Forum - View topicAnswerman - Why is There an Overlap Between Moe and the Alt-Right?
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Key
Moderator
 Posts: 18676 Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley) |
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Just a caution in advance that Mods will be watching this thread closely. Keep any response civil.
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VORTIA
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"To prevent online radicalization, we must challenge racist and sexist views and listen to those who hold them. My advice to everyone reading this is to try to avoid canceling or shaming them. We owe it to ourselves to keep as many of our community inside our tent. This is where they are safest. By listening to them and asking them the right questions that challenge their way of thinking, we stand a much better chance of countering far-right radicalization. Radicalization happens in a vacuum."
Thank you for this! Too many people are sleeping on how the knee jerk rejection of people with ignorant ideas is feeding a population doubling down on hate & ignorance. If good people won't engage, bad actors will. Last edited by VORTIA on Mon Apr 14, 2025 10:43 am; edited 1 time in total |
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mdo7
 Posts: 7205 Location: Katy, Texas, USA |
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I didn't expect Answerman to be dipping into something related to the alt-right.
But OK, here's my 2 cents on the alt-right:
That's what I like to know. How do these alt-right anime fans sleep at night knowing that whatever they believe contradict every anime fans views, and how do they sleep knowing that Trump can use executive orders to ban anime/manga and anime conventions as an act of collective punishment against Japanese-American communities, who are they going to side with, how do they react to that. I mean that's what I'm going to put here. |
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Multi-Facets
Posts: 295 |
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"My advice to everyone reading this is to try to avoid canceling or shaming them." <-- People can't be canceled: They're not TV shows. We can, however, use the block function, or (hopefully) leave places where harmful ideologies are being spouted. Because it's like what "XKCD" said: "If you're yelled at, boycotted, have your show canceled, or get banned from an internet community, your free speech rights aren't being violated: It's just that the people listening think you're an as--le, and they're showing you the door."
If anyone wants to open dialogue or lead by example for everyone lost in the alt-right, they should do it with a mind for their safety and that of those most affected by such hatred, and they should understand that people have to be ready for it and want it more than anything. People can change, but we can't expect them to. Ultimately, it's up to the person lost in the pipeline. Just plant the seeds and don't get sucked in. And anyone who changes, that's a helluvan accomplishment. Those who were stuck in the alt-right, or any other movement that deliberately causes harm, then came out of it and said "I f--ked up; I'm sorry. I'll do better now," should be allowed to keep working on themselves. We don't have to forgive that harm, but holding it against them would drive them back. Rehabilitation instead of punishment, I guess? Maybe it won't undo any harm they've done, but it's a lot better than where they were. And in the meantime, let's not put up with it. |
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Lupica
Posts: 92 |
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The answer to many of your examples is that they pick and choose what they delve into. Yuri often gets a pass if it's male gazey enough for the same reason that real-world lesbians are objectified - until they have unwanted opinions or don't present in a way that appeals to mainstream ideas of femininity. Likewise, yuri aimed at actual lesbians or which doesn't sell itself towards the moeblob audience will often attract negative comments from this demographic. (I'm definitely not saying that women and other people attracted to men can't be extremists or holders of problematic opinions too, but the 'moeblob avatar' stereotype in the example is a certain kind of fan and I'm keeping this answer tailored to that.) However, BL fans and BL themes in general are widely disparaged by the kind of fan that the article is discussing, leading to relentless online bullying of anyone who displays even the most superficial fujoshi tendencies. Heck, a lot of them just straight up bully people who present as women in general, even though they're anti-LGBTQ+ and usually feel pressure to perform straight masculinity in a very old fashioned way. It's a tribal response which has been normalized over many, many years of fandom misbehavior. Political extremism is seldom founded on well-researched opinions. The leader of a certain country recently wrote a rule predicated on the assumption that intersex people cannot exist, for example, simply out of ignorance because it was inconvenient for that person to spend five minutes learning how human genetics actually work. It is demonstrably incorrect by all of our understanding of biology, across many generations and cultures, but shouting over the facts or deliberately blurring the inconsistency with distractions is how humanity has always dealt with inconvenient truths. Intersex people very much do exist in every society that has ever existed, but if people are busy panicking about a sudden headline about how transgender chess players are stealing their kids' medals or how autism is caused by hip hop music, nobody has the time or energy to listen to the facts. It's the same reason why people can praise that certain president until they're blue in the face, then also turn around and complain about things which impact them even though those things are a direct result of the policies of the person they support. I think for a lot of them it's ignorance, and a genuine belief that the system wouldn't let someone actively fill the airwaves with lies and misinformation all the time - so what is being said has to have a foundation of truth. Except that it doesn't, and too few people with a voice are questioning the lies effectively. They have even manipulated things so that these alt-right bullies think that they're the ones being bullied themselves, creating a victim complex which is a really effective way to deflect the person from being receptive to conflicting points of view. This is nothing new - I am in my 40s and have friends older than me who grew up steeped in toxic masculinity from their nerdy hobbies which they're still working to unlearn. But the Internet makes it easier to bully and easier to receive positive validation for habits which cause real harm to others. We need to listen out for our friends and tackle this stuff at home as well as online, even when we're taught that being confrontational and questioning the status quo is uncool. We need to pay attention to even casual misogyny/racism/homophobia/transphobia and firmly explain why it's wrong instead of laughing it off because it feels uncomfortable to correct a friend. Too many people prefer to 'keep the peace' in the short term, or attack with such (understandable) anger that the person being corrected becomes defensive instead of listening. It's so hard. It's exhausting. |
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Wizardizar
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I think the answer here is complex because the logic they use is twisted. For one, I 100% think they hate yaoi or weirdly fetishize it (like the alt-right weirdoes dreaming about ancient Greece feminine boys). As for yuri, part of yuri media is made with male audience in mind so they don't really see it that differently from lesbian porn, so as long as they can jerk off (literally or, hum, "intellectually") to it. They probably get annoyed when yuri media start talking seriously about queer issues though (to generalize, they like Citrus but not Bloom into You). I once saw a comment on a youtube video that broke my brain. It was about vtubers (so anime adjacent) and the guy said "oh they are not gay, they are yuri", and I think that says a lot about how they see it. |
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Vaisaga
 Posts: 13260 |
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As a former liberal who was pushed farther right, it wasn't the alt-right that "radicalized" me. It was the far leftists who viciously harassed me for not being 'woke' enough that pushed me away. And plenty of those people have anime avatars too. Radicalization on either political end is harmful.
Then there's the problem with assumptions. People will take comments and interpret it in the most extreme way possible. I am not a fan of yuri. I don't enjoy it so I avoid shows with it. Does that mean I have a deep-seated hatred of LGBTQ people? No. I just don't enjoy yuri the same way someone might not enjoy isekai or mecha anime. So yeah, if you want to prevent radicalization, be nice to people regardless of what their beliefs are. |
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FishLion
 Crazy Fangirl Posts: 426 |
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How to best do that is the question. Places like here it's managenable, but existing in a lot of places on the internet and pushing back on far right ideas is a one way ticket to being dogpiled by people making bad faith arguments to enrage others against them. Good moderation helps but many major social platforms are starting to moderate less not more. God forbid you become a symbol like someone well known that the far right rallies against like the victims of gamer gate. I have learned over time that just letting people repeat these talking points leads to it seeming like they are every where and the majority opinion, pushing back without taking the bait seems like the best strategy but that is a tough needle to thread as it can become a situations of more and more people showing up and throwing bad faith criticisms against the wall to see what sticks. I can admit I even take the bait on occasion but it still feels better than letting bad faith opinions be the main thing people see on this website. @mdo7 The answer is cognitive dissonance. People are surprisingly good at avoiding the truth when they have a plausible sounding excuse, no matter how fallible the logic behind it. For example, I have a friend who's a fan of Danmei and they had to skip a series because the author was homophobic. How can you be homophobic and write books about gay men hooking up? Apparently the author essentially views it as kinky behavior inappropriate in the real world the same way that some people like dark romance stories that involve abusive behavior. Of course this is someone dealing with a government that censors gay content and I heard about this second hand, so I am not suggesting we single out people who say stuff like that in a complex environment where they could be lying to protect themselves or individual lie peddlers, but my main point is that people will believe any explanation excusing content when it fits their narrative to do so no matter how much the content of the media goes against it. We should always push back on the ideas but I think public figures how make money on the backs of outrage are the ones we really have to look out for as people echo their lies without a fact check while asking for proof on any claims to the contrary (even though their claims never had any). I want to repeat I heard this second hand so research more before anyone repeats it further please, but I found the example illustrative here. To speed run your specific questions: Regarding helping Jews escape, they ignore specific parts of history and focus on the big picture things they like, in this case imperial history and racial homogeneity. Regarding yuri/yaoi, they are like bigots who want to oppress real families that are gay but also think it's hot when lesbians make out in media. They can (and want to) sexualize gay people and trans people but often act even more disgusted outside the things they enjoy because of the cognitive dissonance of believing gay people are less than while appreciating gay content. That's also why you get so many weirdos who swear up and down that yuri and yaoi aren't gay because they don't declare their love for each other in the most direct way possible, because they want to enjoy interactions that would realistically only happen between gay people (or people experimenting with gay behavior while questioning at the very least) in a scenario that they can argue is definitely not gay or any reason to respect gay people's love. For Korean alt-right people, it is because alt-right people have an unspoken agreement to attack people other than alt-right groups first. I don't know exactly how K-pop and alt-right stuff interact, but they would be much more likely to attack the segments that interrupted the rally and ignore Korean alt-right people so they can continue spreading the message alt-right people want spread. It's the same way there are various groups advertising "[group] for Trump" (where the group is someone alt-right people in the US revile) and they won't be attacked by the alt-right group for existing. Instead the alt-right politicians wait until they are elected and then ignore the groups when they say they hurt. They get all of the free support and messaging they want and none of the responsibility this way, you can bet if those Korean alt-right people said they needed to escape Korea because the government is mean to alt-right people then alt-right people here would shout from the rooftops about how oppressed they are while turning away alt-right foreigners at the same time because they want their mainly white country. If you ask one they might say that Koreans deserve alt-right control of their country but they aren't welcome here and it should be the same everywhere, ie Koreans are welcome to be bigoted to others where they live but if they come to where we live we deserve to be racist to them. On the last point, I don't know how that would go. I think they decide targets by who are the most hated by racists so they can please them. I know there's some weird racist attitudes towards Japanese media but right now they are much more concerned targeting anyone who looks like a gang member to them to please people who think violent immigrants have invaded the country. Considering how quick they are to paint disagreeing judges as traitors, it is possible that they target Japanese Americans but the playbook seems to be painting certain groups as violent, radicals, or both so I wouldn't be surprised if they painted some organizations as radical but I don't know if we will get to anime and manga being demonized. As we can see there are plenty of people that have alt-right beliefs and enjoy content primarily made by another country while expecting Japanese media to be regressive enough to fit their standard (claiming they believe that is how it has been and should stay without western interference) because they will take any opportunity to paint western progressive values as an invading force in culture, so with anime collabing with major sports teams I don't think they would end up blaming anime as a whole as it is very popular with all types. That ended up being a little more than brief, but at the end of the day the answer is they sleep fine because they make up an answer to avoid any cognitive dissonance that results being a racist that enjoys a hobby made possible by foreigners. |
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ANN_Lynzee
ANN Executive Editor
 Posts: 3120 Location: Email for assistance only |
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Depends on what the beliefs are. There's a reason our forum rules are what they are. Not all beliefs are equal for tolerance. For the record, I've encountered people on both sides of the political spectrum that I absolutely did not like. My values didn't change. The tenets that I hold to be true about how to treat people and their intrinsic rights isn't affected by whether a person on the left or right is a crappy human being. I have had, no hyperbole, Neo-Nazis draw racist images of me/threaten me with sexual violence and self-proclaimed tankies create a whole comic featuring my family in an attempt to suggest I'm a screeching harpy (and other unhinged crap). Last edited by ANN_Lynzee on Mon Apr 14, 2025 12:54 pm; edited 2 times in total |
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encrypted12345
Posts: 732 |
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I don't have much to say on the topic directly, but I feel obligated to say that it's not that unusual to consume a piece of art and enjoy it even if the consumer doesn't agree with everything the work is saying on a thematic level. Being mainstream can mean appealing to people with more fringe views as well after all.
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FishLion
Crazy Fangirl Posts: 426 |
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Since you brought this up, I do feel like we should state the obvious and say that anyone harassing or bullying anyone for any ideology is in the wrong. Leftist outrage merchants are just as despicable in their actions no matter the content of their beliefs. Despite that, I do feel like people assign the actions and beliefs of the worst of the online left to anyone asking for anything remotely progressive which is extremely bad faith when people do it, and I don't see that same behavior on the left, so I do think the alt-right has a vested interest in portraying every leftist as a crazy leftist, which is completely untrue. ETA: I should say I have seen individual leftists do this but not the way you have multiple people on every thread about progressive topics assigning the views of the most extreme leftist behavior to any fan critpiquing any part of a show they view as a "woke" criticism. |
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TarsTarkas
 Posts: 6086 Location: Virginia, United States |
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The people you hate can like anime also. The people you hate can also like anime for the same reasons as you. Many people don't watch anime for social cues, politics, or cultural studies, but rather for entertainment.
I am 60 years old. Even back in the Seventies and Eighties, I knew that racism and sexism was bad. So today, there are no excuses, no giving them time to adjust. They have had decades to learn. It is time to "call a spade a spade". The people who are racists and sexist are 'evil'. You know that four letter word, EVIL, that no one likes to use anymore. But it is the perfect word to describe people who believe the world revolves around them, people who believe they are more important than their fellow human beings, and people who think that gives them the right to poop on everyone else. The problem is not anime's use by the alt-right, but by parents not raising their children to be better people, and school systems for not taking responsibility for what is happening in their schools. (Caveat) - There are plenty of parents that do the best they can, but the school system and the friends that are made within destroy their children. |
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Piglet the Grate
 Posts: 1190 Location: North America |
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Which one? [ - REMOVED - ] Moderation Note: Please stay on topic. Home-schooling is not relevant to this discussion. —F |
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FishLion
Crazy Fangirl Posts: 426 |
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To my understanding, the most common one for internet discussion is "Edited to Add," meaning the following part was added later. |
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Fluwm
 Posts: 1154 |
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So this is a really messy topic and one that could (and maybe should, though probably in a more academic context) warrant further explanation. This Answerman article really only scratches the surface.
To begin with, we probably have to accept that right-wing and, yes, fascist ideologies aren't purely a phenomena of the Western Hemisphere -- there's plenty of that nonsense in Japan, too, and some of it is and always will bleed into the media they produce. That's just the nature of the beast. (Or to put it another way, if Adolf Hitler could find common ground with Japanese fascists in the 30s and 40s, it shouldn't be a surprise that modern fascists on both sides of the pond can still do the same, today.) And I imagine most of us, without having to think about it too hard, can think of at least one anime series that aligned cute young girls with fascism. Gundam, alone, has a number of fascistic girls that one could argue qualify as pre-moe-moe, going all the way back to 1985. Zeta Gundam gave us Mineva Zabi (and, debateably, Haman Karn); ZZ dumped a plethora of Ple clones on the table; and even Gundam Wing, the show that made Gundam a hit in North America, had the wonderfully-named Marimeia Khushrenada. There are also more factors that may explain the appeal of anime to people who also feel attracted to far-right beliefs. For starters, the hyper-stylized artistic style often obscures race, making it relatively easy for certain viewers to project a default whiteness onto the characters on-screen. This may sound silly to many of you, and it should, because it is, but it happens. There's a reason why the question of "is Goku white?" has been bouncing around the dimmer recesses of the fandom for the past three decades or so. And it certainly doesn't help when, so often, foreigners in anime are depicted as exaggerated stereotypes. There's also a degree of orientalism involved, I think. There's a (deeply fallacious) perception among some on the far-right of Japan as an idealized ethnostate. (EDIT: oh, and of course, no small amount of fetishization, too.) I also think it's dangerous to minimize the affect these "fans" have on the fandom. Especially given the current state of the world. Older anime fans, I think, will recognize that this fandom has become a *lot* more toxic over time. The harm done to our community is pretty self-evident, I should think, wherever a sufficient number of us gather. Further, these people also represent us to the outside world. When the easiest way to tell if someone was a Nazi on twitter was by looking at their profile picture to see if there was a greek statue or an anime girl, well, that was when the problem hit critical mass -- and that was nearly a decade ago. Equivocating about all fandoms having their bad apples is really just ignoring the problem and hoping it will go away. It won't, it never does -- bad apples spoil barrels, that's just what they do. We owe it to ourselves and our peers to confront and fight bigotry at each and every opportunity.
It really should go without saying (but, uh, evidently it doesn't) that if all it takes for a person to abandon their sincerely-held beliefs is someone being mean to them, then those beliefs were never sincerely-held in the first place. This old refrain we see repeated so often from people who claim to have been former progressives who were "forced" to embrace right-wing ideologies by the "woke mob going too far," or however they like to phrase it, has always been, frankly, complete BS. And given how utterly ineffective that rhetoric is at convincing anyone else, I suspect the people saying it don't really believe it, either. Last edited by Fluwm on Mon Apr 14, 2025 2:51 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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