I spend a lot of time on Twitter, mostly for the purposes of looking at cool art and memes and keeping up on anime news. It seems like every few weeks lately, some bozo has blasted onto the scene with some dismal hot take about who “deserves” to be a part of the anime fandom. The last time this happened the commentary had a specifically sexist bent, but for whatever reason I decided to keep my mouth shut. It honestly gets exhausting to have to defend my place in anime fandom all the time so I usually just don’t take the bait; I’m old enough now and have seen the fandom landscape change and grow so much for the better that some troll’s short-sighted vision of how their preferred fandom should operate isn’t worth the oxygen it takes to argue about it. And if they don’t believe that women and nonbinary folks have been around and even acted as formative members of most if not all genre fandoms, well… they’re allowed to be wrong, and loudly.
But this most recent drama, which attempts to gatekeep anime fandom from folks who have “only” watched a certain few very popular anime, touches on something that somehow sits deeper in my psyche than even the gender-based harassment I’ve personally endured. I think it’s because I don’t think that highly of myself, so if asshats pick on me they clearly suck for honing in on such low-hanging fruit. But deigning to hassle my friends, even the friends I haven’t made yet, seems like a particularly cruel tactic and it really ruffles my feathers.
I was at a sci-fi/fantasy convention several years ago, walking the busy hallways and people-watching. This convention in particular runs the gamut of media-related subject matter and attracts an all-ages crowd, so along with the old-guard of literary fans there are usually just as many young people bringing with them their interest in more recent media, including anime. As a small group of energetic anime cosplayers walked by exuberantly that afternoon, giggling and having a fun time, I overheard someone grumble that “those kids need to go back to [local anime convention].” To this day I wish I had said something, but as quickly as their words registered in my mind, they’d been lost to the crowd. There were so many things about that simple sentence that made me angry; the value judgments about the cosplayers’ age and about anime as a fandom, the disdain for people just trying to have a fun weekend… but what really bothered me was the sentiment that, somehow, these teens didn’t have a place at an event where everyone was supposed to feel welcome as a fellow geek.
I have a severe intolerance for gatekeeping, especially when it occurs within the anime fandom where a lot of folks have historically endured gatekeeping from the outside. I recall once seeing a fandom hierarchy flowchart, and while I think it was made to poke fun at geeks there always seem to be some folks who take that stuff as gospel and find it their duty to act on it. Anime fans of my era and for quite a while afterward unfortunately know what it feels like for the geek establishment to treat anime fans as interlopers into more “serious” spaces, so why some of them have the need to pass on these bad vibes to newer folks just trying to have a fun time is incomprehensible to me.
Anime is also not the obscure niche product it once was in the West; we live in an age where advertisements for Crunchyroll show up on YouTube and big players like Netflix have their skin in the game. We have nearly endless options to watch anime series, both old and new, when we want to. This is something all of us Olds dreamed about during the age when being able to watch new anime depended heavily on one’s ability to navigate IRC or the willingness of fansub groups to mail out bootleg VHS tapes. But unfortunately there are some folks who believe that ease of access suddenly means that new fans aren’t serious about their fandom, because they didn’t have to struggle to be a part of it. I call BS.
I’m not really a prominent fan so-to-speak, but I’m visible enough in my local fandom communities that I tend to have a lot of interaction with people who I don’t know personally and who might be looking to make inroads into the fandom. Long ago when I was still in college, I had the benefit of a few friends in the anime club who guided me and set me on the right track. They let me know where to download fansubs, where to buy anime at a discount (for real: I found out about Right Stuf’s weekly specials through a friend and have primarily obtained my anime there ever since), and what kinds of planning it took to travel to out-of-state anime conventions. After a while I had enough basic knowledge to start figuring out my own tastes, but I may not have gotten to that point without the help I received. Now, as someone with experience, I want to make sure that anime fandom continues on and flourishes. Rather than judge people for only having watched a few of the most recent, popular anime, instead I try to remember what a privilege it is that newer fans feel safe sharing their tastes with me.
I think we forget how much bravery it takes to speak up about what you like when you’re trying to navigate a new hobby, especially when there’s a chance of being laughed-at. While I won’t always agree with other folks that their fave is some great work of art (though having made it a point to keep tabs on what’s popular, I find that more often than not there are good reasons why certain anime series resonate with a lot of people), I feel like it’s better to use that information as a conversation starter to guide them toward more anime they might also enjoy. Seriously, what’s the harm in being nice? If someone wants to hear my more critical takes, they’re welcome to come read my blog posts. But I’m not willing to actively embarrass or shame someone just because their taste is different or they’ve only just had time enough to watch a couple of shows (and if one of those couple of shows is something like Naruto… well that’s 200-something episodes and the equivalent of about 18 series of the length I typically watch, so it’s no small feat).
While there are many problems in this world that arise from systemic issues and require complex solutions, there are also a great many problems that could be easily solved by people just choosing not to actively be jerks about minor things. What good does it do to pick on less experienced fans?
Ugh.
If you want to read a much more entertaining take on this situation, check out my friend Bri’s article at The Mary Sue.
Until then, I’m just going to be over here watching anime and letting other people enjoy what they want to enjoy.