Real Weeb

Where are the real weebs?

This seems like a dumb question, but it is one I find myself asking to find the core root of a true anime fan. If it wasn’t apparent from the recent trend of calling people LARPers if they are pretending to like weeb stuff, there seems to be a growing rise of discerning the fake clout chasing normies from the true authentic people.

I’d say this really calls into question on the type of people you surround yourself with. While it’s neat that someone has interacted with a piece of media that you like, the need for connection is never really fulfilled when it seems they simply consumed the media without any further afterthought. For example, taking my friends to watch the Chainsaw Man Reze Arc movie revealed to me that there are different levels to the perspectives I can get on the film. One was ecstatic and simply having a grand time just seeing all the spectacle on the screen while the other found it difficult to get invested in the film simply cause the in world “logic” didn’t make sense. Mind you, this was coming from someone who has never watched or read Chainsaw Man at all, so it was somewhat understandable to be confused.

My point here is that people have all sorts of contexts in how and when they interact with a specific piece of media. Not having full context likely diminishes the overall impact of the film, yet the friend who never watched Chainsaw Man at the end of the dicussion liked the movie. I invited him to watch the movie knowing he never knew about Chainsaw Man and wanted to share an experience I was looking forward to. There was no pretense to impress someone (though I may have wanted to show him the insanity of Chainsaw Man) or to aim to fit in with a crowd. It was simply to watch a movie, point out our issues with the film, and share our overall enjoyment.

Contrast that with the internet and the expanding social circle of online communities. There’s a certain level of weight or expectation when you talk or post about any given thing. Like you need to give people an explanation on if you knew about X detail or if you hated Y character. In a sense, it is a natural filter to establish a baseline understanding of the media you are commenting on. On a surface level, I believe this is good as it sets a basic standard for fans to understand so that the media’s appeal or story is not lost on you.

Though, more often than not, this is taken to the extreme and turned into a sort of gatekeeping witch hunt to expose the “fake” fans from the community. It devolves into a sort of game where we aren’t even talking about the media anymore and simply just finding any way to put down a person.

To me, a real fan is one that enjoys a given media and simply attempts to share his or her enjoyment with others. A real weeb though, is one that also finds avenues to express themselves through their enjoyment. You can know every obscure detail, correct anyone’s mistaken perception, and still be doing nothing more than proving to yourself that you’ve “enjoyed” the anime enough to count.

You don’t need to prove to others you’re a real weeb. However, you can only be a real weeb if your sense of being oozes with the energy of the stuff you like. You don’t need to be performative or keep a collection of stuff to show you enjoy anime, but rather by transforming that enjoyment into something that’s yours, and engaging with others through it.

I found that cosplaying is a physical manifestation of this phenomenon. While I admit I don’t know the intricacies that go into forming a proper cosplay, I can appreciate the sheer time and effort it takes to pull off an amazing one. The overly mechanical or complexly built ones easily showcase the craft, but the ones where they act as if they are that character or an extension of them is truly satisfying. However, both are attempts to share their love for that specific character or at the very least the anime it’s from.

This act of sharing is what makes any good cosplay and really any weeb authentic and real. Without it, these displays of interest come off as hollow and it becomes valid to call these people “larpers”. As a lot of people will notice, pretending to fit is now considered a deadly sin in the modern day. This is due to how everyone is yearning for some real connection when all avenues on the internet get increasingly commodified and subsequently fake.

To wrap it up, the real weebs are actually within everyone in the anime community. However, it is only by actively sharing your love (or hate/criticisms) for the stuff you enjoy that you will reveal to others that you are real. It is not through taking an anime trivia quiz or through collecting stuff to prove you like anime. The connection will come through the active efforts of reaching outward.