At the end of the day, it's you guys getting whatever bullshit thrown at you and not us, so I can't blame you for not wanting to bother
That said, I personally really enjoy random music/movie/etc discussions and recommendations from you guys. We see flashes of it in streams and podcasts but very rarely is there like a long form discussion about stuff outside of games.
Unfortunately with niche stuff especially, like anime or certain pockets of music you have a bunch of people who are really passionate (both positively and negatively). I'm certainly guilty when it comes to music stuff but I try to not just openly be shitty to people who actually like stuff I don't. We have the Metal community thread on GAF which is a bit hard at times, solely because that casts such a wide net of what people would and wouldn't consider "metal". To me it's "yo guys who likes SLAMMING BRUTAL DEATH" and others just want to talk about Deftones or Nightwish or whatever. You'll find certain people who end up liking the same stuff and hopefully the people who think it's shit are nice about it
i think a lot of people are uncomfortable about being themselves. their true selves. they dont want to be judged by society, so they 'reject the norm' and pick a new identity.
if youre insecure about who you are and your place in the world, you can just pick a new identity and have a group that automatically gets 'you'. you cant be judge for being you now. you can only be judged for being an anime fan. youre no longer bill. youre the naruto fan. the berserk fan. and if someone doesnt like you, well, its not you they dont like, they just dont 'get' anime fans.
its so much easier to consume stuff and hide under a label than to 'create' something original and be judged for who you truly are. and because this is their new cover/identity, they have to constantly prove how much of a fan they are. hey, i'm not bill! i swear! i love anime more than anyone! they are insecure. so proving they are more of something than anyone else is a way of compensation. they have to constantly remind you that they arent normal. that you cant judge them. that they are hiding under this label of so and so.
thats why a lot of the biggest fans in the smallest niches are the ones that try the hardest to prove they are a bigger fan that you. a lot of the time, to be the biggest 'fan', you gotta be the most insecure. you feel you have to prove yourself at every opportuntiy. hey, if you knew anything about anime, you'd know that that cover is from frame 16 of episode 201 the rapening. look at how big of an anime fan i am!
if you challenge them on this, they would just say they are trying to educate and help, but i think for some, subconsiously so much of their identity is wrapped up in this small niche they are insecure about other people joining it. if everyone was an anime fan, what would happen to their individual identity? thats why they are constantly correcting people, being passive aggressive, trying to turn people away from liking and joining their 'hobby'. this is 'bills thing'. if it changes to 'everyones thing', what happens to bill? he might have to create his own identity and be judged for that.
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