lennythereviewer:

roma-needs-a-toma:

lennythereviewer:

Yaoi paddles

Praying your parents don’t see anything weird when they’re dropping you off

Yelling “buttscratcher” and at least 10 people yelling back.

Org XIII cosplayers as far as the eye can see

“The Game”

Free Hugs

Glomps

The banning of Glomps

The paranoia of cosplaying Sauske, Naruto, Sora, or Riku because you know someone has a Yaoi paddle and they’re watching your ass like Wile E. Coyote watches the Roadrunner

Homestuck invasion

Not being able to cosplay or enjoy One Piece without some asshole screaming the 4Kids theme at you

Cat ears

Seriously how did Yaoi Paddles stick around for so long? You would never get away with that today. You’d probably go to jail for that behavior

not to be a lil kid or nothin but what the fuck is a yaoi paddle

You’re not the first person to ask me this. I once made a post all about them, but I will reiterate because the past must not be forgotten lest we repeat history

I’m mostly copypasting from my original post on this:

The yaoi paddle is…an odd yet fascinating relic of the ‘weeabo’ phase everyone went through, specifically prevalent throughout the Naruto and Kingdom Hearts fandom in thy early days.

The Yaoi Paddle was literally a small oar with the words Yaoi, Seme, or Uke written on them

Their function was to slap people’s asses. 

Now you would think this would be something reserved for say an after dark or +18 panel, but no, it wasn’t. This was a very real thing people carried around with them on the convention floor

People would go up and slap each other on the ass with these in public, in front of everybody.

Not only was this acceptable behavior, it was downright expected! Something that by today’s standards would be considered sexual harassment was acceptable

This was a real thing that happened for a long time at conventions, as you can tell by the timestamp this photo. If you thought random hugs were a violation of personal space then you’ve gone soft in the absence of these unholy weapons.

if you wore a Naruto, Sauske, Sora, Riku, or Org. XIII cosplay from 2006 to 2009, you were officially fair game and you might as well have been wearing a target on your ass, regardless if you were in to that or not.

Nowadays they are but a distant memory, a forgotten part of convention culture that a lot of people want to pretend never happened; with good reason mind you

So there’s your history lesson!

Oof I remember these! All of this is accurate. This combined with the “will kiss for $1” signs where your ship would make out for money.