I genuinely mean it. I know every anime I like the fandom is just filled with annoying Tumblr/Twitter fans (should I even call them that?). At least a couple years ago I could be in a fandom but not all of it was filled with annoying Tumblr users, there’d be some sane people left. Now it’s like there’s no sane people anymore in fandom. Can there at least be one anime fandom where headcanons and sexuality aren’t forced upon a character?
I recently just got into Trigun and I was browsing Aliexpress for merch and saw a button saying “I watched Trigun and now I’m blonde and transgender” like what the hell does that mean? How does an anime with Christian themes to it attract these types of people? Like get outta here lol.
Idk it just sucks being an anime fan in this current time.
It's a product of fandom as a fashion. there's a significant population of people online that feel like they can't fit in unless they like the same things everyone else does. these are the kinds of people who will wear Kingdom Hearts heartless hoodies despite having never played the games, call themselves massive Tolkien fans despite having never read the books, wear a t-shirt depicting a popular anime character despite having dropped the show, etc etc.
these are the people that journalists are trying to cater to when they insist that games become easy, or that's beloved franchises become ""updated"" for ""modern audiences"". In addition to having no imagination, they can't create new franchises because those new franchises aren't popular and therefore are not fashionable.