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[Iridescent_Fall]

Just my quick input about flag etiquette- If a Hetalia cosplayer sets their flag on the ground for safe keeping, I don't see a problem with it at all. It's not like they're thinking "Oh, I HATE Italy and all Italians, and I'm going to disgrace the entire country by putting their flag on this floor." It's a piece of fabric, printed with a country's symbol. It's a physical object. No object can completely embody a 'feeling'. No cosplayer is maliciously throwing it around and stepping on it because they hate the country. (Of course, maybe I'm biased because I think nationalism is silly, and I'm overly practical.)

Basically, if someone is not purposefully trying to 'disgrace' a country and putting on a show about it, does it really matter? No. Anyone who gets offended over seeing said flag on the floor, knowing the person means nothing behind it, needs to find something else to get worked up over. :P

(This is all my opinion! I mean no offense towards those with differing opinions.)

[Reno RBD #1]

From personal experience. Accidents do happen, flags get dropped on the ground during horseplay or if you're holding a lot of stuff and it slips, and when you just are not paying attention to how close your flag is to the ground. What really bothers people isn't the accidental instances of flags on the ground. It's when people do not think before they act. Yes excitement happens. But that doesn't excuse you from thinking. If you were driving down the road and heard exciting news. Which made you cause a wreck you would still be held accountable. I am NOT saying, 'go out and bash on everyone who does not show proper flag etiquette'. I am just saying act responsibly. And if you see someone who is disrespecting a flag. Do not get agressive about it. I think someone else on here has already said something along the lines of 'if you politely explain to the person or ask them to stop they most likely will'. I know i've held one of my flags before and it started touching the ground (arms droop when you're tired). A friend jumped on my case about it. Which rubbed the wrong way. But then she explained why she was so passionate about the care of national flags. Ever since then I've been more careful about keeping my flag off of the floor. As far as the nazi salute thing. It was stupid. Straight up, like I said act responsibly. But they've apologized, as long as that means they aren't going to do it again. Then we should just move on people! Use it as an example of what NOT to do while cosplaying hetalia. Educate the younger ones. And being offended because you are of jewish descent. I have jewish ancestry. I did not find anything in the series (so far) offensive.

[Crusader_8]

Originally Posted by RyoWolffe

in my honest opinion. I will have to say most Hetalia cosplayers are ignorants with no knowledge of what is and what isn't offensive. The anime itself is NOT accurate with the retelling of the brutalities of World War II but its more of a mockery of what really happened.
Speaking of Ignorants and Hetalia, it bugs me that these kids, because they are silly kids, carry the national flags with no respect and even put them on the floor like most props. I am sorry, but in most national flag etiquette, doing that is a MAJOR offense to the national flags.

Totally agree. If anything , Hetalia has little to do with WW2 anyway as the first two seasons mostly spoof the growing relationships of countries in earlier history. In many ways (with help from narration) the show nails the political attitudes on the head while spoofing the actual history. By the way, not all of us are ignorant and are actually big history buffs

[sapphiredolphin]

Originally Posted by Crusader_8

Totally agree. If anything , Hetalia has little to do with WW2 anyway as the first two seasons mostly spoof the growing relationships of countries in earlier history. In many ways (with help from narration) the show nails the political attitudes on the head while spoofing the actual history. By the way, not all of us are ignorant and are actually big history buffs

THIS! I like World History and Hetalia. There are fans of the series that DO believe WW2 should be taken seriously. Hetalia rarely ever mentions any of the battles or makes light of death. It's really just a parody of the crazy relationships the countries of the world have had from WWI and onward. Every country is characterized with many stereotypes and faults. But that's every country, no one is shown to be better than anyone else. Thus, Hetalia poking fun to help us see that we need to accept all countries because we're all messed up somehow. </rant>

As far as the flag issue, it's not just a prop; it's a flag. Therefore, it should be treated with the respect any flag deserves. If you think you'll drop it or handle it improperly, then use a different prop. There are plenty of other character items to use.

[Rose of Battle]

Originally Posted by Iridescent_Fall

Just my quick input about flag etiquette- If a Hetalia cosplayer sets their flag on the ground for safe keeping, I don't see a problem with it at all. It's not like they're thinking "Oh, I HATE Italy and all Italians, and I'm going to disgrace the entire country by putting their flag on this floor." It's a piece of fabric, printed with a country's symbol. It's a physical object. No object can completely embody a 'feeling'. No cosplayer is maliciously throwing it around and stepping on it because they hate the country. (Of course, maybe I'm biased because I think nationalism is silly, and I'm overly practical.)

Basically, if someone is not purposefully trying to 'disgrace' a country and putting on a show about it, does it really matter? No. Anyone who gets offended over seeing said flag on the floor, knowing the person means nothing behind it, needs to find something else to get worked up over. :P

(This is all my opinion! I mean no offense towards those with differing opinions.)

Same here. I can't stand nationalism to the nth degree. I think flag etiquette gets taken just as far as lack of flag etiquette and I can't stand either of them. I think it's just rude to sit on something like a flag, but if you want to use it tastefully, like draping it on the ground with you on top for a photo (I've seen some beautiful photos that way), I see no issues with it.

And I also think we should hold cosplayers in other countries to the same flag etiquette policy. I know it's much more lax in England and most people there just see the flag as a symbol and if it touches the ground, oh well.

I equally dislike people thinking all Hetalia fans are immature little kids with no respect for history. I've seen some disgusting Hetalia pictures and I've seen some beautiful ones. It just shows that those certain people were insanely ignorant. Judging a fanbase by one incident is just as ignorant.

Hating on Hetalia has pretty much become the hipster thing to do. =/

[ToroSonyCat]

Originally Posted by Rose of Battle

I equally dislike people thinking all Hetalia fans are immature little kids with no respect for history. I've seen some disgusting Hetalia pictures and I've seen some beautiful ones. It just shows that those certain people were insanely ignorant. Judging a fanbase by one incident is just as ignorant.

This x1000

[pastaxxwurst]

I remember seeing a couple pics of Hetalia cosplay on Deviantart. I LOVE Hetalia but some of these cosplayers honestly destroyed some of what I feel for the comic. and show. Basically these two people cosplayed as Germany and Prussia. In the photo shoots they were seen with (hopefully fake guns) CLEARLY pointing them at a a Jewish Star that was placed on top of this Jewish church. It SICKENED me greatly. That and with some other incidents around the cosplay fandom, people started hating Hetalia and were even embarassed to be fans of it. At Anime Conji last year, I was dressed as North Italy. There was a Russia cosplayer that kept waving a Soviet flag and was harassing a AC visitor who was Jewish. I was next to them and people gave not only that Russia cosplayer dirty looks, but me as well. I felt so embarassed. Its people like that who ruin everything for everyone else because they take it too far and can't tell the difference between reality and fantasy.

[The Curly Squid]

Originally Posted by pastaxxwurst

At Anime Conji last year, I was dressed as North Italy. There was a Russia cosplayer that kept waving a Soviet flag and was harassing a AC visitor who was Jewish. I was next to them and people gave not only that Russia cosplayer dirty looks, but me as well. I felt so embarassed. Its people like that who ruin everything for everyone else because they take it too far and can't tell the difference between reality and fantasy.

Even though this hasn't happened to me before (and I hope it doesn't) I guess the best thing to do in that situation is just get the hell out of there. I think the people in that picture with the Cosplayers giving the salute who looked uncomfortable probably didn't want to be there at all, so best word of advice would be if anyone's caught in a situation where one Cosplayer from the fandom you are Cosplaying from starts creating trouble and attention from all the wrong reasons you should probably try to get away from the unfolding scene before it blows up like this whole thing :/

[Fullflame333]

Originally Posted by ToroSonyCat

This x1000

This x1000000000


Ok, I feel as though I need to post here. Being the current person running the Hetalia photoshoots at Anime Boston.
As a person who was actually involved in said incident (and was nearly tortured for months following the convention) Let me explain from my personal point of view. I admit, I was young, stupid, and someone, -ANYONE- should have said something, especially the person running the shoot, who sadly, was also in this shot as a prussia (and whom I have never seen since that con) What happened was one person did "it" then, weeaboo mob mentality kicked in and more followed, plain and simple, but sad.
Note, later that year, one cosplayer's flag was destroyed by such hate that is being spout out about here on this thread with a death threat attached. NOTE this person was in no way involved with the incident and was, and still is, a very delightful young woman.

As a request to anyone who sees this, I ask please that people don't give hetalia cosplayers dirty looks, or that you attack any of them unless they really do something bad TO YOU personally. If the flag is on the ground, politely ask them to pick it up because it bothers you.

Being the person who runs the shoots now at anime boston (with some help that is much needed to "control" a large group of people like that) I have learned from this incident, and over the course of several photoshoots, that the law needs to be laid down at each photoshoot and before each photoshoot. What can and can't be done, when certain things will be appropriate, and what will happen if they do inappropriate things (aka- calling con staff) It's worked very well and has re-established the Hetalia fanbase at anime boston to be a... generally "good" one if you wanna call it that.

Quite honestly, the big problem nowadays at anime boston is the -insane- yaoi fangirls, but they do behave if you tell them no pairing stuff before a certain part of the shoot (makes everyone happy)

And... thank you to everyone who has posted here in understanding that 1-what we did was wrong, but it shouldn't be reason to hate the entire series. 2-That we feel REALLY bad about what happened and still do today so it should just be left alone.

[Chibitaria]

I myself am a fan of Hetalia (nope, I'm not a shonen-ai obsessed tween who thinks Hetalia is truthful history) and I'd like to say that whenever I've been around other Hetalia cosplayers at conventions, they don't act that bad. Granted, some of the younger ones suggest dumb things like 'raiding' the Homestuck gatherings [I seriously find nothing wrong with Homestuck other than the intensity of some of the fandom memes] but in the past the more mature people have been capable of stopping them from anything extremely offensive.
It's true, those people who posed with the NAZI salute probably didn't realize the terribleness of their choice at the time, but it's still unacceptable. It's not the organizer's fault, it's the ones who did the salutes. From my experience most mature Hetalia cosplayers are very reluctant to cosplay a NAZI version of any of the characters(usually Germany or Prussia) due to the history linked to it. I think it's safe to say most cosplayers of any fandom with those types of uniforms are a little uneasy about wearing them in public. It takes someone exceptionally unexperienced with social projection to wear those confidently (usually).
I'm sorry that they did this, it's actions like this that cause people of other fandoms to dislike Hetalia fans, though I can't say I blame them when we as a group act like this. It's misfortunate that Hetalia has been overruled with young girls with no clue about how the history actually goes. The show it's self is not perfect, but it's decently entertaining.
Anyways, sorry for the long post, but I'd like to remind you guys not to judge a series by it's fans. Have a nice day~!

[AJ the Collector]

One thing I'd love to know is who started the juvenile crusade against Homestuck fans, and why their hatred of Homestuck seems to have spread throughout the Hetalia fandom. And why there seems to be an actual rule about hating Homestuck in some fan circles. I don't get it, at all. My sister and I are big fans of both, there's nothing stopping people from liking both.

[IenzoRenaNipah]

Oh my God Hetalia cosplayers did that? *tisk tisk* Like others have said, they probably didn't know it was Passover and there was a Holocaust museum nearbye, but they shouldn't have ever done it in the first place; it's rude and offensive to others even if they're not Jewish/had somebody who died in Holocaust.

Those people are the reasons Hetalians are badly stereotyped. *sigh* I may have not been at Anime Boston, but as a Hetalia cosplayer, I'm sorry too.