I seem to have a vague recollection of someone in one of my social groups watching a video (or something) of some guy doing the free hugs thing, and commenting something to the effect that (loosely paraphrasing) he must be a loser pathetically looking for pretexts to convince girls to hug him who otherwise wouldn’t; and indeed, very few people seemed eager to hug him. (I can’t remember more details about that.) Looking back at all the times I remember people wearing such signs, they were almost always males, usually not terribly attractive, and often in religious or political associations; none of these sounds high-status to me, if by “status” we mean social power rather than structural power. And the only times they seemed to be received well was during New Year’s/carnival/similar celebrations, where ISTM it’s also socially acceptable to ask random people for hugs who are not wearing free-hug signs.
“Free hugs” signs are also a fairly common feature at anime conventions. Many of the people I’ve seen with them have been cute girls.
“Free hugs” signs are also a fairly common feature at anime conventions.
Never been to one of those, but I guess that I would feel much less out-of-place wearing such a sign at an anime convention (conditional on me not feeling out-of-place at the convention without the sign) than in a street downtown. (Though now that I try to think of it more in near mode, even the latter would depend on the time of the day and my blood alcohol content. Hmmm.)
“Free hugs” signs are also a fairly common feature at anime conventions. Many of the people I’ve seen with them have been cute girls.
Never been to one of those, but I guess that I would feel much less out-of-place wearing such a sign at an anime convention (conditional on me not feeling out-of-place at the convention without the sign) than in a street downtown. (Though now that I try to think of it more in near mode, even the latter would depend on the time of the day and my blood alcohol content. Hmmm.)