AnimeQtr Event

Last week an Anime event has been held in VCUQ's atrium. The event was organized by a group of people, some were students from education city, and some others out of education city(they formed a group in FB long time before planning the event)  And I got the chance to participate in the event by selling my artworks/drawings.

The event mainly consisted of different events where people would gather and solve quizzes, play video games, or show their artwork or sell goods.

I noticed that at the event, people basically didn't know one another, yet they've interacted with each other as if they knew each other for a long time. I'm going to try to see it in a sociological way, and that these people bonded with each other without much thinking(which lead us to social interaction, a method of way people interact with one another.) They formed an in-group; group of people who share same interests(which is interest in Japanese animations and cartoons in this case.) and they're also classified as otakus(which is a term used to refer to people with obsessive interests, particularly, anime, manga, and video games.)

I think these people were acting very friendly with one another because they shared the same social status or position at that event, they all got the chance to cosplay, participate in the events there of video game tournament and some quizzes. And also as fans. They probably wouldn't have acted the same way if they were around people of different interest(I know I wouldn't) they know that not everyone is interested in anime and even some people consider anime fans "weird"(I actually heard that from a classmate just before the event started, and I became defensive, because I'm also a fan of anime, so thats the solidarity that I felt with other anime fans) and I'm going to quote what that person said to another person while talking about the event, " I've never really seen an anime fan that's normal, they all act weird."
Since I participated in this event as a person who sells their work, I got to meet different people. It was really interesting to see that even though they all share same interest, they came to me with different motivations. Some people came to talk to me about business opportunities, while some others wanted to buy my work, and some just wanted to look at what I had. Even though they shared the same interest, they were all different.

Finally, I want to say that I think the event was a really successful one, it's the first of its kind in Qatar, even though it was not sponsored it was a success alhamdulel-Allah. Plus what I also think made the event succeed was the big number of people who gathered for it (I believe more than five-hundred people visited VCUQ that day/night) I think it's just that when people share the same passion+position, things can work out very well (though people were from different ages and professions, I believe that they were considered equal that day, because they gathered as fans that day, not as professors, students, nor anything else.)
I hope that in the future, more events like this one will be held. It's really nice to see people of the same interest interact with one another.

Judging by the cover

Judging someone by what they look like isn’t the right thing to do, in fact it is completely shunned against, but that does not necessarily mean that people actually follow that rule. On the contrary, it is a completely natural reaction for people to look at a passerby and quickly make assumptions about that person’s personality or profession and will immediately have something to say whether good or bad.

The eyes can reveal so much about a person and in great depth may I add. Just by looking at the way someone interacts with people, you can receive indications about that person’s personality.  

People, (and me personally) tend to critic what we see, and that is usually the way that person dresses or how he or she carries him/herself. It is incredible the amount of information you can get just by the wardrobe that that person has on. Whether it may be a uniform or a certain motif that connects him or her to an organization or an in-group if you will, you can get a sense of that person’s role and identify their position within the society.

When observing people you can naturally tell that persons age (in some cases that is), ethnicity, race and sometimes even their nationality. These elements all fall into the category of an ascribed status which simply means that they are social statuses that we are given at birth and are rigidly assigned to us without our personal choosing. Another example of that is our family background; we do not choose our families but are born into them.

In contrast, an achieved status is a social position which we as individuals have the freedom to pick and choose a role or position that ultimately best defines us and reflects our personality to others. Examples on these statuses are job occupations such as a doctor, fire fighter, teacher, student, worker, business man and many others.

These uniforms are status symbols. They identify what you are in the society. A high ranking officer is known from the amount of the merits he has accumulated and that are displayed on his uniform. A student is identified by his school uniform in the aforementioned school colors and so on.  Uniforms are a big part of our daily lives and they provide a sense of order to our life. We get dressed in certain “uniforms” depending on the roles we play and the places we go. A business man would dress in a smart suit and tie to his morning job and would probably slip into something more comfortable if and when the scene changes.  

Usually when it comes to sport teams, such as basketball and football, the members of the in-group are dressed in the same uniform and work together as one. Other examples of in-groups are the military or the army where there are groups of officials dressed in the same uniform and are working together to make the team function correctly and efficiently.

Status symbols can be very important in times of crises, because we can usually spot out the person we want really quickly. In the case of a robbery we can spot a police man a mile away from the car he drives and by the uniform he wears.