[Kaioshin Sama]

I realize this topic probably looks like an invitation to a fight, but hear me out please. Over the past few years I've started to feel that the anime fandom has lost site of the things that one would think really matters. Enjoying anime for the entertainment and personal meaning and value it provides as opposed to engaging in petty rankings wars as seen on sites like MAL, ANN etc. where the goal is less to appreciate the anime one likes so much as to try and enforce a standard on others and make them accept that their favourite show "deserves" (the word of the year on MAL it seems) a certain level of recognition just because they say so. As an aside I'm pretty sure I'm going to be either abandoning my account on MAL or at least refusing to ever post in all but the clubs I frequent ever again for the reason that the discussion has just gotten to stupid in most series forums.

Anyway, even further than that the conversations that one typically finds in a thread on a particular anime seem to be less about discussing the show so much as discussing whether people think it's as good or worse than another show. Both levels of discussion can be possible within a thread, or neither even, but it seems like the former is dominating topics nowadays and that people are utterly oblivious to the idea that there's anything beyond that level of discussion.

Also I've noticed this for a long time, but it seems worse more recently, blind fanboyism seems on the rise by the year where posters are unrelenting as far as their love of a particular series or subset of series goes and unwilling to entertain the thought that there could be merits to something beyond what they are typically used to....well....fanboying over for a lackof a better terms. My 10 year old cousins are pretty picky about tastes...but this is a matter of food and well...they are also 10 and haven't grown into the mindset to try other things yet...and we're talking about 18+ year olds here who seem to be even less mature on average than my cousins who are much better with trying new entertainment than trying new foods.

It's sad to see and still sadder to say, but I fell alienated from the discussions over anime that I used to love having (even the tense debates) not even a few years ago and have barely watched any of it out of a lack of appreciation for and a lack of people to discuss it with me on the level I recall having in the early 21st century. My best friends who watched anime and discussed it on the old Anime Academy website up until even a few years out of high school (circa 2005-2006 we are talking) can barely find an interest in it anymore as well since I am essentially their only source of point to point and on the level discussion about the actual shows content and canon that they remember from our discussions in the hall before class in high school. Lately I'm starting to wonder if I've now outgrown the level of discussion to be had in the average anime forum as well.

Speaking of age and maturity, the people that have been fans since at least high school and who are in their mid 20's typically seem to be okay and open minded people to talk with, but even this demographic seems to be getting more aggressive and susceptible to engaging in and provoking the same kind of discussion quality one might find on 4chan's /a subforum by the year (see anime blogs and such for an example). People who are younger and obviously pretty impressionable....I wouldn't want them being molded by the current environment I am seeing now, but I'm not sure it isn't already too late for them.

Anyway I really don't know what to think, so I'll let other people chime in with how they feel. I promise I'm not trying to start a tiff between younger and older posters or trying to start a war of tastes, I'm just genuinely curious if people think the anime fanbase has gotten dumber or at least fallen out of touch with the enjoyment of anime itself as I fell I have witnessed.