There’s a weird fixation on anime and manga being labeled as inherently bad, bordering to a small scale moral panic, among english-speaking internet socialists.
Possibly, same as the whole age of consent stuff, because libertarians and adjacent ideologies are infamously defensive of the worst aspects in both these things.
I agree, but I think it’s primarily driven by how accepted certain content unique to the medium is online. If weebs were just as mortified by the existence of simulated CP as we are then things would be different, but they’re all seemingly super into it, which heightens our own feelings of disgust and makes people want to paint the whole medium as being that way.
1- The good discussion to be had is drawn out by the nature of HB as a “dunk” site. In general a large percentage of people come here to be “morally outraged”. I certainly engaged with this in the past so I’m not being cynical here. But with regards to anime, it is the lowest of the low hanging fruits. Weebs are pretty much adjacent to gamers and public enemy #1 of the online left, for some very good reasons of course, nobody is stupid or blind.
To be clear there is very little to defend about these communities, specially someone that self-identify as a “Gamer” or “Weeb”.
But people are very eager to take the shortest path to guilty by association arguments. “Oh you watch anime in 2024? Certainly you like the absolute bottom of the barrel trash incest anime from 2011!”
Either you enjoy the party approved treat or else its the gulag. But the actual irony is a lot of people here have consumed and will continue to consume games, western TV shows, the occasional capeshit etc. Nobody is actually willing to give up their treats, but everyone is certainly willing to police each other. Why? because its the fate of the western left realy. We are not organized, we’re not politically active, but in the struggle to find any meaning or any change, its easy to attach to the simplest cause at hand because very often its the only cause we can actually organize towards.
Social media activism is one of the strongest forms of liberalism.
2-I certainly had my hate for Hasan in the past, but one of the things I like about him is he is very much upfront with the no ethical consumption shit. He will say “yeah I go to Japan, Yeah I watch One Piece or whatever other popular show I like, yeah I play games, yeah I watch TV…” Is he correct? Maybe not 100% but certainly he is not wrong, we know that when people criticize leftists habits they’re always hypocrites, chuds complain about woke but they’re also consuming just as much etc.
Engaging in treat wars is not productive because its hypocritical.
“Oh you’re not living on some dirty shack drinking vodka and watching old USSR movies from 1965? YOU’RE DOING SOCIALISM WRONG”. Hasan dunks on that constantly and he does it well imo.
The western left does not need to keep hearing “no ethical consumption” because it gets taken as “nobody bears any responsibility, and you shouldn’t bother trying to make things better”
I agree, there’s a lot of moralism going around - you are bad if you do [x] and you are bad if you don’t let me do [y].
People thinking they’re the more righteous in the tiny culture war, and also partially blaming the people lacking good morals as the reason why the left is failing in the west - be it because they watch anime, refuse to, or [insert x thing that non-western leftists are supposedly or actually innocent of]
There’s a weird fixation on anime and manga being labeled as inherently bad, bordering to a small scale moral panic, among english-speaking internet socialists.
Possibly, same as the whole age of consent stuff, because libertarians and adjacent ideologies are infamously defensive of the worst aspects in both these things.
I agree, but I think it’s primarily driven by how accepted certain content unique to the medium is online. If weebs were just as mortified by the existence of simulated CP as we are then things would be different, but they’re all seemingly super into it, which heightens our own feelings of disgust and makes people want to paint the whole medium as being that way.
My take would be quite long but just two things:
1- The good discussion to be had is drawn out by the nature of HB as a “dunk” site. In general a large percentage of people come here to be “morally outraged”. I certainly engaged with this in the past so I’m not being cynical here. But with regards to anime, it is the lowest of the low hanging fruits. Weebs are pretty much adjacent to gamers and public enemy #1 of the online left, for some very good reasons of course, nobody is stupid or blind.
To be clear there is very little to defend about these communities, specially someone that self-identify as a “Gamer” or “Weeb”.
But people are very eager to take the shortest path to guilty by association arguments. “Oh you watch anime in 2024? Certainly you like the absolute bottom of the barrel trash incest anime from 2011!”
Either you enjoy the party approved treat or else its the gulag. But the actual irony is a lot of people here have consumed and will continue to consume games, western TV shows, the occasional capeshit etc. Nobody is actually willing to give up their treats, but everyone is certainly willing to police each other. Why? because its the fate of the western left realy. We are not organized, we’re not politically active, but in the struggle to find any meaning or any change, its easy to attach to the simplest cause at hand because very often its the only cause we can actually organize towards.
Social media activism is one of the strongest forms of liberalism.
2-I certainly had my hate for Hasan in the past, but one of the things I like about him is he is very much upfront with the no ethical consumption shit. He will say “yeah I go to Japan, Yeah I watch One Piece or whatever other popular show I like, yeah I play games, yeah I watch TV…” Is he correct? Maybe not 100% but certainly he is not wrong, we know that when people criticize leftists habits they’re always hypocrites, chuds complain about woke but they’re also consuming just as much etc.
Engaging in treat wars is not productive because its hypocritical. “Oh you’re not living on some dirty shack drinking vodka and watching old USSR movies from 1965? YOU’RE DOING SOCIALISM WRONG”. Hasan dunks on that constantly and he does it well imo.
The western left does not need to keep hearing “no ethical consumption” because it gets taken as “nobody bears any responsibility, and you shouldn’t bother trying to make things better”
I agree, there’s a lot of moralism going around - you are bad if you do [x] and you are bad if you don’t let me do [y].
People thinking they’re the more righteous in the tiny culture war, and also partially blaming the people lacking good morals as the reason why the left is failing in the west - be it because they watch anime, refuse to, or [insert x thing that non-western leftists are supposedly or actually innocent of]