The idea of A-culture has been personally familiar to me, as I was one who was interested in the Japanese culture along with anime and games in my younger age. The important thing is, however, it is one thing to call someone an “otaku” just because they enjoy this certain culture to an extent. Though I enjoyed watching anime series and talking about them to my friends, it doesn’t mean I was directly involved with sites such as 4chan, a site I was informed of but didn’t hesitate to close out after a minute of navigating through the site. The idea of generalization comes from this issue, where the article says “The term is associated with shut-ins, the unemployed, and, generally, losers.” The derogatory term and definition of the world is formed in sites such as 4chan and other sites that support anonymity, where as people who enjoy the culture appropriately without causing harm get grouped together with what they call “otakus.”
The statement where Anonymity doesn’t quite exist on famous SNS sites is actually not very accurate. It is not surprising for one to know of such a site and about the ideas of “trolling,” the idea even rooted out to other social sites such as Youtube and twitter, where people make fake accounts to cause hate-based comments and posts. Sometimes, they don’t even hide their identity.
It’s also ironic how most of our well-known memes and trends root from anonymity-based sites. Though viewed as inappropriate and unfavorable, people’s minds and attraction do lead to what comes from sites such as 4chan, as explained in the article with examples of internet trends/memes. The idea of hiding one’s identity and bringing out rather vulgar sides of themselves is alluring at a point, since philosophically speaking, humans can be emotionally weak and are easy to give into temptation of things that they aren’t allowed to do. Internet is the main basis for these things without usually not reaching the term “illegal,” probably an aspect that people should think about at least once when they see themselves getting second hand influence from things that float around the webs.