The people that used to bully you for liking anime are now the ones controlling it 😢.

It used to be people having fun. Now its a business.

Normies took over, everything became corporate approved

Comic Cons have not been about comics since before the MCU. Anime is now facing the same treatment.

Pov: your interest went mainstream. No going back. Gotta find a new way to interact with it.

You know what I miss from anime conventions? The anime itself. No one sells hard copies of the shows anymore, just merchandise. The sad thing is there’s no profit in selling them now.

A subculture became mainstream culture.

The secret is to go to an anime con that fits entirely inside a hotel. I found one two years ago and it felt like stepping back in time twenty-five years in the best possible way. You don't spend the whole weekend pushing through crowds, you don't need to wait on a long line just to use the restroom, you can just decide to attend anything ten minutes before it starts, the cosplayers are still mostly hobbyists and the whole thing doesn't feel like a giant advertisement for Crunchyroll. You might have to travel a little ways from the nearest airport to get there and you won't see much in the way of high-profile Japanese guests, but it's totally worth it.

i miss when people would cosplay characters they actually liked, not tourists that see something trending on twitter and try to get famous.

The Internet and social media happened

I hate how the popular people who bullied you from school gotta ruin everything and invade our personal space. 😢

It looks like a nightmare going to one of those cons. The amount of people would make me anxious....

If you were ever gaslit or bullied for liking anime... just remeber, you liked it before it was cool 💖.

It sucks that it's mainstream now, but at least we can all say, we lived in the good times 😂

Anime itself isn't what it used to be. It's just a bunch of products. The magic has long gone.

I missed the days when I got to party with other social rejects and be ourselves for a weekend...

Very good point. Back in like 2010  it was more wholesome and genuine, and now it's like it's about putting up a show and being fake all over again.
Especially the larger ones.

Good video with many seemingly true observations. Maybe we should have done more gatekeeping.

It used to be a culture. It's about people expressing themself, their ideas, and their way of life. Now, it's another form of mass production. Modernity and its materialism took another victim.

Tourists, tourists everywhere