About
Fatlus is an internet slang term and pejorative label used to describe Western fans of the Japanese video game developer company Atlus[1] and its video game franchises, most notably Megami Tensei,[6] as well as its spin-off titles Shin Megami Tensei: Persona[7] and Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Devil Saga.[8] In the MS Paint4chan users as early as April 2008, when the name was referenced in a comics thread on /v/[9] (Video Games). The earliest archived instance of one of the comics depicting a heavyset blonde male with glasses wearing an Atlus shirt and playing Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3[11] was posted to /a/[10] (Anime and Manga) board (shown below) on July 15th, 2008.
Spread
In April 2008, members of the 4chan-affiliated Pool’s Closed forum[12] criticized the posters on /v/ board as being overrun with people who would identify with Fatlus. Throughout the year, the term was used on the GameFAQs message boards for both Persona 3 and Persona 4 to criticize the game developers[13] and to discuss the 4chan comics and stereotypes,[14] such as a thread[15] about a limited-release expansion pack for Persona 4 that included an XL shirt, with no other sizes to choose from.[16] In December 2008, Fatlus was used in conjunction with the term weeaboo to describe the typical audience of Persona 3 on the Escapist forum.[17] In January 2009, Fatlus was first defined on Urban Dictionary[20], again comparing the term to Weeaboos.
In April 2009, a series of the Fatlus comics were posted to the Atlus Online message board[4], resulting in similar compilations being shared on the forums for System Wars[2], NeoGAF[21] and Pinoy-N.[22] As of March 2013, there are more than 200 pages of search results for Fatlus on the Foolz Archive.[18] Additional comics can be found on Tumblr[3], deviantART[5] and Photobucket.[19]
Notable Examples
Search Interest
External References
[2]System Wars – Fatlus Comics
[3]Tumblr – Posts tagged fatlus
[4]Atlus Online – The Fatlus Thread
[6]Wikipedia – Megami Tensei
[7]Wikipedia – Shin Megami Tensei: Persona
[8]Wikipedia – Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Devil Saga
[9]Chanarchive.org – Hopefully we’ll get some Fatlus in here
[10]Foolz Archive – Fatlus comic
[11]Wikipedia – Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3
[12]Pool’s Closed – This is what NIGGERTITS has come to
[13]GameFAQs – Goddamn FATlus
[14]GameFAQs – atlus more like fatlus
[15]GameFAQs – oh man even atlus aggres with my fatlus topic
[16]Devil Summoner Soul Hackers – Persona 4 Social Link Expansion Pack: THANKSFROMCANADA + XL shirts only???
[17]The Escapist – If it wasn’t such a good game it could easily be written off as disposable Fatlus/weaboo fodder.
[18]Foolz Archive – Search results for “fatlus”
[19]Photobucket – Browse Fatlus Photos
[21]NeoGAF – fatlus comics
[22]Pinoy-N – Fatlus comics :funny: