Why are most anime fans/weebs some of the worst people you can run into online?

[Rubybro]

Before anyone assumes this is a direct attack or targets me unfairly, let me clarify: this isn't aimed at anyone on Mechatalk specifically. These are just my personal experiences.

I've often struggled to understand why some anime fans and enthusiasts come across as incoherent or immature in their behavior. Many seem more interested in playing social games and shitposting than genuinely engaging with the medium they claim to enjoy. They might watch an episode or two of a popular series, label themselves hardcore fans, and then form cliques that prioritize power dynamics over meaningful discussion.

On platforms like Discord, Reddit, Twitch, or even other smaller forums similar in size to Mechatalk, this behavior can escalate into disruptive power trips, often fracturing communities rather than fostering connection. In extreme cases, some even misuse their positions in ways that harm others, which is deeply concerning. Its also why most traditional forums and imageboards are dead. Primarily due to poor moderation practices where some jannies ban everyone on a whim while the owner doesn't care or also participates in abusing moderator privileges. While of course giving off lipservice that a problem immediately solvable within 24 hours like removing powertripping assholes from janny positions who are actively killing their userbase was completely unpreventable and inevitable. Instead of the owners just saying they were done with a community and moving on.

Outside of Mechatalk, my attempts at having thoughtful conversations with other anime fans have often fallen flat. They frequently derail into arguments or unnecessary hostility, with people demanding punitive action against me simply for sharing a different opinion.

[Seto Kaiba]

I've often struggled to understand why some anime fans and enthusiasts come across as incoherent or immature in their behavior. Many seem more interested in playing social games and shitposting than genuinely engaging with the medium they claim to enjoy. They might watch an episode or two of a popular series, label themselves hardcore fans, and then form cliques that prioritize power dynamics over meaningful discussion.

Given the loaded terminology you're using here, and what an honest answer to it necessarily entails, I was hesitant to sit down and write any kind of reply to this... but what the hell.

To be candid, I think the problem likely lies a bit closer to home than the conduct of the fan community as a whole.

Based on what you've written here and in other topics, my understanding of what you expect in a fan community is something more along the lines of a collegiate literature or film appreciation class with a strong focus on analysis and criticism. That's not normal fan behavior. That's the territory of a "superfan"... or at least a very niche liberal arts professorship. There are fan communities within many fandoms that are like that, but they tend to be small, insular, and very opinionated. Normal fan communities are more like a very casual book club, and are as much about having fun with and getting to know other fans as they are about discussing the actual subject matter. "Shitposting" and memes are just the modern embodiment of the in-jokes that used to be exchanged verbally at conventions, printed in fan magazines, or just graffitied on the walls of sporting venues and bathroom stalls. Sharing those in-jokes is a part of fostering connections between fans, as much as learning them is a part of becoming a fan.

Anime fandom in particular has always been extremely strange and prone to some quite bizarre humor. That's not even a western fan thing, old Japanese anime fanzines are a borderline acid trip half the time when they start joking about a series, its creators, its characters, etc. That fans aren't conducting discussions with grim seriousness is pretty well expected. Even the creators of the shows don't take their work THAT seriously.

On platforms like Discord, Reddit, Twitch, or even other smaller forums similar in size to Mechatalk, this behavior can escalate into disruptive power trips, often fracturing communities rather than fostering connection. In extreme cases, some even misuse their positions in ways that harm others, which is deeply concerning.

This is often a matter of perspective. There are inevitably some communities where a badly behaved moderator or two may use their authority in a way outside of strictly enforcing the rules. There are also a lot more accusations of this than actual cases of it, since the people breaking the rules sometimes choose to perceive the consequences of their actions as persecution rather than a response specifically to their actions.

Its also why most traditional forums and imageboards are dead.

No, what killed traditional forums and imageboards is that social media is way more accessible and user-friendly.

Creating a Facebook group, a Discord channel, or a subreddit requires little-to-no technical knowledge unless you intend to expand the community's featureset beyond the basics. It also typically has the great virtue of being free of charge on most social media services. It also has access to that social media site's entire userbase, so it's easier for fans to find those communities.

Creating a fansite with its own forum or image board requires, first and foremost, having someone willing to put in the money and the work to create and maintain that fansite. They have to be willing to pony up to buy a domain name and web hosting package, to design a website or pay more for a content management system, and know enough to set up and maintain that CMS and forums/imageboards on the server and maintain it indefinitely. Few people are willing to pay hundreds of out of pocket every year to create and maintain an online community for other people without having any commercial aspirations for it. Those privately hosted communities became the norm in the late 90's and early 00's because using them was easier and more intuitive than Usenet newsgroups, and they were ultimately ousted by an even more user-friendly solution.

Outside of Mechatalk, my attempts at having thoughtful conversations with other anime fans have often fallen flat. They frequently derail into arguments or unnecessary hostility, with people demanding punitive action against me simply for sharing a different opinion.

Candidly, as I indicated back at the start, I suspect this may have a lot more to do with you and your approach than anything actually wrong with the fan communities themselves. The title alone suggests you hold many of your fellow fans in contempt, and that's probably coloring your interactions with them quite a bit.

[Mafty]

Seto Kaiba wrote"Anime fandom in particular has always been extremely strange and prone to some quite bizarre humor. That's not even a western fan thing, old Japanese anime fanzines are a borderline acid trip half the time when they start joking about a series, its creators, its characters, etc. That fans aren't conducting discussions with grim seriousness is pretty well expected. Even the creators of the shows don't take their work THAT seriously.

Definitly, Even some offical anime magazines had some rather bizzare content. There were some 80s manga magazines that had The White Base crew having a New Years Eve gathering where Bright gets comically drunk on Sake, theres another panel where Chrico from Votoms and several other mech pilots dance in their underwear, as well as a slaptick comic where Judau whacks Glemmy and is in turn whacked by Haman.

And that's without getting into the very weird offical Dorvack summer video.

[Seto Kaiba]

Definitly, Even some offical anime magazines had some rather bizzare content. There were some 80s manga magazines that had The White Base crew having a New Years Eve gathering where Bright gets comically drunk on Sake, theres another panel where Chrico from Votoms and several other mech pilots dance in their underwear, as well as a slaptick comic where Judau whacks Glemmy and is in turn whacked by Haman.

And that's without getting into the very weird offical Dorvack summer video.

Oh yeah, in an age where so very many anime production staffers started out as fans themselves there's a lot of official weird humor out there too... some of which from the same people who were previously sharing their incredibly bizarre humor in fanzines.

Macross's creators used to write for a Gundam fanzine called Gunsight, which had its fair share of weird humor, but also continued to include weird humor and other strange content even in even Macross's own official publications. Stuff like fan art from other titles (incl. Star Wars, Gundam), doodles of characters and mecha behaving badly (like GERWALK mode Valkyries behaving like birds, Boddole Zer trying to defend himself from Hikaru's Valkyrie using bug spray, or Milia putting her Queadluun in a pinup girl pose), caricatures of fellow staff members that are playing with characters or ships like marionettes/handpuppets, or drawings of the publisher keeping the lead writer on a literal leash.

They've subsequently let that interesting sense of humor creep into official works, with Macross Frontier having had an office comedy side ONA and a bunch of albums where the most unlikely pairings of characters cover hit songs from past shows (hearing Grace and Leon cover "Zero G Love" is truly something to behold, esp. paired with the album art that shows them playing Old Maid together in the booth... with Grace cheating using her implants.) Macross Delta threw in an omake into the home video release which includes things like the villains goofing off together in a style reminiscent of Cromartie High School.

That's not even really limited to anime, either. Star Trek: Lowers Decks is basically a monument to all of the various in-jokes and running gags in fan magazines like Star Trek Fan Clubs or Star Trek Communicator. Whole episodes have been devoted to some of those running jokes, like the "was what Janeway did to Tuvix murder?" question, Harry Kim being an ensign forever, or the way characters fanboy over characters from previous shows in-story.

[Rubybro]

I understand that you're trying to minimize the issues I've mentioned here, but it doesn't change the fact that moderator abuse is a real problem that shouldn't be swept under the rug. It's not about me "deserving it" or my perception about it. it's about the way moderation should be fair, transparent, and consistent.

Dismissing my experiences as a personal flaw only sidesteps the actual issue here, which is biased behavior that affects online communities as a whole. I’m not the problem, and I’m not the one trying to impose power dynamics on others. I’m simply advocating for a better environment where people are treated fairly and aren't at the mercy of petty internet tyrants who just want to go on powertrips and give their friends special privileges over other users to the detriment of a community. Not to mention it being well researched that people actually do take their own lives over this shit.

You may not take it seriously because you might not have experienced it nearly as often, but I have. There is nothing worse than approaching a fandom in good faith just to be met with random arbitrary ban hammers for "Spamming" or no stated reason at all despite making maybe a handful of posts at most over the course of a few weeks at a time.

[Seto Kaiba]

I understand that you're trying to minimize the issues I've mentioned here, but it doesn't change the fact that moderator abuse is a real problem that shouldn't be swept under the rug. It's not about me "deserving it" or my perception about it. it's about the way moderation should be fair, transparent, and consistent.

Oh, I'm not minimizing the issue... I'm just acknowledging the fundamental reality that accusations of moderator misconduct and unfairness are vastly more common than actual, verifiable cases of same. The simple reason being that many of the accusations come from people who were not treated unfairly, but lack the self-awareness to understand that their conduct was in violation of the community rules or are just unable to accept the rules apply to them as much to anyone else.

I've seen this issue from all sides over the years, having been a member of many fan communities as well as a moderator on several and currently an admin of several fansite projects. I've actually seen, up close, two legitimate cases of moderators destroying fan communities by abusing their mod powers. But most of the accusations of such that I've seen with my own eyes have been people who simply don't understand or want to accept that they got punished for breaking the rules.

Spoiler

The one case I often get asked about is the death of Robotech.com, the official website of the Robotech series. It had a small but fairly active fan community from the time of its launch in 2001 until about 2008. That thriving fan community was done in by two volunteer moderators in the US who were trying to curry favor with the show's owner Harmony Gold in the hopes of landing a job there and working on the series itself. They freaked out when the fan reception of Robotech's then-new direct-to-video "movie" (actually the first episode of a cancelled OVA) Robotech: the Shadow Chronicles was overwhelmingly negative. Their attempt to quash criticism of it for fear that it would hurt the franchise's future prospects (a not-unreasonable fear, as it turned out, but the series was already past the point of no return) turned into a mass banning when they decided that non-constructive criticism of the film in any form constituted a personal attack on Harmony Gold staff. Within a couple months, they'd effectively depopulated the entire community but for a few particularly stubborn fans.

(Ironically, the movie was SO bad and the moderator reaction SO comically over-the-top that many fans (myself included) wear having been banned from the site for criticizing the movie as a badge of honor.)

Dismissing my experiences as a personal flaw only sidesteps the actual issue here, which is biased behavior that affects online communities as a whole. I’m not the problem, and I’m not the one trying to impose power dynamics on others. I’m simply advocating for a better environment where people are treated fairly and aren't at the mercy of petty internet tyrants who just want to go on powertrips and give their friends special privileges over other users to the detriment of a community. Not to mention it being well researched that people actually do take their own lives over this shit.

As mentioned above, the thing with that is that most communities do treat people well and fairly.

Disruptive community members often don't want to admit, or lack the self-awareness to understand, when they're being disruptive in the moment and will often mistake the consequences of their behavior for unfairness.

Given what you've said and what I've seen of your posts here, I do have to say I'm inclined to suspect you may be running into issues on communities elsewhere because you have very different expectations of the community than other users and you do come off as quite judgemental over it. That's going to get you in hot water in a lot of places.

You may not take it seriously because you might not have experienced it nearly as often, but I have. There is nothing worse than approaching a fandom in good faith just to be met with random arbitrary ban hammers for "Spamming" or no stated reason at all despite making maybe a handful of posts at most over the course of a few weeks at a time.

If you're seeing this kind of thing a LOT, that is a strong argument that as the common denominator in those situations you may be partly or wholly at fault and that those bans aren't quite so arbitrary after all.

After all, look at how you chose to frame this here. You chose to open by deriding "most" anime fans as the worst people you'll ever run into online. If your start is to suggest that everyone else is the problem, that doesn't augur well for your ability to assess the situation objectively.

[MythSearcher]

I understand that you're trying to minimize the issues I've mentioned here, but it doesn't change the fact that moderator abuse is a real problem that shouldn't be swept under the rug. It's not about me "deserving it" or my perception about it. it's about the way moderation should be fair, transparent, and consistent.

Dismissing my experiences as a personal flaw only sidesteps the actual issue here, which is biased behavior that affects online communities as a whole. I’m not the problem, and I’m not the one trying to impose power dynamics on others. I’m simply advocating for a better environment where people are treated fairly and aren't at the mercy of petty internet tyrants who just want to go on powertrips and give their friends special privileges over other users to the detriment of a community. Not to mention it being well researched that people actually do take their own lives over this shit.

You may not take it seriously because you might not have experienced it nearly as often, but I have. There is nothing worse than approaching a fandom in good faith just to be met with random arbitrary ban hammers for "Spamming" or no stated reason at all despite making maybe a handful of posts at most over the course of a few weeks at a time.

Let me put it this way.
I was a moderator for the largest traditional Chinese forum's Gundam board for 20 years, generally I am pretty favoured by the members and I very seldom ban people other than lock or delete some posts. There are some very disruptive people that will keep attacking others and those would be banned for a week to 3 months, depending on the seriousness.(like racial comments and copyright infringements are taken very seriously, and only repeated offenders will be banned for more than a month.) I will lift the ban if they asked nicely.
That's just establishing my expertise on the subject.

I started a Discord server by request of the active members, about 400 of them voiced out, 2 years on and I only banned spamming accounts.

If you want the story before continuing back to the main topic:

Spoiler

There were very strong opinion against me from those people on other boards of that forum. They will claim there are being treated unfairly, I was helping the "other side" of their arguments(when obviously both sides who participated in wars and personal attacks will all be warned and if continued ignoring the warnings, both be deleted and only banned if they kept the flame wars on going after being deleted.) And sadly, the paid admin group of the forum are more on their side because the board those who cannot fit into any specific topic boards commonly dwell in the general chat board, where they have the highest member count on the forum(average of about 2 million visitors a day vs average of about 60k a day for Gundam board, and Gundam board was top 3 of the anime boards and usually only just losing to One Piece(average 100k a day), the online game boards are the highest topic specific boards and iirc the top 3 have about 200~300k on average.
The forum's structure was built very early and started as a telnet BBS, until about 15 years ago the BBS can still be accessed from a webpage but now can only be accessed through telnet. The forum structure was from about 25 years ago, you can have only 1 moderator and 6 sub mods. There's no moderators for the general chat board because it is impossible to manage as you can guess. They want the member count for commercial reasons, completely ignoring the topic boards are the ones attracting companies to sponsor.

The admins are paid employees of the forum's company, the one in charge was pretty much inexperience even though she was there 25 years ago as admin, she never cared about board management and think of herself more as the company CEO than forum admin. Her management style is to feint ignorance and pretend she's nice to everyone, but obviously thought of the volunteered moderators are all idiots and everyone are power grabbing bastards, just like her. She's basically a board member of the company and second only to the owner(but not his wife), but the owner took a step back a long time ago and seldom appear any more.
About 2 years ago one of the admins who has his origins from the general board ordered me to scrap one of my sub mods and change my "overly complicated rules"(which, in gist, is only about 1/4 of the forum rules and half of it is to tell people to respect others and don't infringe copyrights) because it is too hard to understand and can be utilised freely to randomly ban members.(The rules here and mostly just in most reasonable places are pretty much the same as what I had.) or I can no longer be mod. The sub mod originally wanted to quit anyway(heck, I also wanted to quit all along, my reason for being mod was because the last mod was leaving and no one was willing to take up the seat and I was one of the 2 sub mods, I actually have a thread pinned saying whoever wanted to be mod please take my place from day 1.) but the reason for that order is plainly unjust. Someone's post got deleted and banned for a week by that sub mod, for copyright infringement(posting a youtube link that has videos of Gundam anime in it and not Gundam info's official channel), the person appealed claiming the video he post doesn't infringe copyright and he didn't know the channel was infringing copyright. I lifted the ban assuming good faith, but another member went to the admin board to ask whether this is justified, not even a complain but just a general question on copyright law. The admin that came to order me to scrap my sub mod basically jumped to the occasion because he had a grudge with the sub mod(before being admin got banned a few times in another board by that sub mod because of behavioural problems that clearly broke rules like personal attacks), so I asked the admin in charge, which also happened to have a grudge with the sub mod(because he basically was the one having power close to her level and friends with the previous admin I/C.) explaint to her that the board uses a tactics called good cop bad cop, where that sub mod will be strict and me as the person in charge there will de-escalate things and be the listening one. She didn't listen at all and said the admin has all the power to do whatever they think is appropriate and the sub mod is the one think he can do whatever he like(I mean, she's pretty hypocritical there). Since no one was willing to pick up the job and the other sub mod was the previous mod so he will also not take up the job, I agreed to scrap the sub mod and change the rules, and the admin I/C actually agreed to my plan to just use the forum general rules so there will be no misunderstanding and there's no controversy about it saying I can just make up my own rules to ban people.
Well, I did that and another admin came and say I cannot use the forum general rules and board rules because then there would be no use of board mods. Yeah, that admin was also a friend of the general chat board and basically just power grabbing. I told him/her that was agreed upon by the admin I/C and s/he insisted.(sorry, this one I don't know enough what gender) The admin I/C was called and again feint ignorance and claim the admin has the power to order me to change the rules. I got frustrated and contact this admin and said if they have anyone they want to plant to be mod, just tell him/her to contact me and I will hand over. This obviously triggered that admin and s/he started all sorts of personal attack in the private message(very likely I got it right that they have some friend who wanted to be mod and they decided to do it the long way around instead of just asking, probably those two admins just wanted to play the power game instead) Then the admin I/C claimed that I have to leave in 7 days or be kicked. I posted a statement saying I was leaving because of admin's order and then all hell broke lose. Board members started to question the admins, and then some of the general chat board members rushed in to try to turn the tide and flood the board with posts claiming I was a tyrant, they actually tried to launch a campaign crossing into other larger Chinese forums to discredit me, though I do have some level of reputation in the Chinese Gundam community and those failed miserably.
The admin I/C then stepped in and claimed that I should not have led a misinformation campaign and make myself look like the good guy, I asked if she agreed to publicise all of the private messages, which she agreed. I posted the messages, she got some members in to try to turn the tide by discrediting my, one of them actually claimed he got some unjust ban 13 years ago just because he talked about Evangelion in one post(which stupid enough because there's actually still records of his personal attacks and copyright infringements as deleted messages and the ban reason(unfortunately for him, back then ban records has to be publicised and announced) basically every single person who voiced for the admins were very controversial and disrupting members on various boards. Some tried to pretend to be more neutral and claimed what I should've done to avoid the situation by "reading all of the private messages", but when pointed out I have done exactly that in a particularly early message with the admins, had nothing to say any more. They also claim I was just clinging to power, I showed them the post asking for someone to replace me dating 20 years ago and they either shut up or kept claiming there will be someone replacing me as soon as I left and no body tried just because there's no vacancy.

Since I left no one took up the post, with pretty chaotic results where those who claim they have always behaved and was on the admin side all the time started attacking everyone who wanted to hold logical and reasonable discussions. One of them probably was the one who started all this and should have been planted by the admin but the admin can't do it now after all that, actually got banned by a fairly old admin that was not involved in the controversy within a week, got released by one of the admins that wanted me out, but within a day another admin that was also not involved took screen shoots of that person cursing in flame wars in multiple threads and blackmailing people and with that clear of an evidence he was banned for 3 months on the board without any moderator. Until a year later someone who liked my style of moderation applied, used my old rules (but reformatted them so it doesn't immediately look like it to prevent controversy from those aggressive members claiming him to be planted by me. I don't know this person and haven't heard of him before, just that he came and asked for advice and if he can use my rules.)

Now, from my experience, the simplest way to moderate a board is to use as little of your power as possible. Every time you use your extra powers you lose some hard earned respect. Of course in some situations you can only earn respect by using the power, but caution is always needed. BTW, this view was hold by the two late but well respected monarchs of modern times, Queen Elizabeth II and the Thailand Rama IX.

Trolls don't like to be banned, they will never think they are wrong and hold a grudge for decades to come. Perm bans never do much because they can just start a new account.

Instead, you try to talk sense into them openly, if that fails, don't mind, others will respect you for that. Maintain an environment where members like to have logical and grounded discussions, post such threads and nudge discussion to that direction. I don't care if they leave short threads with little to discuss, they can go off topic as long as it is following the flow of the discussions. I ban "I like X", "X is most powerful" threads, but if you can write reasons supporting it I won't care, and will only lock the thread if it devolves to people just replying single sentences calling out their favourite character/mecha or flame war on power scaling. And real life politics(if it has nothing to do with the topic) Some times jokingly say that I will have to use my initial D slash on the thread if they gone too off topic but never actually deleting their posts.

Yes, I maintained a pretty good environment for pretty long, but the effort put in is much more than you might expect.
When I started as sub mod, the first year I was pretty much the opposite of what I am now.
I stick to the rules, deleted everything that went slightly out of line like a machine, almost always online(I was in college and had a lot of "free" time). To most members my presence then was probably much more than now. Another later joined sub mod that went even stricter than I do so I took a step back, which was when I realised that isn't really the way to do things. You can rule with an iron fist, but your can't win respect with it. This is not a authoritarian country, people can just leave. By going strict people just don't want to post, even meaningful stuff, or even when some really do post, others are very reluctant to discuss, fearing of being deemed inappropriate and gets deleted. You end up with more trolls and idiots that just kept coming because they can't accept defeat and the ban list just gets longer and longer, and they can just create more accounts as they want. They don't even need to spam the board, they just kept reporting anyone they don't like to spam your inbox, and claim you were unjust to delete their posts but left other posts they don't like intact even when theirs is full of slangs and curses while the ones they compared with are completely normal and good contributions.
Instead, I spent lots of time maintaining the environment, and trolls no longer felt that they belong to the place and left. They can point their fingers at my back all they want on other forums, I know there's quite a few of those, but none of the smaller ones they started last longer than a year because they just want to express their own views and dictate what others want to say. And in larger, well established ones they never get what they want because they are the unreasonable ones. That's pretty much how I got my reputation in the Chinese community anyway, they helped me without knowing it themselves when they went around claim how bad I was and there's always someone that comes out and say it's the opposite, and others can see with their own eyes that they don't have any grounds.
And I can tell you it's always useless to do name calling and say how others are doing bad things and insisted you are the correct one. The story I posted up there probably didn't move you a bit because you likely will be sceptical to whether I was right or just putting things in my perspectives and favoured my own views conveniently leaving the parts that are inconvenient to me out. If you don't suspect a thing and just believed my word for it, you should not be that trusting. If you were sceptical reading that, think about it, about why the discussion above people have suspected you to have some responsibilities yourself.

[Mafty]

It vreally sucks people have to act like this. I've been on many forums (though only in a visitor role) and regardless of which group it is there are unfortunatly always people who act like this.

Sometimes the best thing is just to leave the environment, unfortunatly some trolls keep harassing people afterward.