I think places will always be out there, but they'll get harder to find and slower over time. It's a small miracle that we still have what little we do.

Yes, especially in Japan but to be fair the crowd you’re talking about is aging and often losing interest with age. It’ll just get slower like the other poster mentioned because of the smaller crowd.

>Will Otaku survive the 2020s?
God, I'm not sure. In the past two years, I have seen more anime based imageboards and forums either go to shit, or shut down (usually the latter). And then on top of that, I have seen websites like ExHentai and Hentai Haven shut down.
>How long until the only websites left are ford driver websites like twitter, facebook, reddit, or neo-nerd websites where discussion is censored to a very bland, western dialogue that belongs more on tumblr?
It seems like those days are drawing very near. Not only just with Otaku websites, but with most websites in general. It seems as though the entire internet is going to all boil down to just a couple of social media websites, which are basically just extensions of the real world, but shittier (if that's even possible). But do these supposed "free speech" warriors and "free market advocates" care? No, of course not! They would rather whine that twitter banned them for making a holocaust joke.
The future is looking quite bleak.

>>32700
Tohno-Chan is thoroughly censored and only permits a certain type of predefined "otaku" discussion. Try pointing out that almost all the girls in anime have massive s-c-r-o-t-u-m bulges showing in their panties and you'll be censored almost immediately.

>>32784
There's a difference between censorship and deleting shit posts.

>>32784
That predefined discussion is becoming harder and harder to find. Different sites should be able to cater to different crowds. When wide-sweeping restrictions lead to homogenization, there's a problem. Sites without a clrealy defined code of conduct end up appealing to the lowest common denominator: shitposters and normalfags. Why are you so bothered by puffy vulva?

>>32784
Because that type of discussion is probably off topic for /ot/ or /an/. There's a thread about that on >>/tat/533 if you're so compelled to debate the nuances of curves, or /lol/ might also be a more appropriate place. There are few places left where anime-related discussion doesn't just devolve into sexual remarks or crude jokes, and nipping those sorts of comments early on helps to prevent that.

>>32788
commenting on the nuances of a particular style of artwork isn't necessarily crude simply because the region being commented on is between the legs, stop being such a prude.

>>32792
>commenting on the nuances
Is not the same as incessantly complaining about how the typical crotch buldge turns you off.

I heard some wapanese talking about a fight in naruto in a Japanese restaurant recently. Shipping blogs are still around if you look for them. Classic “otaku” still exist but are just a different flavor because younger demographics are going to be different inherently.
In japan, 40+ otaku aren’t uncommon but they’re not exactly super vocal on the microblogging platforms that are popular there.
To be fair, it’s not like quality discussion ever occurred at the same time as very fast posting places. I feel like if you went back to the year 2007 today you would complain about KyoAni fans ruining everything, I have a feeling people saying things like OP just miss being young because most of “Otaku Culture” was never great.

It really depends on what you mean. If you’re Japanese-literate, it should be around for at least another 20 years as that crowd would inevitably age (considering you posted a tsukihime picture, you’re probably describing a certain flavor of otaku) and either die or lose interest which is normal.
Western/English will have smaller imageboards and forums which will be slow but decent as long as it’s not Reddit/MAL; but to get “otaku” experience/discussion you will probably have to go to multiple websites to get different things. To be fair, westerners that call themselves otaku are the fucking worst if Twitter and /jp/ and it’s spinoff are any indication.
I have 2 questions about this though: is it any different now than it ever was? as I’ve said before “western otaku” were always the worst but they were just a different flavor of retard.
Also, why does it need to be a social activity? I always wondered why there was “communities” for solitary activities like anime & manga, video games, etc.

Post edited on 5th Aug 2019, 1:31pm

>>32900
>is it any different now than it ever was?
I think so, but maybe that's just because I am younger. I don't remember the otaku community being overrun by literal normalfags that casually watch anime when they aren't partying or getting STDs from some random stranger. It's difficult to say around which time otaku communities started to go to shit, but I remember when I got into anime, the worst the otaku community had to offer were literal weeaboos, kids, and the occasional casual/narutard, all of which I had no problem with personally. These days, however, it's different.
>why does it need to be a social activity? I always wondered why there was “communities” for solitary activities like anime & manga, video games, etc.
I get your point, but I feel like a lot of people in this thread are just nostalgic for the old days, when anime, manga etc. were relatively underground and therefore the community surrounding it was rather small and was full of like minded people. But now, a lot of these communities have been taken over and we have been kicked out. There is a post in the "ironic weeb" thread on this board where someone mentions "social gentrification", and I believe it describes perfectly the situation OP and so many others in this thread are in.

>>32906
>I don't remember the otaku community being overrun by literal normalfags that casually watch anime when they aren't partying or getting STDs from some random stranger.
You probably live in an English country. Anime has aired on primetime television in a lot of places but I doubt they participated in online discussion. There is that Usenet post from ‘96 about Moon fans killing the scene.

>>32900
>I always wondered why there was “communities” for solitary activities like anime & manga, video games, etc.
Ultimately I think the goal of grouping together with people who have these similar interests is trying to share perspectives on it, learn more about it and possibly find new ones that might interest you. You might be able to experience more if you don't talk to anyone else about it, but you might miss out on something you've never heard of that you might like, for instance.

>>32909
To add a bit, I think the most important things you gain from having communities surrounding solitary hobbies is solidarity, knowledge and a sense of history. It gives you a real sense of appreciation for where it all came from.

In the west, hobbyist boards will probably march on into oblivion being slow and irrelevant, people still use BBS, IRC and other protocols to just chat. I don't see why younger internet users wouldn't do the same, although I imagine that the median age for imageboards is quite older than it once was. I do agree with you about the old internet dying off, and it is sad that that the ruins of the web are wasting away with the sands of time. Here are some quotes from an english textboard on the matter:
"I came here a few months ago with my old laptop still running XP and it was like nothing had changed. I miss these days so much.

The laptop even had my old bookmarks, and all of the forums and sites were dead (either literally gone or totally abandoned)"

"[I check this site] every few months when the intense pangs of weltschmerz and nostalgia for the old days of the comfynet really start to hit hard.
If I close my eyes, I can almost hear the modem dialing."

"i archived so many things from so long ago thinking what a tragedy it would be if they were lost

i have them now and horrible thing that i couldnt have imagined was that ultimately nobody is left to care"

"eah, there's that. It always logically seemed to be one of any number of possible endings, but indeed feels quite bleak. Existential ruminations became commonplace for that very reason.

Is it a disappointment that we are all alone together again as before, or just bittersweet like the inevitable passage of time."

"Social media seems like the obvious culprit to me. I suspect the number of interesting things hidden in the ghost web to be fairly. A comparable dataset would be the collected works of cuneiform sitting in museum collections around the world. The vast majority have not been translated fully. Some are treasures of archaeology - Plimpton 322 comes to mind. Most are little more than records of account and inventory.

It might seem that we have lost the Library of Alexandria many times over, but ours were full of phonebooks. Hobbyists of the 90s and the 00s didn't have to be sophisticated because they didn't have to compete with anything for our attention."

"I never really thought something that seemed to matter so much to so many people could be forgotten so quickly. How many years is it since the idea of having a personal site, or visiting mostly the personal sites of others, stopped being considered "the way it is"? If you spend any time bouncing around old Tripod or Angelfire (or Geocities if you go on an archive) there's clearly so much love poured into these sites, and it's not all children or teens because many adults also were immensely passionate about their chosen presentation or theme.

Yet now all of this is gone. I wonder how many ghost sites there are, which are connected to the web but never accessed and hosted on ageing hardware or part of someone's monthly bill they've never really though to cancel.

One day a site could go offline simply because the owner was reminded that it was even there at all."

"It's just not the same anymore, is it?"

"Where did those 10 years go, all but lost like ashes in the wind."

"we are all gonna die anon
we are useless against time, we can only follow it to the end
dust to dust, ashes to ashes
here, have a hug ヾ(＠^▽^＠)ﾉ"

"I think it's nice to know that people like us still exist. The fact that we're checking on dead websites almost 10 years after the last significant traffic, and the fact that it still allows us to post is neat."

There are multiple textboards having similar discussions. Most textboards get a handful of posts at month at best.

But! There could be light at the end of the tunnel if imageboards became irrelevant and truly hobbyist again; /jp/ spin-offs have had a recent revival after the unfreezing of /qa/ and a sort of cultural renaissance for that crowd (the anonymous, at least) regardless what you think of them or their board culture. Interestingly, there are multiple sites that cater to all posting styles on /jp/. I have faith in it happening to other subcultures. One could argue that the point of no return for /a/ and western anime discussion was over a decade ago but considering how fast /jp/ went to shit it could happen to any board/culture. Some even think 8/a/ and /animu/ are just this but in my opinion they were just 8chan with an anime theme, especially /animu/. I appreciate Tohno and TC (along with a handful of other websites), but I am surprised that there hasn't been a concentrated effort to make a faster, decent anime imageboard, while it seems some have tried very few have any regular users. Take a look at a community effort to catalogue a lot of imageboards: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ccd0/imageboards.json/gh-pages/imageboards.json

Most are empty, with a handful of posts, and ironically: spam advertising other boards. It can be a genuinely depressing sight.

As for Japan, yes there will be a bunch of microblogging chit-chat but futaba is often considered one of the best places to discuss anime/manga and probably will hold a userbase for quite a bit because of that. Japanese textboards as well. If I were you and worried about it I would start learning Japanese now and making more posts to smaller western imageboards while you still can if the future is not so bright.

>>32984
I get the feeling, but I think it's a bit misguided. People made personal websites for their own vanity. Oh look, I have my own. It was a trend. The only difference now is their personal internet shrine is on someone else's website instead of their own. It looks a lot more standard, but the average person can't compete with the "sleek" design of web 2.0, and everybody else is on it, so to hell with individuality. Individuality is seen as ugly, but nobody feels motivatied to make another souless web 2.0 site using some idiot-proof developer tool. Myspace started the trend and they probably had the most personalization options.

Most user-driven sites exist to fulfill some base desire. That's why people want fast boards. A fast board can serve as a better replacement for real life interaction. Also, people's attention spans have shrunken. It has nothing to do with the quality of posts despite what anybody would tell you. Speed doesn't filter shit, it propogates it. Discord is more popular because despite the benefits of anonymity, people like competing over social rank. Trying to recreate something that can't sustain itself is a waste of time if you expect it to take back the activity that was siphoned elsewhere.

>>32984
>/qa/
Pardon my ignorance, but are you talking about 4chan's /qa/ or another websites? If you are talking about 4chan's than I'm not sure if that's a good thing because almost every thread on there gave me stage 4 cancer. Why would we want people like that to invade our spaces?

>>32991
Yes, 4chan’s /qa/. Despite it being awful, it was unmoderated and allowed /jp/sies to congregate freely, and it was unlisted and rather empty after the unfreezing, sort of allowing the normally heavily moderated community to share their websites.

>>32907
>There is that Usenet post from ‘96 about Moon fans killing the scene
It's odd reading that post considering that the European otaku community is almost non existent nowadays (or at least that's what a couple of European netizens have told me).

NO!!!! i've HAD it you guys!! sifted through way too many threads talking about the end of anime and the end of otaku and its too depressing to go on talking about! How about a little positivity?? Im not gonna let everything disappear, we're gonna save it! this is NOT the end!

>>33017
There's nothing negative about it. Positivity? Tohno-Chan still exists. Otaku culture in Japan is still doing mostly fine. People who aren't actually passionate are moving on in the west. "The death of otaku culture" in the west is actually a good thing because it's like a toxic cleanse. More good things will come in the future even if it takes a different internet protocol.

Otaku culture isn't dying any time soon, its still very strong. The difference is that its being normalised. Liking anime is no longer inseparably connected with being a (genuine, not ironic) loser and social outcast. This may or may not be a good thing depending on your views.

>>33048
Passion, bordering on or being obsession, is fundamental to otaku culture. Normalizing parts of otaku culture will inevitably kill that because normalizing always leads to something becoming more about socializing than passion, and more sanitized and restricted to appeal to a larger demographic. It's effective death.

Post edited on 19th Aug 2019, 9:39am

>>33048
Being into anime has never been synonymous with being an anime otaku. Throughout its history there have been works with mainstream appeal, and people with passing interest have always existed. There being more of those in English-speaking countries is only a trend now because the rest of the world has already gone through this phase.

>>33051
One odd show every few years getting popular is different than the entire medium becoming normalized. "I don't normally watch anime, but Death Note is pretty good" "I don't like that weeb stuff" is way different than "I love anime. Attack on Titan is my favorite" "Yeah, but most of it is creepy weird stuff lol" "yeah I know what you mean. Why can't they just make more normal stuff".

>>33052
Weekly Shonen Jump series becoming popular is basically the same as "One odd show every few years", if you ask me. Even your examples line up.

>>33052
>One odd show every few years
That was before, It's every season now. Recent series that were very popular with normals include but are not limited to. Shield Hero, Goblin Slayer, Darling in the FranXX, and squeals to Overloard, One Punch Man, Sword Art Online, Hero Academy, and yes Attack on Titan.

>>33055
Well that's my point. Things are becoming "normalized" and that is harmful.

>>33055
That's entirely Jump adaptations and the occasional popular LN adaptation. That's hardly a big deal, although I am still mad that the Goblin Slayer anime was so awful as someone who enjoyed the novels.

>>33017
I agree, but this is a place for battered otaku to vent somewhat. I’d stick to the media boards for a while to take a break from the negativity or have light chitchat in the IRC. We aren’t always moping.

>>33048
Normalizing otaku culture by definition makes it no longer "otaku". Without the autistic passion, it isn't otaku

>>33055
Keep in mind we also have a few times more shows a year in general than we used to, and that there's a much larger advertising push by both Japanese and Western companies in the West now.
>>33098
Well, yes. Based on various polling, a larger and larger amount of Japanese teens seem to self-identify as "otaku", even if their interest is one Tohno-channers would consider casual.

I worry about the effects twitter has or will have on Japanese media, it seems like it is much easier to socialise now and that more people will so they will become normal and media will focus more on normal people.

>>33099
>there's a much larger advertising push by both Japanese and Western companies in the West now.
I think this is the main reason for why we are seeing more and more shows that become extremely popular among "normals". Stuff like Shingeki no Kyojin, Boku no Hero Academia and most recently Dr Stone get a huge push by western companies in social media. I can't think of another time where random people on facebook or twitter would suddenly be bombarded with ads for currently airing anime.

>>33101
The connection between all of those is that Crunchyroll held the U.S. license at some point, and they seem to be very good at advertising among casual fans. (Other companies either aren't or don't want to - I mean, I don't think Netflix could have given less public attention to its license rescue of Evangelion.)

I've seen little kids wear scout jackets from SnK. I've heard my coworkers talk about SnK and subscribing to CR and other streaming services dedicated to anime. Hell, I've been asked about it too. And this all happened in American rural-esque areas too. It's all very perturbing.
Now the wait begins until they're publicly talking about manga or visual novels.

>>33103
In the little work I have done I have come across such people as well, some would even act out Dragon ball scenes, go to anime conventions and buy bleach swords. But they kind of stopped at that level, only watching surface level anime(even when the are subscribed to crunchy roll so they would presumably see other anime advertised). Hunter X Hunter was probably the most obscure(I know, the use of obscure in this context is absurd) anime that any of them had seen and even then only one had.

Most people won't have a problem watching entry level anime, they are acceptable to western audiences hence why they have traditional been aired on TV even going back years.

It's all so tiresome.

>>33104
Yeah, you're right. Still, last time this happened was early this year, and two "very normal" guys were talking about Mahou Shoujo Tokushusen Asuka and the Shield Hero adaption. The latter I would've expected but the former was quite odd.

>>33102
yeah as far as I have seen Crunchyroll actually has people that (somewhat) know what they are doing and have succeeded at making certain series really well known among the casual public. Netflix is more like a rich old man throwing money at japanese studios in hopes that someone will notice their catalog despite most of their lineup being pretty bland.