Do you really like anime? Or are you simply convincing yourself that you do? Are you sure, deep down, in your heart a fan of a certain show or is the majority of your enjoyment with the show a byproduct of your enjoyment associating with fans of that show? Can you really call yourself a real anime fan if your enjoyment of a particular series is predicated on other people’s enjoyment of that series and your interactions with them?

In other words, how do you tell if you’re a fake anime fan or a real anime fan?

If you cannot justify your enjoyment of a particular anime articulately and without needing the validation of others, are you really a fan? If you cannot imagine life without being part of the anime community and find that your enjoyment of anime is inseparable from the people you share it with, you might want to ask yourself whether you are in it for the right reasons.

It’s not uncommon for people to enter into a community simply because it is popular or because they want to be accepted by others. In fact, this is often the reason why people get into anime in the first place. They see their friends or classmates watching it, they think it looks cool, and they want to be a part of the group. And there’s nothing wrong with that. But the problem arises when people don’t take the time to really understand what it is they’re watching and why they’re enjoying it.

It’s easy to like something because it’s popular. It’s easy to like something because other people like it. But it’s not so easy to like something because you have thought about it deeply and have come to a genuine conclusion that you enjoy it. True enjoyment comes from a place of understanding and appreciation. It comes from looking at something and saying, “This is good.”

Anime is a medium that is rich and deep. It has a lot to offer those who are willing to look for it. But many people don’t bother to look. They just consume whatever is popular at the moment and move on. They never take the time to appreciate the artistry, the story-telling, the characters, or the music. They never stop to think about why they’re enjoying it. They just enjoy it because it’s there and because everyone else is doing it.

This is not to say that you can’t enjoy anime if you don’t understand it. You can still enjoy the show even if you don’t get all the references or in-jokes. But your enjoyment will be shallow. It will be based on the surface level rather than the deep, abiding love that comes from truly understanding and appreciating something.

So, how can you tell if you’re a fake anime fan or a real anime fan? The answer is simple: ask yourself why you like anime. If your answer is anything other than, “I like it because it’s cool” or “I like it because my friends watch it,” then you are probably a real fan. If, on the other hand, you find that you cannot answer the question without reference to other people or to popularity, then you might want to reconsider your fandom.

This blog post was generated with GPT-3.

I’ve touched grasses at the top of mountains, where only goats and marmots live. I’ve touched the grasses under the sea, with all sorts of different colors and textures. I’ve touched luscious grasses from the most fertile of valleys, full of greenery and life.

I’ve touched dry, arid grasses from the most desolate of deserts, devoid of water and blown around by the harshest of winds. I’ve touched grass from all over, different cities, states, countries. I’ve felt their texture around my toes, the blades around my fingertips.

I can tell the difference easily between the blades of Kentucky bluegrass, tall fescue, and zoysia growing in the field not only by color and feel, but by taste. I’ve eaten dandelion, clover, and other grass like plants that grow with the grass.

I’ve plucked wild mushrooms from the grass, sauteed them up, and eaten them. Don’t tell me to touch grass, tell yourself to touch grass. And don’t just touch the grass. You have to be one with the grass, like me.

You have to understand the grass, be the grass, put yourself in the grass’ roots and feel what the grass feels. I’ve touched grass in many different places, in different seasons, when the grass is tall, when it’s short, when it’s green, when it’s brown. I’ve touched grass while it’s growing, I’ve touched it when it’s dead, I’ve touched it at the beginning of its life and at the end of it’s life.

I’ve touched grass with all kinds of animals, I’ve touched grass on land with no animals, I’ve touched it on land with large amounts of animals, I’ve touched it with small amounts of animals, I’ve touched it on land with no animals at all.

I’ve touched grass with different types of people, I’ve touched grass while riding in cars and planes, I’ve touched grass when walking in the snow. I’ve touched it with people I don’t even know, I’ve touched it with people I know, I’ve touched it when alone, I’ve touched it with my family, I’ve touched it with my friends, and I’ve touched it with strangers.

I’ve touched grass on land with different types of people. I’ve touched it while playing sports. I’ve touched it when playing sports and I’ve touched it when not playing sports. I’ve touched it with the very young, I’ve touched it with the very old.

I’ve touched grass in the mountains, and grass in the plains, grass in the oceans, grass in the woods, grass in the snow, grass in the water, grass in the air. I’ve touched grass in a lot of different places, in a lot of different seasons, and different times of the day.

I’ve touched grass while the sun is high, and I’ve touched grass when the sun is low. I’ve touched it in the snow, when the sun is shining, when the sun is going down, when the sun is setting, when the sun is rising.

I’ve touched grass in the daylight, I’ve touched grass in the night, I’ve touched grass when it’s windy, when it’s not windy, when it’s cold, when it’s hot.

I’ve touched grass in the morning, when the sun is shining brightly, when it’s fading, when it’s at sunset.

I’ve touched grass in the spring, when it’s springtime. I’ve touched grass in the summer, when it’s summer. I’ve touched grass in the fall, when it’s fall. I’ve touched grass in the winter, when it’s winter.

I’ve touched grass while it’s green, I’ve touched grass when it’s brown. I’ve touched grass when it’s growing, I’ve touched grass when it’s dead. I’ve touched grass at the beginning of its life, and I’ve touched it at the end of its life.

And I’ve touched it, felt it, understood it, loved it, and hated it.

I’ve touched grass.

There you go.

Certain activities attract certain stereotypes of people. For instance, the main demographic of fishermen tend to be older men who happen to reside in more rural areas. This is not an accident, but rather on purpose. To be able to fish, you require adequate strength, possess the ability to drive yourself, the willingness to be cut and injured, and to be near water which can support wildlife, not something you usually find in large cities. The requirements for participating in this activity select the participants of that activity, as for those individuals the activity has less friction than other activities. It would be difficult to get into fishing if you lived in the Mojave Desert.

I think that the amount of friction preventing or allowing an individual from performing an action drastically affects the likelihood of that action being taken by the individual. Take two people - Alice and Bob. Alice has no tools in her kitchen, while Bob has a fully stocked fridge and all the tools he needs. Bob will be more likely to cook dinner than Alice given all other factors are relatively equal. For Bob, cooking dinner is a simple task as his environment has been set up for less friction for him to cook. However, for Alice, she would have to make trips to the supermarket to purchase tools. The additional mental effort of preparing introduces friction between Alice and her kitchen, making her less likely to use it as much as Bob.

In a sense, the anime community is the same way. The friction of joining the anime community has degraded to a certain point at which anyone can just get into it. It’s never been an easier time to be an anime fan and to be involved in the anime community. Anyone can do it.

And therein lies the issue, that anyone can do it. If there are too many fishermen on a pier, the lines get tangled up. When you cast, you have to worry about hitting people with the line. The pier bans overhead casting and forces participants to underhand cast only. The fish cleaning stations form lines, while the fish rot. The high barrier to entry of fishing ensures the level of participants be enough to ensure each participant is able to enjoy themselves and not have issues doing what they enjoy. The gate is kept by the size of the pier, the dangers of cliff fishing, the price of fishing gear, the parking in the area, and other physical factors that prevent the sport from being too crowded.

Online spaces do not have these physical limitations. There are no limits on how many people can enter. You can’t go to Anitwitter and immediately see that the pier is crowded. But it is, and the impacts can be felt. When the field is so crowded, the most vocal and ideologically aggressive dominate the conversation, and everyone else is kicked out of the deep end of the pier to the shallows. Yet, the most vocal have nothing to contribute, so they converse with each other.

This is the lowest common denominator. Online anime culture spaces, due to their own popularity, ease of access, and lack of gatekeeping, have filled themselves with the lowest common denominator, whose ideology takes over as the dominant thought within the space.

While online spaces do not have physical limitations and can scale to as much as technology will allow, there is a limit to the amount of exposure each single participant in the space can get. Each person can only consume as much media as their time allows. If they permit themselves to consume and propagate content from the lowest common denominator, they will understand nothing but the lowest common denominator. Those who have isolated themselves from this ideology will move to other piers, or take up other sports such as hiking or golf, as the friction from entering the space will have increased due to difference between their perception of the hobby versus the image of the hobby shouted from the lowest common denominator.

Fewer and fewer people are reading books. By books, I mean fiction read for pleasure. You hear articles written all the time about how social media, the internet, TV, radio, telegraphs, and newspapers are ruining the attention span of young adults and how we’re all going to be like the wheelchair people in Wall-E. It seems like every other day another article comes out in the Washington Post or Buzzfeed about how millennials are killing books.

Why do we think reading books for fun is important? It’s not.

In 2018, we have better things to do with our time than read books. The people who drool and circlejerk over “classic” literature fail to realize that as humans have progressed as a society, we’ve grown better at doing stuff. We’re better at running, we’re better at cooking, we’re better at music, and we’re just smarter and superior overall to those hundreds of years ago. A modern high school sports team would have destroyed the competition in the ancient Olympics. We’ve developed technologies and activities that are much more efficient and provide a better return on time investment than those we’ve had in the past.

1984, the book of edgy high schoolers across America, teaches us about the dangers of tyranny while delivering a thriller story. It’s a wonderful book. Just like any edgy high schooler, I too enjoyed the book when I was in high school. It taught the 16 year old me about politics, society, and people. However, it took a few hours and a few hundred pages. High schoolers now can just watch a 3 minute Youtube video about the topics and themes of 1984 and be just as educated.

With the internet, anyone (like me!) can have a voice. Anyone can put anything out on the internet for anyone to read. Books are subject to the whims of the market, the editors, the publishing company, the formats in which they must adhere to, and other miscellaneous factors that ensure maximum readership and profit. Getting a book published is difficult, way more difficult than publishing on Tumblr or hosting your own site on Github for free. We use this self-selection process to say “wow, books must be impressive since they got published.” This is erroneous reasoning.

With the global market of ideas that is the internet, books are simply failing to compete. There’s more interesting stuff in the world than there is in the non-fiction aisle of the library, and with the internet, writings about those things and events can be easily accessed by the common man to consume. These news articles, opinion pieces, blogposts, even social media commentaries are often more concise, provide a better return on investment, and are simply more interesting than some book that became famous because the printing press wasn’t invented yet.

There’s nothing wrong with reading books for pleasure. Getting immersed in a book is fun, and a good book can be a comfortable way to spend an afternoon. But compared to modern media formats, the opportunity cost of reading a book just isn’t very worth it.