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Requiem for a Blogger
--AntiDem, "Wonders In The Darkness"
I recently learned that The Anti-Democracy Activist, AntiDem for short, or Anno Domini as he styled himself in his later years, has died.
I don't idolize actors or singers the way normies do; it means nothing to me that Val Kilmer or Ozzy Osbourne passed away earlier this year. But I do idolize thinkers, and this death hit me harder than usual.
I have been reading AntiDem for over a decade. He was among my top influences; one of my intellectual fathers, alongside Eliezer Yudkowsky, Scott Alexander, Bryan Caplan, and The Dreaded Jim. His writing was beautiful, poetic, and evocative without ever veering into purple prose or melodrama. He was specially good at telling stories, whether they came from his own life, such as his conversion to Christianity and his disappointment with a unicorn, his encounters with other interesting people, such as his memoir of crossplayer Peter Brown and his summary of drinks with his friend Psycho Dish, or a historical tale used as the lead in to some larger political point, such as his account of the Christmas Bullet and his telling of the doomed airline passenger.
AntiDem was a man of faith, and his religious convictions frequently informed his column. In "Down And Out In Christania", he imagined what a truly biblical approach to the welfare state might look like, while in "Femboy and I", his Christian love and compassion for the sinner manifested themselves even as he never stopped hating the sin. This aspect of his writing was especially transformative to me, coming as I did from the New Atheist tradition that held all religion to be primitive nonsense; AntiDem never converted me, but he helped me see that there was much wisdom in the faith of my ancestors.
AntiDem was also an old-school otaku, from back in the day when waifus came in VHS tapes. He had a knack for combining his love of Japanese animation with his culture war positions to create memorable posts, such as "On Homosexuality And Uranus" or "Miyazaki And Human Space". I was already a weeb when I found him, but his knowledge and experience helped to foment my growth and appreciation for the artform. I learned about the precursor to the three-episode rule from "In Which I Determine Whether Friendship Really Is Magic" and I still find myself quoting his explanation for the appeal of anime.
Now I know what he felt when he said goodbye to Rush Limbaugh.
How many of these features are explained by the kind of anime he's talking about being for children? MLP seems to fit the bill despite being made by westoids, whereas something like Akira, uh, does not.
Pat stories where everyone gets along in the end are almost universally children's fodder.. It would be ridiculous for an adult to hate Anna Karenina because it depicts non-intact families.
Let's take a look at some of the most popular anime of all time. We will note the age of the main character, since that is usually the age of the target audience.
This is definitely an older demographic than that of My Little Pony. Most anime is aimed at teenagers, not little kids. And they are not sugar bowls; characters die horribly in all of these shows (except Pokémon). But they still manage to impart uplifting moral messages and present positive role models for both boys and girls.
I'm informed by experts that the ponies in MLP are late teens to early 20s. Having
never watched any of itseen only a single episode over a decade ago, I really can't speak to the moral messages or role models in the show.I'm not sure what kids these days are watching so I can't create a table as comprehensive as yours, and I didn't watch too many cartoons as a teenager. But I do seem to remember watching e.g. Teen Titans as a kid and, besides saddling me with a lifelong appreciation for dark haired women, I have a sense that the show had uplifting moral messages, though after all these years of course I don't remember a single plot point.
They're simultaneously 7, 17 and 27 depending on the needs of the episode. A character might be scared of a thunderstorm during a sleepover, then plan to seduce a member of royalty, then overwhelmed by poorly specified custom orders at work.
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They're 'young adult of indeterminate age'-coded. They're not children, because we have clear examples of what those look like in-universe, and they're not elderly, because we have clear examples of that too.
The reason for the overwhelming popularity of young adults in media is that young adults are really the only group that both have goals they haven't achieved yet, and have the power and energy to drive towards those goals. Biologically speaking, that's naturally early-teenager-to-early-20s territory (obfuscated as that may be in modern times), but can be slightly less (or more) depending on how complicated the thing is and how complex the participant is.
Writing teenagers in particular still lets you get away with immaturity if/as the situation calls for it, so you still have reasonable latitude for character growth while not being constrained by the general lack of drive that typifies people as they get older and more established.
Of course, most of the "they're all over 18" comments for MLP has "so it's OK to look up porn of them" tacitly attached to it. Places that are less neurotic about that have more accurate estimates.
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