1
Honestly, most Youtubers deserve to be labelled grifters.
Always with clickbait thumbnails and titles made to get your attention for long videos with lies and errors, for people to put up as background noise while they do something else and then occasional sponsors for Raid Shadow Legends or whatever.
The game was rigged for years but the meta keeps changing.
For example, we used to have “Top 10 X of all time” but now we have videos called “Every BANNED Book Ever In 15 Minutes” where they only talk about some, obviously not all books (And sometimes, they make follow up videos with the exact same title but instead it’s 16 minutes, so they don’t even call it “part 2”).
I also heard about a video called “I watched every anime ever for 9 years” and it’s untrustworthy for obvious reasons.
Some few people already sacrificed their time to watch it and already pointed out errors, lies and ignorant opinions.
Because there’s always going to be others that uses these Youtubers as authorities instead of watching things on their own.
Actually, now I recall the “Anime Encyclopedia” book that also had ton of errors.
2
Something to think about is the differences between “otaku” and “weeb”
One is Japanese and is mostly about heavy passion and sometimes obsession.
The other is of American origin and comes from a made up word in a webcomic, that people used to mock anime fans before it was shortened to “weeb” and “reclaimed”.
Because a term you sometimes see is “ironic weeb” and you wonder: Isn’t the word “weeb” technically rooted in irony or self-loathing considering its origins?
(Even a weird like “waifu” is somewhat based on making fun of a Japanese accent and pronouncing the word “wife”).
Because you can’t say “ironic otaku” given the context behind it.
Like, anime/manga fan culture has this specific history/side of self-deprecating and irony, which mostly comes from the Western side.
And it’s mainly because USA is like the “main” country of the world, the one that decides where things go and is why we all speak their version of English.
So even if anime and manga is bigger to some people that Western animation/comics, certain Western mindsets still get in the way.
3
On the subject of comparing anime/manga and Western cartoons/comic, I was wondering about a Western equivalent of Evangelion, at least with its actual message and themes.
Since there’s the history of Evangelion being seen as “anti-anime” or against its own medium (Even though Anno is a huge otaku himself) when the message was more about making sure you have real connections with people.
(ME!ME!ME! was a similar case too in terms of “media literacy” discussions and its themes).
But back on the “Western Evangelion” talk:
On one hand: Imagine a show that is what people think Evangelion is, with messages about “ESCAPISM BAD, FANSERVICE BAD, NERD SHIT BAD” or something.
Then I recall Rooster Teeth making their own mech show and I think there was an episode where they said “other mech shows are propaganda” or something really dumb.
Like an actual show that shits on the genre it’s influenced by.
On another: Imagine a show with messages about how you need real connections but people twist it as “FANDOM BAD, ENJOYING MEDIA BAD” and start harrassing the creators.
Like someone makes an interesting show with a well meaning message in hopes people relate to it but instead, they get attacked on social media and even death threats.
I recall an indie game in like 2017 or something with a cyberpunk setting and a message about people being too deep in media and some people were actually mad at the game.
(I guess there’s some irony of people being protective enough of fandom culture to be mad at anything that slightly challenges the idea yet still participate in ironic memes and occasional self-depcrecation/self-consciousness over their fandom interests).