| I will say depends on what you want to define as gatekeeping. To me if MAL wanted to make the community wider and encompass all comics and Western animation whatever. The issue is if those same people wanted to shut down the anime or manga side of that community. That's the issue new fans are welcome but only if they also respect the fans and things that have made up the community years if not decades before. Gatekeeping is necessary but I only gatekeep gatekeepers. It's pretty simple to ignore or stick to sides of a medium that you enjoy. In the charged sphere of the modern day though people see communities and media in a zero sum game. It's probably the biggest annoyance I have with the anime/manga community. |
| act with your wallet capitalists like the anime industry wants to maximize their profit and no better way to do that with entering the global market aka globalization that is all about diversity, SJWs, censorship, mainstream generic shit so get use to it |
| Yeah, there's no issue with gatekeeping as a concept. It's more the context of it that matters - some of it can be incredibly stupid, but some of it is totally reasonable. The day I stop throwing people out of H&E for acting like dickheads about H&E anime/manga and explicitly saying shit like they're only there for our lewd pic channels is the day I stop living. I will very happily and readily use my authority there to throw you out on sight if you say something like "I don't actually like ecchi and I just wanna see your nsfw chat lol" - let alone when they act toxic about it - entirely because I don't like people like you and I think most people who actually contribute to our little hovel would agree. If they can't be like the other non-fans and just lurk our pic sharing channels and leave the people who actually communicate to our own devices, then they can go somewhere else. Not wanted. Or better yet, just fucking find their own lewd anime girl pics since it's not really hard to do. And like, you can join to lurk pic channels if that's all you want and we have know why of knowing. Or hell, if you don't like ecchi and just want to talk, one of my moderators is non-fan who just wanted to be in our community. Just don't come in and start publicly making a big deal about how you don't like what we're about and just want to use us for our resources. Look them up yourself at that point, don't waste our time or expect us to look shit up for you. Yes, this happens enough for it to be a problem worth mentioning. And yes, I do just go full tyrant and ban people for it without any prior warning or any indication that you're not supposed to do that. And I enjoy it every time, purely out of spite because I am edgy like that. Issue with gatekeeping is only really when it's rooted in exceptional ignorance and superficialities. Otherwise, gatekeeping is totally fucking cool. Hell, if you wanna look at it a certain way, moderation is a form of gatekeeping to prevent the idea that certain behaviors are considered acceptable within an online community. Their job is to throw people who don't fall in-line to the degree that they want out to keep things in-line with their idea of the best possible environment for their community. In short, their job is to gatekeep certain shit in their little area. That is by no means a bad thing. |
ManabanSep 18, 2020 7:06 PM
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| The example you gave is irrelevant, because the "community" isn't anyone's personal club. |
| その目だれの目？ |
 If we are talking just about anime then it doesn't matter, Japan doesn't gives a shit about the non issues of the west |
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Lucifrost said: The example you gave is irrelevant, because the "community" isn't anyone's personal club. "we are not your personal army" - 4chan anons but aside from that there is hardly any organize community on the anime fandom anyway |
| I'm not sure I understand what is meant by "a club" in the quotation. An internet forum? A mailing list? People getting together with the purpose of discussing some common interest? Those things usually have rules, which people who join them implicitly acknowledge. If I start a thread on football in the "Anime Discussion" section of MAL it would probably get closed or moved to the right section. It would be silly of me to complain of "gatekeeping" there, because I couldn't even read the title. What some people (rightly IMO) call "gatekeeping" in a bad sense is the attitude of denying someone the right to have any opinion on a subject unless they met certain conditions, like having a giving amount of experience, or expressing a preference for such and such shows. |
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| How can you gate keep for the anime community? You can't stop anyone from becoming a new anime fan. |
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| I don't believe gatekeeping is necessary here. The guy from reddit did say that eventually the people would dip their head into the medium, he just needs to give them time. Nobody starts watching obscure anime, it's good to start out with more generic ones. If he wants to talk about non-mainstream anime, I'm sure he's able to talk with those friends separately in the club. |
| Yeah that slippery slope example didn't do a whole lot for me, and after you started talkin about SJWs ruining anime I realized this maybe wasn't gonna be a particularly good discussion. To be frank, gatekeeping is seriously inconsiderate. I think a lot of gatekeepers tend to view themselves as much less aggressive and elitist than they come off as, so I'd call for more personal reflection on their part. Where do these feelings of animosity towards new kinds of people and opinions come from? Maybe more importantly, is something really being "ruined," or just naturally evolving? If everyone else except for you is enjoying something, and you're making an active effort to stop everyone else from enjoying something so only you can enjoy it, that's... just a bad look. |
| I kinda get where the gatekeeping sense comes from so I am not entirely against it. I just hope moe doesn't reach out to mainstream levels for it to become ruined. |
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| If it's protecting a community of liking lesser known anime, I'm all for it... but I don't have the bravery or courage to do it. |
| I don't know when did people become such optimists like- "Newer fans are always welcome~ teehee teehee" Oh my fucking god, how do you not realize that they are ruining anime. Are you just blind or are you ignorant? The more newer fans join the more demanding they will be, then they'll do dumb shit like trying to open up a petition to make an anime with a black MC for some unknown reason. I've stumbled upon these kind of stupid ass petitions many many times, it makes me want to become a toxic gatekeeper who'll scare away normies. Also, don't get me started on people who say dumb stuff like- "More viewers = more money for the anime industry." No. No it doesn't. Most people don't even watch anime legally. And do you think all the money we pay to streaming services are actually reaching the anime industry?? Hahaha. If 50% of the money we paid to streaming services actually even made it to the anime industry, then the anime industry would've been better than ever. You're telling me that Crunchyroll does useless expensive expos that I've never asked for, brings unknown guests to do boring talkshows, tries to make their own anime but fails, and then they still have enough money left to pay a 100 Million back to the anime industry? What a pathetic lie. I refuse to believe Crunchyroll's overpriced merchandise are bringing enough money for them to pay a 100 million back to the anime industry. More importantly, thousands of titles just vanished from Crunchyroll, which is also a proof to how Crunchyroll doesn't pay up. And now, they need more money, that's why they introduced the stupid Fan tier shit which everyone is hating on. Japan doesn't give a rats ass about money, if they did then they would started catering to the West already, but they didn't. The anime industry might be capitalist, but they only care about Japan. And that's one of the main reason why I like anime, it's because it caters to Japan, if it catered to the West then what different would it be from a Western animation? I love gatekeeping, I always see it as a good thing. The gaming community tried to gatekeep against the feminists and SJWs, but we failed when one of our own betrayed us. Now, the gaming community produces trash like The Last of Us II. |
 I said keep your hands on the table |
| Imagine gatekeeping cartoons OMEGALUL |
| No. Ask yourself why your view is the correct view? Otherwise you’re only gatekeeping to protect your own opinion, not the community. |
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Lucifrost said: The example you gave is irrelevant, because the "community" isn't anyone's personal club. This is pretty much it ^ ^ ^ @OP, the example you mentioned is bad. Mainly because your hypothetical situation implies that you can't/shouldn't do anything when casual watchers start joining the club, but this is not true at all. You can enforce stricter rules to make sure that the club does not stray from its original purpose. However, there IS a right and a wrong way to do this. Here's a few examples of right ways: 1) Limit discussion of popular anime to 1-2 days a week 2) Hold extra club events where people can talk about whatever anime they like 3) If your club watches anime together, then switch between elitist/casual anime. Example, for every 3 viewings of "elitist" anime, have 1 viewing of casual anime 4) Encourage new members to watch lesser known anime in their free time (and possibly providing incentives, maybe do a bingo card with prizes?) 5) If your club has Discord, then create a new channel for general anime discussion and have all conversations redirected there etc. etc. If worse comes to worse, then just have all the elitists migrate to a new club. Yes it's an inconvenience, but what are you going to do at that point? |
| The original scenario outlined here isn't a dilemma - what you do is, if you want to talk about the more specific stuff, is you talk about that with the people who originally wanted to talk about that with you. You can have a sub-group. Pretty ingenious. And bad news - people who like cartoons are going to watch them whether or not some other people who watch cartoons act like pillocks about it. Even worse news - I'm very left-wing and I'm here to ruin the fun. The process has begun... |
| yes, gatekeeping is important. lol what you have to understand is that new members are welcome, garbage behavior IS NOT. and by garbage behavior I mean the opposite of civil discussion. this includes passive-agressive remarks and trying to force out the older members. it's the community's job to keep itself healthy. I've seen it happen before in the chats I'm part of. a guy joined, everyone welcomed him. he started this uwu rp thing, nobody cared. he left on his own knowing he doesn't have an audience. people who don't want to fit in will leave eventually, or you can remove them if needed. you just need a decent community and the proper attitude. if all of this bothers you, I can tell you that watching anime is not a social thing. it only involves you, the viewer, and the anime on your monitor. you can watch anime on your own like I do, since all my friends stopped doing so years ago. |
| 馬鹿げた倫理 全部ガラクタで |
| The act of gatekeeping encourages garbage behavior which ruins the community from within. Nothing is more harmful to a community than people already in it who want to shape it to match their image because of an undeserved sense of superiority. This can be especially emphasized in your scenario supplied from reddit. Because the inherent scenario is you joined a public club and then eventually got upset at the idea of it being a public club. Instead of creating a sub-group you decided the whole club should be private. Instead of finding common ground for discussion to get people invested in the medium you lashed out at them for not living up to your standards. Sure they might be discussing comics but why couldn't you find themes or tropes from those comics that can be translated to anime to get them interested? The worst part of the post though is the implication that people in the anime community aren't allowed to have other interests because it might taint the club. Anime will and should change over time to match changing interests. One of the strongest charms of anime is how it's able to combine such a wide variety of genres from such a broad range of time with such a vague umbrella of being an animated series from Japan. Advocating for stagnancy because it doesn't suit your taste is the epitome of elitist behavior and is effectively how an art medium dies. |
GamerDLMSep 19, 2020 1:58 AM
| What makes you think you are part of "the community", leave alone to speak and act for "them"? The only elitist I can see is you, Sir. |
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Arin-san said: I love gatekeeping, I always see it as a good thing. If I was a gatekeeper, I would have never let you in. Would you accept that? |
| その目だれの目？ |
| I feel like gatekeeping anti-fujoshi from BL/Yaoi.... |
The anime community in a nutshell.  |
| Enjoying things isn't supposed to be hard. |
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| The Reddit wall of text OP quoted: not about SJW and not about the anime community at large. OP's conclusion: it's about SJW and about the anime community at large. What a clown. |
jal90Sep 20, 2020 6:50 PM
| Yeah, gatekeeping is okay, but it needs to be put in place and function perfectly in order to work. We all know that's practically impossible, as the amount of toxic gatekeepers would gradually increase as time went on. My true answer? No. If you feel it's best to gatekeep, do as you please. Some anime, like My Hero Academia and Jojo could use it, but would become worse in the process. It's like throwing water on an electrical fire. |
| Money spoke for everything. Japan are not going to pander to SJWs. Remember, most people watch anime illegally so they won't make any difference. |
| It's an over exaggeration. If that dude wanted to talk only obscure anime he should've put in rules for that. If the club is general anime talk of course random people will talk about popular stuff. My answer: make specific rules |
    |
| This example used really doesn't work, because you could just easily say "hey, I get you like these things, but we're only talking about more obscure series. Want us to show you some, so you could be a part of our conversation?" There are ways to be polite while also keeping things how you want them. I've had to do this a few times at my college's Smash Bros Club, where people would want to play Mario Kart or something bc they'd never tried Smash. I'd teach them how to play, and then they'd be included. The issue with gatekeeping is that people deliberately try and sabotage people from wanting to join a community. They try and intimidate newcomers and be absolute tools to them because they're afraid of new people coming into the community and having different viewpoints. There's a reason not a lot of "normie" people are willing to talk about anime, even if they really love it. I've had every wildass gatekeeping experience, from white dudes trynna explain my own cosplays and my TATTOO to me, to having a stranger yell at me in public for not having seen Cowboy Bebop, to having lost a friend because he said FLCL was too intellectual for me and I was a pathetic coward for not liking it, to people straight up trynna correct me with misinformation because I'm too much of a "SJW normie" to know more about any anime than them. I really hate shit like that. |
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| Looks like he's going through a reactionary teen phase. |
| Since the community is pretty trashy to begin with, what is the point of protecting it from anything? The only thing worth protecting is the established vocabulary: "anime" means "japanese animation", "shounen" is demographic you actually meant "battle shounen", better call chinese titles "donghua" ect. |
| chazzergamer is poor little drama queen. |
| :v |
| 1) a club is not the same as a community. People sign up to a club, but self-proclaimed fans are part of the community. 2) Thus, the anime community shouldn't have a list of things to do/watch in order to be considered a fan. If they want to be considered a fan for watching ""normie"" shit, who cares? You cannot dictate who's a fan. 3)In terms of the anime community, you have no power or say on what they do, the only rules that you can establish on them is the rules of the site they've posted in. Otherwise, makes you an elitist asshole tbh. Who gave you the power on what and how people enjoy stuff? 4)Obscure is subjective, MHA may be obscure for some because it isn't aired on tv. Others say Nisekoi due to no English dub. Others say Gundam franchise cuz it's old and forgotten. You can say obscure all you want, but people have their own definition of what is considered obscure, just like how people have their own definition of "mainstream" and "golden gems/underated anime". There is no universal definition of such a word. If in a club, establish the club rules on what is obscure. 5) People staying in the club may have similar interests, but may not always talk about these interests and branch out to other topics. That is fine. It helps the conversation flow. Don't enforce to be geared to one topic only. 6) There's a reason why people bitch/make fun of clubs where if someone steps out of the thin line means instaban by the mods. Talk to club members if they never mention obscure anime, encourage them through a personal rec chart, begin convos on lesser known shows, give wiggle room rather than be easily triggered by outsiders. If they're hostile/rude to others, then do something. Them giving opinions is not rude. |
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| imagine getting pressed about people discovering a new interest lmao (also love how OP jumps to "reeee SJWs ruin everything!!!" even though the reddit post says nothing about them + any of the steryotypical 'sjw' is shunned to hell and back anyways. some of y'all really think those art-fixers are gonna ruin anime lmao) |
  HYPED for Monster Hunter Rise! (wish March 26th would come sooner) --------------------------------------------------------------- I regret to inform you I'm actually terrible at monster hunter lmao |
| no, and I hope even more people watch it so I dont get labeled as a fucking nerd and lolicon everytime I just mention anime just let people watch it, rant about whatever the fuck they want and just chill. if it werent for some complaints, we would still have some sick shit like blackface and stuff society is always evolving and the anime media is a part of it |
  |
beargolfer said: The issue with gatekeeping is that people deliberately try and sabotage people from wanting to join a community. They try and intimidate newcomers and be absolute tools to them because they're afraid of new people coming into the community and having different viewpoints. There's a reason not a lot of "normie" people are willing to talk about anime, even if they really love it. I had Gundam fans on another forum tell me to quit watching Gundam, because I disliked all their favorites. Heaven forbid I prefer the lesser anime that are ZZ, Build Fighters, and Iron-Blooded Orphans. |
| その目だれの目？ |
| What the fuck does it even mean lmao, how do you even gatekeep chinese cartoon. lmao imagine ironically typing and believing this. I love gatekeeping, I always see it as a good thing. The gaming community tried to gatekeep against the feminists and SJWs, but we failed when one of our own betrayed us. Now, the gaming community produces trash like The Last of Us II. Oh no, they produced a videogame you didn't like.  |
Jin_uzukiSep 21, 2020 8:59 AM
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cheekyboiii said: The guy's point makes some sense, but has some flaws, and you agree for the wrong reasons.I kinda agree with this guy. If we let the wrong people in, eventually anime will be filled with SJWs that will ruin the fun. FYI the passage you cited started by creating a subgroup of the "anime community": Say you started an anime club with the specific goal of discussing more niche titles, you had a few regulars and you were having fun organising for a devoted group. This isn't just the general group of people who like anime, i.e. the anime fandom as a whole. This is a specific subgroup, for a specific purpose.Then a new member comes along and they want to discuss more mainstream anime like BNHA or SNK, it feels detrimental to your goal right? To discuss lesser known anime? But you let them in because you don’t want to be a gate keeper. This is a really silly slippery slope argument that neglects the simple idea of the original group members simply taking up the social space by talking about the things that the group is about.Then this friend starts to being in other friends who don’t really like anime but like Avatar The Last Airbender, that isn’t an anime but who knows, maybe being exposed to this club will encourage them to dip their toes into the medium. They instead discuss Avatar comics, which leads to discussions about Dark Horse comics. For the kind of takeover that this hypothetical situation posits, you need to have a very inactive little club somewhere, like say a chat room or a forum where people barely talk at all, then this newbie with her/his lone ramblings can actually take over. If the original members are actually active, then the newbie either ends up spamming horribly about "BNHA or SNK" (and becoming a persona non grata whom no one talks to, and possibly getting warned/banned), or (far more commonly) realizes that he/she doesn't fit because no one else is talking about BNHA and SNK MHA and AoT and shuts up about them eventually. This isn't even mentioning the way the industry will match to appeal to the audience in demand, meaning that you could possibly get less of what you love out of the medium (just look at the decline of Hardcore action games for example) yet you are still seen as the “elitist” with a stick up their arse. 1. Everything already made doesn't disappear.2. The industry does fine catering to a variety of niche tastes. Not necessarily at the same time, all the time, but you should know by now that fads come and go. TL;DR Your post is a long-winded way of fearmongering about people not enjoying anime the way you like to enjoy it. Let's be honest, lots of people enjoy anime, and you aren't going to put that genie back in the bottle. You can't make them un-know about anime. You can't control their tastes. At the same time, no one is stopping you from making your own group of a handful of fans who enjoy anime the way you like it. We have clubs on MAL for a reason. There are tons of IRC channels, forums, Discord servers, etc. etc. etc. for a reason. The "community", i.e. the "anime fandom", is already actually a huge number of fandoms merely associated together by a vague common interest in the medium of Japanese cartoons or other stuff that looks like it. If you want a group's in-group culture to stay the same forever, then that'll basically never work, since the participants themselves are changing anyway, even if no new people join. If you've ever been in an online community (particularly a smaller one) long enough, you might actually have run into situations where you have very few new people joining and the old regulars have gradually left, leaving a long and storied history of posts/threads/chat lines/etc. among a few recent posts reminiscing about the glory days of the past. And even if regulars do stick around, they'll talk about a ton of stuff other than just whatever their common interest is. Why does a forum made of longtime Final Fantasy fans regularly shoot the shit about NCAA and World Cup brackets, and office work life, and the head mod's cute baby daughter? Because people themselves have lives. Communities that are more general-interest will have a gradually rotating crop of new members keeping the place alive and often talking about the general common interest, though the people and the stuff they talk about will necessarily change too. People in big anime fandom forums like here don't talk about Haruhi anymore do they? They don't talk about Lucky Star anymore do they? They don't talk about Hetalia anymore do they? Don't blame "SJWs" or whoever doesn't enjoy anime the same way you do; blame the fact that time has moved on, and so have people. (Also, people have been complaining about anime fanservice since forever ago.) |
GlennMagusHarveySep 21, 2020 9:55 AM
| Avatar character is Gabriel from Gabriel DropOut. |
| I'll admit it's a rather blunt way of saying that things change, but frankly speaking I actually don't really like that either, myself. And yeah people do mention those other shows, but it's definitely not the "talk of the town" the way it used to be. Clearly the fandom has changed. OP is trying to blame outsiders/newbies for ruining the fandom, but the fandom wouldn't have stayed the same even if it were restricted to the same people for all these years. Also, while body pillows might be an exception due to their reputation, displays of being a fan of anime (or a fan of some entertainment franchise in general) have certainly gotten more socially acceptable over the past couple decades. |
| Avatar character is Gabriel from Gabriel DropOut. |
Heimur said: If we are talking just about anime then it doesn't matter, Japan doesn't gives a shit about the non issues of the west But this image is awfully accurate. |
| Dub = fake crap. Always. |
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