants to be seen like a PHYSICAL woman, and have men interact with them in the way they'd PHYSICALLY interact with a woman. 

Thus, dissolving the body would actually not accomplish whatever tr00ns are trying to accomplish. The desires they have are completely physical, and their use of 'inner' or spiritual metaphors belies what they truly know deep down: Being a woman is a BIOIOLOGICAL phenomenon. Hence they always go about PHYSICAL modifications, whether it's donning women's clothing, or taking hormones and getting sex surgeries. There's no 'inner' woman that is divorced from the biological aspect of the female, this abstract womanhood is an idealization that doesn't exist. Such a person fetishizes Lain because they think that, in the Wired, they'd finally be able to live out their inner truth, which is (in their eyes) that of a woman. But tr00ns would never be perceived as women in the virtual world, because even when they interact online you can so easily clock them as MEN, and not actual women. Any pretense to 'feeling' like a woman is utter bullshit. A tr00n deep down is just someone of [X] sex who desires ever so greatly to be [Y] sex, and coming to terms with that is the only way they would be able to truly express their 'inner selves.' That's the real Inner Truth they don't want to face. Good for them The Wired doesn't exist, because this realization would have ACKing! consequences.

[Leverkühn]

Getting around to this thread again because I finally finished Serial Experiments Lain today. It was okay, ultimately don't see it as worth of high praise or all that much hatred. Worth watching but nothing too special. It throws around a lot of jargon and concepts that it never goes into too deeply, so I thought it came off as kind of shallow. Having finished it, I understand the 'tranny aesthetic' surrounding it to be even odder. As @Corvid mentioned in the opening post, both the idea of giving up one's body, and the obliteration of the Wired/Real World distinction is rejected pretty explicitly in the last episode, and implicitly elsewhere. About 14minutes into the last episode:

"You said it yourself: The Wired isn't an upper level of the real world. That's what that man [Masami Eiri] was mistaken about. A network is a field to pass along information. Information doesn't stand still there. Information functions by always being in motion."

As you also said, reading the show as a cautionary tale about the Internet seems justified, but of course there's much more going on there; a lot of stuff is randomly thrown in for the hell of it, it would seem, like the episode that tries to tie in the Roswell incident and aliens: if anyone wants to explain that I'd be interested, because to me it just seemed like an example of what I said above of concepts or theories thrown in that end up seeming rather shallow, if not totally pointless. Of course maybe that's the point of it all, overloading the viewer with information to see conspiracies where there aren't ones, which is bound to happen when all the information in the world is at your fingertips. Maybe Schlomo Dredialus should take note of that. But I digress. 

the average Lainer was raised by cartoons and the internet first and foremost rather than parents or peers and so he exists more in the wired than the meatspace. He is a deadbeat weedbro programmer thinking "bruh what if I had vagina, but it's man-made it's like cyberpunk and im gonna adopt exaggerated female stereotypes, that way ill have less responsibilities". The morals of the show might be misrepresented but subjective interpretation is a leftist's favourite tool.

I think WB makes a good point here. There's really nothing in the show itself that would point a reader in this direction if they're trying to do a good, faithful reading that incorporated the whole show, but of course these types never try to do that. These are the people who are obsessed with "queering" every text in existence no matter how much they have to read against the grain of what's actually being said. The opening scene between Lain and Arisu during the last episode couldn't be more explicit in its rejection of this idea that 'bodies don't matter, physicality should be rejected,' but this doesn't stop them with their weird theories. There is a sort of discomfort and inability to connect that Lain feels in the real world, but to chalk this up to anything like body dysmorphia would be utterly retarded. It runs much deeper than that, and the tr00ns show themselves to be shallow creatures in attempting to read it this way. People today always want to pathologize or read their own fetishes or problems into shows, which will always the the easy way out from actually having to engage with a show or a book, or any other kind of media. The Lain-Tranny Aesthetic connection is no different.

[anthony]

I find Lain interesting as Japanese science-fiction that draws on prior Japanese media and goes in distinctly japanese directions. The Lain Game is a very cool multimedia project that runs through the same ideas as the show in a different direction. I really like it more than the show. It's far more focused, goes deeper in fewer and clearer directions. And it's more adapted for its medium, being anime at times, visual novel at others, and audio drama even. All explored through this fun simulated wired operating system like what people use in the show. There are a few ways to play or experience this game available online now. I recommend it. It's very cool.

[WelderBomber]

There's really nothing in the show itself that would point a reader in this direction if they're trying to do a good, faithful reading that incorporated the whole show, but of course these types never try to do that. These are the people who are obsessed with "queering" every text in existence no matter how much they have to read against the grain of what's actually being said.

I don't think they are obsessed with that at all. It is like a regionalism that they are not familiar with, it does sound like something to them but being new to the region they can't get it right. Combine "the right can't make good art" or whatever with what I said about being raised by cartoons and the internet. There is an underlying culture in which the older generation does not participate and that makes sure to catch (and seduce) young people that are not favoured by their parents, it is the path of least resistance. I have experienced it to some extent and am sure you have as well.

[Unformed Golem]

Troons are deranged; their interpretation of media or anything else should be regarded by any sane person with extreme skepticism.  They could have just as easily latched onto Cowboy Bebop because Jet has a fake arm, Spike is maybe a hapa, and Edward is actually ambiguously gendered, or NGE because (I am making this one up) Rei is a sex-swapped clone of Gendo. 

The tranny interpretations of Lain range from superficial (she's just like me!) to delusional (I should become a completely online being!).  I think it's held up pretty well personally, not everyone will like it in 2022 but mentally disturbed discord goblins shouldn't own its reputation.