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PaperclipPerfector  1d ago (text post)   6291 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 20, 2026

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Last week anime culture war news was rather unwelcome here, so it is time for another.

The topic of last week xitter storm was anime.

Is anime weird? If so, what should parents do to make sure their kids never watch anime and become normal members of the crowd?

Fitting with the crowd as end in itself was always seen as moral duty in small c conservative tradition, nothing unusual with it.

There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it. His parents called him Eustace Clarence and masters called him Scrubb. I can't tell you how his friends spoke to him, for he had none. He didn't call his Father and Mother "Father" and "Mother", but Harold and Alberta. They were very up-to-date and advanced people. They were vegetarians, non- smokers and teetotallers and wore a special kind of underclothes. In their house there was very little furniture and very few clothes on the beds and the windows were always open.

It is clear who the bad people are and why they are bad.

Nevertheless, massive arguments for and against torn xitter asunder and joined with even bigger arguments whether normie existence in 2020's North America is really something you should strive for or whether much better, happier, nobler and more fulfilling life can be found elsewhere.

If you examine all parts of normie life, from such basics as school, regular employnment, transportation or house building and find this is worthwhile prize, and then find out that your kid is not normie, you should indeed tell them:

"For your whole life, you will live as undercover agent in enemy territory. As Otto von Stierlitz had to pass as Nazi, you must learn how to pass as normie."

(using Eastern archetype here, in Western culture heroes are men of action facing adversity directly and challenging enemy in honorable combat, not sus characters skulking in shadows)

But parents are usually extremely bad judges what is "weird" and what isn't. They remember what was normal and what wasn't in high school in early 1980's, and are unable to comprehend that times are changing. And this is the problem barely noticed, the problem that makes this whole discourse waste of time.

I suppose I'm on team "let kids have interests." Probably because that's the kind of attitude my parents took towards me and it seems to have worked out fine. Some of my interest in nerdier things came from my parents! I played Everquest with my father, step-mother, and brother back in the day. I watched anime on "normie" television like Toonami and Adult Swim. I read a lot of big fantasy door stoppers when I was young.

I think "anime" is the wrong level of abstraction for useful analysis. Like saying "books" or "fantasy." Are there works in any genre or medium it would be inappropriate to expose children to? Yea certainly. Are there works in any genre or medium it would be fine to expose children to? I think mostly yes. Certainly, there are child-appropriate anime. People in this thread have mentioned some. There's a certain kind of obsessive fandom that it is probably unhealthy to develop but you don't need anime for that (c.f. Harry Potter, Star Wars, Star Trek).

On the more general question of "fitting in" as something abstractly desirable or that parent's ought to enforce I think it also depends. What are they being asked to fit in to? If it were normal to watch anime would the anti-anime crowd force their kids to watch anime so that they fit in? At least when I was growing up it was common for my parents to denigrate the idea of following what was popular just because it was popular. "If all your friends jumped off a bridge, would you?" was a common rhetorical question.

"For your whole life, you will live as undercover agent in enemy territory. As Otto von Stierlitz had to pass as Nazi, you must learn how to pass as normie."

I guess two points.

1. I am confident it is easier today than ever in history to find and make friends who happen to share your niche interests. Indeed, it seems like part of the anxiety about having "weird" kids is that they will have friends who are also "weird."

2. I am also confident everyone does this sometimes. I find it extremely unlikely any significant fraction of people spend all their time around people who have all the same hobbies and interests.

I suppose I'm on team "let kids have interests." Probably because that's the kind of attitude my parents took towards me and it seems to have worked out fine.

This is overly simplistic. Let kids have interests, unless those interests are truly beyond the pale. Everyquest, Star Trek, soccer, whatever. But not toasterfucking.

And indeed I think it's worthwhile for parents to teach children where appreciating something begins and where it ends up into fandom.

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