>Saya no Uta
>seek to become more like the characters from it
I think they'll find that very difficult.

Only caring about superficial aspects of otaku media has been a thing for a long time, Lain being one of the most frequent victims. Same with the wave/core retardation. Maybe at least a handful of people exposed to this will take a genuine interest in what's being referenced. Also, why do you know what's happening on tiktok?

It's not entirely in good faith, but I just want to let you know that I don't give a fuck. I have so many things shattering my nerves every fucking day that I just can't care about some stupid social media that won't even exist in 5-10 years. Just fuck them. There's nothing you can do anyway.
>"low key cutting mself 2nite feeling denpa fr".
I hope one day they cut themselves for real and there's nobody to help.

>>42697
>Also, why do you know what's happening on tiktok
Because people upload webms of TikTok videos and the like to other image boards, or discussion about such topics comes up there.

>>42695
>I learned recently that Saya no Uta and other 'denpa' visual novels and anime are very popular on TikTok
I did not need to know this information and so I decided to stop reading your post. You should stop listening to little kids, even I don't go near them despite unfortunately being less than a decade older than them. The generation gap is too damn big for those of us who remember the 2000s and those who do not. Try reading books or something.
>>42697
I genuinely think that statement can be summarized as them not really understanding otaku culture and being fascinated by it, yet like with every other trend completely missing the point of it. It comes and goes is what I've learned from witnessing this phenomenon many times.
>>42700
I'm already saying the same thing. I never went to school with these kids, so whatever happens to them isn't my problem or what I want to concern myself with.
>>42701
>Because people upload webms of TikTok videos and the like to other image boards
Uh no, correction people upload those tiktoks to 4chan. There are very few altchans that actually discuss tiktoks. I can name like 2? Anyways it's funny to see people take the opinions of children born in like 2010 seriously....

>Saya no Uta
i still need to read that, but i'm scared it'll put me in a bad mood.

i wanted to add my thoughts on this, since i feel like i also have a bit of insight into this phenomenon as someone born in 2004, thus closer in age to the children being described, but i really can't think of anything interesting to discuss about this. not without having it devolve into incessant complaining, anyway.
it's just what >>42697 and >>42702 described; a lot of tiktok children just have a very superficial understanding of most subcultures, otaku culture in this case. it'll (hopefully) pass as these people grow older. it's not even particularly new, i think ironic weebs were the issue not even a decade ago...
>>42702
>I don't go near them despite unfortunately being less than a decade older than them. The generation gap is too damn big for those of us who remember the 2000s and those who do not.
this is interesting to me because i feel like i'm in a similar spot, i remember the late 2000s pretty vividly, i don't know what happened for a lot of people around my age, maybe a bit younger or older, to seemingly completely blank out that space in time. i've run into people around my age who don't seem to know what a nintendo ds is. i get the impression a lot of these people might've genuinely not used the internet very sparingly, if at all, until tiktok hit the scene.

>>42704
>not used the internet very sparingly, if at all
whoops, typo. pretend that "not" isn't there.

>>42704
Most people forget the vast majority of their early childhood. There's nothing unusual about that. If I weren't addicted to the internet from an early age, I probably wouldn't know what a gamecube is, despite its life-cycle overlapping with that period in my life. That applies to you and the DS.

>>42702
Good post.

>people upload those tiktoks to 4chan
I lurk /a/ and and a few /vg/ threads, and I have not seen people post TikTok videos. So even then, I'd imagine only the worst boards and threads are populated with them.

I see it as additional salt rubbed into the already existing wound that is being a part of that generation of otaku outcasts, wherein there are barely any places for us to congregate and discuss (God bless tc). [ see: >>/so/28572 ]
Unlike finding like-minded peers of the same era by looking for places that discuss shōwa era or contemporary era anime, I can't even begin to imagine how nigh impossible that is for that in-between time, now that it's crammed full of the products of this trend, further alienating what seemingly few there are left.

While these trends are generally ephemeral and only apply to the most well-known works of that era, which can be ignored for the most part, it still instills a looming dread of it affecting more and more, atleast for me.
There is a latent fear that, for example, if I decide to browse a booru to search for artwork of an anime I like, that in the midst of looking at some nice pieces of art, suddenly a gaggle of teenagers kick down the door of my room, grab a hold of my head and FORCE me to look at a drawing, drawn with an aliased pencil tool, of {character_from_a_well-known_anime_from_the_year_200X} sitting down playing cs1.6 on a CRT monitor, smoking a marijuana heroin cigarette, drinking a Monster brand energy drink, while the background is filled with an assorti of {main_characters_from_anime_featured_on_ironic_circlejerk_3x3_charts_of_that_period} sitting around doing nothing, except they're now bipolar and/or bisexual, therefore, instead of letting me indulge in my 2D escapism, I get a grave reminder of what sort of 3DPD reality I exist in; much like the metaphor of cancer/crayfish, pulling me down, back to the slimy dregs of the corporeal, from my (ultimately vain, as it's impossible, but nonetheless earnest) attempt of seeking heavenly perfection (whilst confined in an imperfect world) and climbing out of the bucket.

Whenever this or a similar topic comes up, a piece of advice I keep seeing is that one should simply ignore the masses and don't let external behaviour affect one's enjoyment of a piece of media, yet it comes off as an empty platitude to me, as I am unable to forget and unsee what I have seen, as though it were a parcel of eldritch knowledge; oh how I wish for it to be so easy.
And it's not like I am not proactively isolating and distancing myself from potential exposure to such hazardous knowledge. I've isolated and buried myself from much of the external world, only letting in a miniscule amount of data in (no social media, no news, no nothing, tc being the biggest and fastest thing I browse), anything less and I might aswell just pull the plug completely. Yet I find these trends so ubiquitous, as even with all of that, I still happen to catch traces of them.

Funnily enough, I guess you could say that, in a small scope, they do succeed in being 'denpa' (as a source of it), not in some of their attention/identity(?) seeking actions, as presented by that seemingly mock quote (I hope) of "low key cutting mself 2nite feeling denpa fr", but rather by what they unintentionally represent, which unveiled to me makes me go 「あ……あああ！ くっ……はぁっ！ あうあああ！ ああぁぁぁ！ あああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああああ！」

I'd like to analyse the nature of these phenomena, their origin.
One angle I see being is that tis be but a mere subset of the larger phenomenon of retroism of the periods from about 20-30 years ago, as seen before with the fads of fawning over the 80's, 90's and now 2000's (which I, and assuredly many others, predicted that it will hit the 2000s in no time at all), as the 2000's means the internet, and the internet means a bunch of anime, along with a myriad of other 2000's things for the mainstream to attach itself to, which I assume you lot have also seen happening.
Is it just that? Or is there another vector of influence that is driving this phenomenon?
Will these trends go on and in a decade or two will we see the same but for the otaku media of 2024 and before?
Or will this stop (or continue being a presence) as culture has homogenised/stagnated where it is all just reflections of yesteryear and therefore there's nothing more to mirror other than various aspects of 1980-2010 cultures, ergo in 2040 (if we are still breathing) we will still see lucky star and whatever else being posted?
Do they seek anime of yesteryear because they are not satisfied by current anime?
Or is this all just simply the 'born in le wrong generation' phenomenon, but with the anime medium instead of the typical medium of music, now that it is the mainiest of mainstreams?
Will the pain ever stop, discounting the certain eventuality of mortality?

Post edited on 24th Jun 2024, 5:44am

Just according to keikaku. We're all connected.

>>42709
Become one with anon. Entangle yourself in the collective consciousness.

>>42710
El psy congroo

They're the only reason for the influx of fanart for old series I'm nostalgic about.

>>42713
If they have no appreciation for it, then it should have remained untouched. Adding a quick lewd or giving a character from a 20+ year old show a generic cute picture, in whitch they have a smartphone, is worthless, if not insulting.

>>42715
Sounds like a you problem anon (except the lewd, that art shouldn't exist same with porn).

>>42717
That's a ridiculous attitude. Ero is the basis of otaku culture.

>>42717
Maybe. All I can say is that if for example Heidi gets dig up in form of suddendly reciving fanart, that depicts her in a modern city, wearing modern clotes, while using modern gadets, that I feel utter disgust. The same goes when a random old show, that has no art whatsoever, just gets a generic ecchi doodle out of the blue, just for it to remain the only single piece of fanart that exists.

You people have got to cool it with the autism for your own sake. You're not the creators of these characters. You really don't have a reason to be this sensitive.

>>42720
Thanks, faggot. I actually have autism.

>>42695
This is a normal phenomenon, though. Remember how many kids latched onto the Angry Video Game Nerd and later retro gaming YouTubers, romanticizing (or making fun of) an era of gaming they were not part of?

I suppose it can feel regrettable that, because of how modern social networks feed you media, many people interact with creative works in a much shallower manner than we used to. If your primary mode of consuming entertainment is half-to-one-minute shorts, you'll ever only interact with most things on a "vibes"/"aesthetics" level, because there's no time to introduce deeper concepts.

>Nowadays, weebs type like any other young people, their language choices are essentially indiscernible.

Because "animecore" has become increasingly mainstream. It's much more normalized to interact with the exports of Japanese pop culture than it once was. So, my view is that nowadays, all young people type a little like weebs, rather than the opposite.

>The lack of sincerity amongst subcultures makes me sad.

I don't think there ever was, and the fact we're not discussing this on /jp/ is reminder enough. Core fans were always a small minority of any larger cultural phenomenon; secondaries and casuals are encouraged in a capitalist media market, because returns lie in numbers. Debates over who is a true and who is a fake anime fan are as old as Usenet; you can find posts from the mid-90s where people complain about Sailor Moon fans ruining anime.

>>42697

>Also, why do you know what's happening on tiktok?

I'll admit that I used it for some time as I managed to convince the algorithm to show me some interesting things, particularly works bordering on short independent filmmaking, from time to time.

However, it's also worth pointing out nobody really knows what's happening on TikTok; the algorithm is all-encompassing, and everyone only gets a small slice of it unless they go out of their way to look for more. Any long-term use of TikTok becomes a reflection of your own biases, and it's interesting in that way. (Also kind of scary, because a lot of harmful trends are going on with nobody not already primed to participate in it really seeing the material to comment on it.)

>>42704
It is certainly the case that a lot of later zoomers are less computer-literate than millenials. The smartphone era and corporatization of the Internet has made it much easier to consume content; but this also means a lot of people will never venture far beyond these silos.

>>42721
Clearly. You can still think though and be rational. You can still choose to not be hypersensitive about innocuous drawings with a smartphone in it.

>>42723
It's not faithful to the source material. I also like historical accuracy in stuff that takes place in certain historical time periods. I don't take shit as >>42722 mentioned beautifuly
> many people interact with creative works in a much shallower manner than we used to

>>42724
Remember not to confuse depth with elitism. It's a common mistake.

>>42725
If you saw the stuff I like, you wouldn't write that. I soley critisized soulless fanart, coming from creators who obvioulsy don't appreciate/care about the characters/the source to begin with. Putting flowers on a grave, only to water them with pissing on it, is worse than no flowers at all.

Why did so many people (including adults, not just teens online from what I've noticed) decided to ape off of a culture that up until 2020 they were making fun of?
I've noticed a trend of people calling otaku culture aesthetics "losercore". I've heard of "animecore" before but there's something that stings about calling it "losercore"...they're insulting it yet still want to embody it.
They're just posers imo. I hope this trend passes soon.

>>42819
It's because their own culture has become creatively and spiritually bankrupt, but they're too set in their ways to give up the value system that led to that decline.

People replaced personalities with algorithms. Even if I do not have social media, I am sadly still influenced by them, because it is the algorithms that govern topics and themes discussed on the internet. I can only hope the things I am a fan of currently won't ever trend. Gatekeeping should be encouraged. too.

>>42822
>I can only hope the things I am a fan of currently won't ever trend
I seriously want to understand this mindset. The way I see it there's no reason to care about any of this because nothing can change the product's quality. I enjoy things because I like them, not for some feeling of exclusivity. Gatekeeping any other communities is one thing but doing it with fandoms seems pointless.

>>42823
>nothing can change the product's quality
That's where you are wrong. Since corporations are usually behind them, catering to a bigger audience can ruin many things - and usually do so.

>>42823
I don't like interacting with other people who claim to enjoy it but end up not knowing a single thing about it or there's "problematic" elements about it (especially for 2000s franchises where almost every other series had a token loli in the cast) and freak out over said elements...and still calling themselves fans. I know I don't really have to interact with them, but I don't even want to theoretically share the same space as them. They come like locusts and shit everything up.
>>42824 is also an issue where if the series is active and these kind of people are it's most vocal "fans" the series will change with them as their target audience.

>>42819
A kind of guess I can make is that they felt excluded from such circles for being "normal people," and so they decided to push themselves in with aggression and become the new demographic. It's funny how ford drivers tell you that if you aren't fitting in, then you're the problem. When a person normally gets excluded, it's their fault. Yet, when someone dare excludes the ford driver, it becomes the end of the world. I guess that's the result of constantly receiving positive social validation throughout their life.

The normalfag/ford driver vs "us" mentality hasn't been correct for decades.

I used to indulge in this kind of discussion with passion back in the day, now I neither feel anything, nor even can understand what any of you are saying. Some normalfags, fans, communities, fitting in. Can't connect the dots in my head. Just reads like a salad. Probably another stage of being insane. Just getting off my chest.

>>42827
Please elaborate on what's changed.

>>42823
>The way I see it there's no reason to care about any of this because nothing can change the product's quality
None of the above anons, but I see it in two ways:
At the individual level, yes it's true that you can mostly ignore any external nonsense. However at the more communal level, the sort of "shallow/facetious appreciation" of things tends to rot and replace any actual discussion.

>>42830
exactly - try discussing lain in circles that are obsessed with it - or rather really only its aesthetics. barely anyone watched it, even less theorized about it.

Regarding normalfags infesting our hobby I'm not sure how to act. It's said over and over gatekeeping is necessary but how exactly do you gatekeep a hobby? You can't stop people from watching, reading or playing stuff. The only thing we can do is keeping anonymous message boards away from them and I believe aside from 4chan we are somewhat safe on these circles. Besides, I believe the anti anime sentiment growing on 4crap is really useful because it keeps retards away from our hobby. Every time I see the word "trannime" posted on 4chan I smile because it means normalfags obsessed with politics will dismiss anime entirely. The more anime and otaku culture are associated with gross, disturbing, creepy and disgusting stuff the better in my opinion. Yes we are all trannies, losers and potential child molesters, now stay away from my lane. I also like this "losercore" thing or how normalfags are obsessed with calling otaku "filthy" and "unwashed". I believe all these commonly negative traits play in our favor because it keeps retards away. This is the only way to gatekeep our hobby I can think of. Of course it has its downsides, this will make other kinds of undesirables believe they are welcome. Truth is, no one obsessed with identity politics, real life issues or being seen as normal is welcome in our community. I despise trannies as much as I despise their haters. I just see them as a tool to gatekeep normalfags and I used gender deviants as an example of useful idiots, rather than comrades. If you're obsessed with your 3D identity and body you're not one of us.

>>42832
>The more anime and otaku culture are associated with gross, disturbing, creepy and disgusting stuff the better in my opinion.
Hadn't thought about it like that before.

>>42833
Recently, I've been thinking that lolicon is a litmus test for normalfaggotry. I guess it's things like that that are considered unacceptable from a social standpoint. Being unable to differentiate 2D worlds from the 3D worlds. It's also being over-concerned, in some contexts, understandably, with the sort of individuals that one is associated with.

>>42850
I've been thinking that for years.

>>42823
It's a natural reaction of self-preservation. There's an instinctual desire to keep one's self-concept wholly individual, or atleast far away from those are alien and contemptible in one's eyes. To keep the mental palace clean, so to speak. It's just psychological hygiene.

A lot of the hatred and disgust that comes when an outsider group gets a hold of some media is that, on some level, it does change one's relationship to said media. Whenever you connect with and love a piece of media/art, it becomes apart of you, apart of your own self-concept and a means of relating to the world (and others). It also becomes a safe haven for oneself; "this is where I exist in the world" -- on an abstract level. So when foreigners come and corrupt that, it feels as if the world that one inhabits and oneself is being invaded and taken away. Their territory is lost, and parts of who they are have to be cut off or altered as to not be confused with outsiders that one has utter disdain for. This comes at a loss of potentially connecting with others who are similar as well---this is the real loss that is felt to an already alienated group. The knife gets twisted further. It becomes hard to differentiate and find markers for those that get you. It's no coincidence that a large part of pull of this media is that it's made by people that are similar to us. It's stuff made for otaku by otaku.

Or atleast this has been my experience. Seeing a bunch of vapid zoomers take a piece of media that's near and dear to my heart, distort and twist in such a way that is far from the original experience of it is just saddening. It loses its value atleast on some level. Obviously, the original media isn't altered in anyway and can still be enjoyed for what it is, but the art itself is just half the equation; the other half is the person connecting with it and their relationship with it after the fact. It's the latter that gets altered and corrupted in someway is what leads to gatekeeping and all of this. Even with measures to avoid all kinds of information associated with trends and the outside world, it still manages to come down the pipeline. Such as here!

>>42855
This is a beautifully written post, and strikes home.

>but the art itself is just half the equation; the other half is the person connecting with it and their relationship with it after the fact
Indeed, anime is a visual-media art form and like all (good) art it's not just something to be appreciated but should also strive to make an impact on the viewer (possibly subtly adjusting his world view or perception of things). Just as art is "in communication" with other art (by building upon a previous canon), a good piece of art is also able to remain "in contact" with the viewer even long after the viewing. And of course art doesn't spring into existence out of nowhere, there is a human on the other side as well – so the art is ultimately a medium of human-human communication. So to me seeing someone flagrantly corrupt a piece of art you appreciate really breaks that connection.

Things are very different today than how they used to be, TC aside. Is there even any room for a Madarame in this current world?

>>42695
My opinion as someone born in the mid 2000's is that there attitude is a refection of the mainstream anime community who simply follow seasonal anime and watch is popular.There is no real appreciation for anime or for japan like I have have seen people who talk about anime and Korean shit in the same breath.

Basically if the people mentioned above are the majority then you end up getting a feeling of being different by watching lain or even by knowing a vn is and I have spoken to people who claim to like anime irl even recently most of them don't watch anything old unless it's shonen
(I still have not meet anyone who knows love is war or even konosuba lain is just too far)

By the way you can find let's plays of saya no uta on youtube and I don't think most of them watched Subarashiki Hibi there knowledge might be from other tiktoks and youtube videos.

Also why do you think people who use tiktok would even have an appreciation for old otaku culture like do you expect them to read old archives of discussions? Most people don't even know about the wayback machine like even if they hear of it or see a glimpse of jp otaku culture from vns they won't look into it since they already feel special why would they it's not like there is much they can point to and show how interesting it was since no popular community tries to preserve it.

Well I don't use any social media nor do I want to look at tiktoks so I will point you to look at neocities.Just search anime and you will understand what I mean.Looking at more places where zoomers do this kinda stuff might help you
comeup with a general theory on why this happens.

The discourse on otaku stuff doesn't feel "japanese" anymore. Going back a decade and a half ago, whenever something imploded in popularity and the only places to discuss were /a/ and forums I remember seeing people post 4komas or memes, trying to translate and making sense of them. Sure there were some memes made on this side of the world, but they had that imageboard feel. Nowadays they just take some normalfaggish meme and adapt it to whatever you have in the hopes of getting likes on twitter probably, everything is homogenized now. Every time I see one of those images I can't help but gag

>>42964
>imploded in popularity
that's a neat twist on the phrase, will have to remember that

>>42966
I slept only 4 hours pls be patient

>>42967
It wasn't sarcastic (in case you interpreted it that way), I thought it was genuinely clever, and I can't remember seeing that specific phrase before so it's novel to me. And looking at google seems to back me up on the novelty of the phrase; only 10 results, and most of those uses are probably mistakes, since they really meant to say "exploded in popularity" without any sardonic undertone of it being a negative thing.

>>42964
I got around that by simply using Japanese sites and avoiding the English language internet for the most part.