Club History
To provide a history of WMAS, Chris asked Benjamin J. Cooper to write a narrative about his years in WMAS. Mr. Cooper is a William and Mary alumni, was a current law school student at the time of writing, and was WMAS president for the 2000-2001 academic year. He was around almost from the beginning of the club, and has been an important aspect of its growth.
Chris wanted me to write a history of WMAS. It's hard for me to single-handedly write a history of the club. As I was a driving force in the club's operation for three years, my recollections are colored by my opinions during that time. Let me see what I can do.
WMAS is the product of two separate dreams. The first was dream was Aaron Seigo's. This was the dream of having an anime club. This was easy enough; back in 1996, it was incorporated and off it went. By the time I arrived, membership was seven people and three guys who came in to see Evangelion and then left. This lasted a year.
By the fall of 1998, Aaron's dream was fulfilled and my vision began. I wanted a place that fit my conception of a cool place to be, a place that had anime but was also social and fun. This began with the writing of the newsletter. Honestly, I still think my newsletters are the funniest, but when it comes to WMAS I'm a bit of a control freak. My goal was to bring the fun in, to get people active and get people thinking.
I left for Japan for spring of 1999, and I left the newsletter in the capable hands of R. Ota Dieterich, the man who probably was the club even more than I was. When I left, WMAS was little group of fun-loving people. When I came back from Japan, it was huge - I didn't know who any of these people were, but I was glad they were there.
As I reintegrated myself into the Society, working to force my sensibilities on all I could affect, WMAS became a big deal. The newsletter was a group affair, crafted by four people every Monday, and even after that stopped, the cadre formed by Rob, Tina, Mike, and I became the unstoppable voice of the club. We started seriously gathering to do cosplay, and that year we had some serious wins at conventions, reassuring the whole club of our ascendancy. And I became the President.
Now, a lot of what I think WMAS should be came about as a result of when I became President of the club. I took the reins of WMAS as I felt increasingly alienated from another club. I felt that club was imploding; the niche nature of the club had made it, in the eyes of the officers, its own special fraternity of people with "nerds will rule the earth" complexes and very little to offer someone who felt comfortable in the world and wanted some intellectually stimulating socialization.
So, my rule at WMAS tried to propound the following principles:
- You are a normal human being when you watch anime. You might even have been a cool and popular person before you came to college. You don't have to change anything for us.
- WMAS is not here to provide you with brain candy; you confuse us with ADV. What you watch here should make you think, and you should see things that move you out of the box of things you've seen before.
- By all means, have fun!
With that, we had translated manga readings, yet more cosplay, video watchings, sick jokes, and what I thought was a fun tenure. I think my principles are still pretty important to the club's survival; I don't credit them with making WMAS a giant dating service for people who like anime, but that happened, too.
I left in May of 2001, and from what I hear, the club's done fine without me. You new people I know mostly as "padawans" to my Master Yoda-ship, and I kind of feel I should come in with a lightsaber and kick some ass again before you lose both your arms. Still, it's your club now; make it your own.