This thread continues to be relevant.
Doesn't anyone feel a bit of irony when people who say that they are anime fans but then make derogatory generalizations about another anime fandom group that are resounding similar to the stereotypes put on by non-fans that attempt to generalize all of anime? I must say I think of ANN when it comes to this, but can't say they didn't deserve such a distinction.
I think it's because anime is a niche form of entertainment, and then people have a goal of bringing it to the mainstream. While this is a noble goal, it does feel like it frequently involves so much exclusion that it would force people to tend towards other conventional tastes, and I'll just say one must be careful of what one wishes for. One wants to be like "well, derp, anime is just as good as other forms of entertainment!"
For example, some people think anime is all porn and big boobs. So down with ecchi! It's the plague that serves as the #1 block to acceptance or some shit. Though not all anime is ecchi, and honestly society being too prudish to accept sexuality seems like a problem with itself.
Or the infamous lolicon/pedo accusations, frequently from moral pundits. We must artificially increase the characters' ages so it somehow makes it all better like they do in practically every eroge! And then they try to pass laws protecting fictional children while doing nothing about protecting actual people. Never mind that lolis don't actually resemble children, anime teenagers don't resemble actual teenagers and anime characters aren't actually people like us. Or one doesn't understand the more extreme version of Dawson Casting. Then again fools will believe playing a FPS encourages people to start murdering, so...
And then the whole weeaboo insult. Nobody wants to be called one, and obviously they are a lower form of life or something. Yes, it's insulting to take superficial aspects of culture and try to reenact them in a butchered fashion, but then again the idea that one shouldn't take on aspects of another culture just because they are not that race, seems umm... sorta racist. In any case, anyone that uses the term seriously is pretty silly.
Then again, there's nothing wrong with disliking any of this. It's just not good to be like "well, I like great anime, but those deviants are ruining it!" It's fine to say this trend is doing anime a bad name or whatnot, but fan hating does nothing, as anyone who's learned the concept of divide and conquer would know. My point is, you're not doing any good by creating additional fractures in an already marginalized group.
Though I do understand it's not easy. It'll take years for any progress to be made. I live ina country that finds exploding heads less offensive than naked people, after all. Of course, the more anime titles popping up at Fry's or whatnot that aren't hentai tend to be encouraging. Or the fact that they're even daring to sell hentai.
