What happened to elitists?

Its a shame people who like older anime and had strong opinions about anime in general became maligned as being elitists. For some reason this image of an elitist then became a fashionable mask for countercultural types to wear on places like MAL, becoming a living version of the caricature. Drowning out many of the more interesting classically elitist types with actually annoying lameos.

How do you get a "historical perspective" on a new anime?

Are you talking about looking at current anime in the context of the "history of anime so far"? If that's the case, I think any old-timer who's been watching for 10+ years would qualify as an "elitist"...

@perseii yes, sorry, I did not frame my post well. I meant looking at current anime in the context of the past. Measuring things up to what has been done before. A new show might come out and a new anime fan might think, these characters are so original and good! But there needs to be people with experience to say, well this stuff has been done before much better in Macross Plus! And here's why...

Similarly, we need that perspective because then it can be seen what is truly great that comes out today. People that are new to anime just praise all sorts of stuff. But if someone with a discerning and harsh critical eye praises a new show, then you know it's really special.

What do you mean? They are literally everywhere and like bots can only spam the same few lines.
"Generic," "cringe," "another standard (insert genre here)," "moeslop, isekaislop, etc," "goonerbait," "another weeb anime," and the list of one liners to completely dismiss anything and everything without actually being able to actually explain their opinion is the new brand of elitism. You might not like it, but the idea of old style elitism is dead, and just like how casuals basically control all anime discussion now they also control the elitism within anime.

That was extremely specific.
What did you have in mind while you wrote this?

@17999 Hard agree. Roriconfan/AnimeSnob posts these absurd, content-free reviews that make it embarrasing to say, "let's hold anime to the highest standard we can manage"

@Wyatt Dude’s still active on AniDB though. Most of MAL users are simply too sensitive to handle him.

@perseii yes, sorry, I did not frame my post well. I meant looking at current anime in the context of the past. Measuring things up to what has been done before. A new show might come out and a new anime fan might think, these characters are so original and good! But there needs to be people with experience to say, well this stuff has been done before much better in Macross Plus! And here's why...

Similarly, we need that perspective because then it can be seen what is truly great that comes out today. People that are new to anime just praise all sorts of stuff. But if someone with a discerning and harsh critical eye praises a new show, then you know it's really special.

@Wyatt You seem very unsure of yourself and your own media analysis skills since you need other people's opinions that much, which you could consider a certificate of quality of a given anime xD

A long and at first glance clever review text does not matter, everyone looks through the prism of their own prejudices, everyone is biased and elitists themselves do not agree on these "good" elitist anime, so I don't know why a positive review by an elitist should matter, for example, I recently saw a currently popular elitist positively evaluate Dandadan which is objectively average, and yet with the help of a long, pseudo-clever text he supposedly confirms that "yes, this new anime is good" i.e. according to you it should be like that xD

I don't easily one of my most hated archetype of anime fan, and I am also someone who will try to push fans to try older/nicher shows too. My favourite anime is also Legend of the Galactic Heroes. There is nothing wrong with being picky about anime, preferring older shows etc. Jamming it into every discussion, while attacking the intelligence of other fans just makes you a loser. Legend of the Galatic Heroes is a fun show, however, if you want to learn real political science or military history, go actually read that, rather than watching space RTK. Most "smart media" especially in this medium, isn't that smart. It's annoying to listen to pseudo intellectual morons, try to pretend they are more intelligent for liking this versus some average battle shonen. Consuming entertainment media doesn't improve one's intelligence.

Elitism is a negative term due to the behaviour associated with it. You can be an "elitist" and like the most mainstream shows out there like AOT.

No we don't. At best, we don't need such "standard bearing" from such intolerant assholes, which is what the average anime snob is in the community (and outside of it). There are actual non toxic people out there who are knowledgeable you know lol.

Art is interesting because there is no consensus, it's not a mathematical formula. It's the expression of interest, human emotion, and it can vary a lot. The industry would be very stale if only people who liked LOTGH decided on what got made, and I say that as someone who wants more space opera shows or series that try a bit more in the intellectual sense. I still enjoy otaku targeted shows, I still enjoy brainless stuff. Some of those fans are so intolerant anything that does prescribe to their interests is unworthy of existing, rather than a simple disagreement of opinion.

It doesn't help when any conversation is jammed full of morons who love to be anime hipsters taking about how something of x's quality wouldn't ever get made today. Funnily enough, the more niche you go, the less you hear of this nonsense.

We don't need elitists, we need people with critical thinking skills.

I'd rather have someone who can spell out why they like Solo Leveling than someone who turns their nose up to it because it's a filthy casualbait "hype and aura" show and expects attention for it

If they can spell out why they dislike Solo Leveling, that's great too, but I think it's more important to have critical thinking skills (and an overlap in taste) than a "discerning eye".

If someone who mostly adores shoujo and nothing else (or, say, mecha shows from the 80s and 90s) said Dead Dead Demon's Dededede Destruction sucks, should I automatically assume they know what they're talking about because their average score on MAL is a 5.83?

(as an aside, fwiw, I find that my negative reviews, even for much nicher shows, tend to gain more traction than my positive reviews)

Don't know. But I don't care much for pretentious types. I can respect people who critically analyze shows. But I don't like it when they look down on people who aren't critical and enjoy stuff for entertainment purposes. Especially when the whole point of anime or any TV show is to entertain. Not everyone is going to be entertained by the same things nor does every show have to be deep, complex, or original to be enjoyable. Plus, I don't see much merit in being overly critical of shows since these people tend to be miserable and bitter. They put their favorites on such a high pedestal that they're not able to enjoy anything else.

I don't easily one of my most hated archetype of anime fan, and I am also someone who will try to push fans to try older/nicher shows too. My favourite anime is also Legend of the Galactic Heroes. There is nothing wrong with being picky about anime, preferring older shows etc. Jamming it into every discussion, while attacking the intelligence of other fans just makes you a loser. Legend of the Galatic Heroes is a fun show, however, if you want to learn real political science or military history, go actually read that, rather than watching space RTK. Most "smart media" especially in this medium, isn't that smart. It's annoying to listen to pseudo intellectual morons, try to pretend they are more intelligent for liking this versus some average battle shonen. Consuming entertainment media doesn't improve one's intelligence.

Elitism is a negative term due to the behaviour associated with it. You can be an "elitist" and like the most mainstream shows out there like AOT.

No we don't. At best, we don't need such "standard bearing" from such intolerant assholes, which is what the average anime snob is in the community (and outside of it). There are actual non toxic people out there who are knowledgeable you know lol.

Art is interesting because there is no consensus, it's not a mathematical formula. It's the expression of interest, human emotion, and it can vary a lot. The industry would be very stale if only people who liked LOTGH decided on what got made, and I say that as someone who wants more space opera shows or series that try a bit more in the intellectual sense. I still enjoy otaku targeted shows, I still enjoy brainless stuff. Some of those fans are so intolerant anything that does prescribe to their interests is unworthy of existing, rather than a simple disagreement of opinion.

It doesn't help when any conversation is jammed full of morons who love to be anime hipsters taking about how something of x's quality wouldn't ever get made today. Funnily enough, the more niche you go, the less you hear of this nonsense.

@perseii yes, sorry, I did not frame my post well. I meant looking at current anime in the context of the past. Measuring things up to what has been done before. A new show might come out and a new anime fan might think, these characters are so original and good! But there needs to be people with experience to say, well this stuff has been done before much better in Macross Plus! And here's why...

Similarly, we need that perspective because then it can be seen what is truly great that comes out today. People that are new to anime just praise all sorts of stuff. But if someone with a discerning and harsh critical eye praises a new show, then you know it's really special.

@BilboBaggins365 from what I've seen (sadly not enough) the relationship between LoGH and politics is the same as most sci-fi and science, it uses some ideas from it to help the themes, not to teach about the topic but it might interest people and lead them to learn about it

In retrospect digibro was wrong. If you look at his list it's all CGDCT. Not all CGDCT are made equal and deserve critical acclaim and this is coming from me whose favourite anime by far is K-ON !

Digibro's analysis of anime and tastes were simply:

"I WANT TO BE THE LITTLE GIRL"

How do you get a "historical perspective" on a new anime?

Are you talking about looking at current anime in the context of the "history of anime so far"? If that's the case, I think any old-timer who's been watching for 10+ years would qualify as an "elitist"...

@perseii Jesus I've been watching for 60 years now. I'd hate to think about what that makes me!!

They still areound, didnt you see that video were one guy asked other 2 guys if they knew like 4 somewhat old classic animes, and they didnt got any idea about it. This spawned a lot of people claiming that now knowing them make them tourist.

I get it, reaching mainstream will bring all these idiots that try to transform fandoms, but I think there is a difference between calling people that only watched whatever is popular and trending casuals; and calling everyone that just so happen to didnt watch 5 animes (from hundreds of them) for whatever reason tourist.

The one with FLCL, Saint Onii-san, Dorohedoro and Sonny Boy?
Three of them aren't even old.