kyou fujibayashi annoyed face clannad
Posted on by Theo J Ellis

Anime Clickbait, Outrage Culture, And How Influencers Make It Worse

Clickbaiters, outrage nutjobs, and people who’s entire business is built around hype and bullshit seems common in the Anime community.

The worst culprits for this are YouTubers. Anime fans themselves have said it 1000’s of times on the internet.

Next in line is anime news sites. Some who are culture vultures, and others who are built off HYPE.

Beyond that – you have sites that write about anime (along with other topics) who are known for anime clickbait.

 

What is anime clickbait?

anime clickbait titles

“Clickbait” I admit is a term that’s misused and abused.

Most people think anything with a good title or image is “clickbait”, but that’s not how it works.

Clickbait is anything that’s MISLEADING. It’s really that simple.

The type of headline where once you view the content, it doesn’t reflect or even relate to the content in the headline.

Sometimes titles with a cliche format (you won’ believe, etc) are considered clickbait.

 

Anime clickbait on YouTube is different

youtube anime clickbait

You’ll see this a lot on YouTube accounts. Dumb, stupid, over the top and “forced” facial expressions to make people CLICK.

The types of faces you wouldn’t even do in real life because it’s all an act like you’re playing a role in a film.

But “corny” has no correlation to clickbait. It’s whether the title is misleading, insincere or creates fake outrage.

 

How anime clickbait affects outrage culture

anime clickbait soranews

Soranews dropped this article the other day.

The headline is this:

Does anime need to start being more politically correct for overseas audiences? Twitter debates

The author starts by saying:

“Japanese animation has long had a reputation for pushing the boundaries of what’s acceptable, but is it pushing too far these days?”

Pushing too far for who?  (The loud minority, of course).

They go on to say:

“As access to anime gets easier and easier, its overseas audience is continually expanding beyond people who grew up with or have an interest in/affinity for the set of Japanese societal values reflected in the medium. Because of that, there’s been increased debate as to whether or not anime needs to be more concerned with the idea of political correctness.”

While I feel the writer has good intentions, THIS type of headline is misleading. The writer is from the US originally, which explains a lot.

Twitter is NOT debating this topic. It’s literally a minority of people in the west crying about how politically incorrect anime is, or a handful of Japanese bending the knee to their rhetoric propaganda.

Only now is Twitter “debating” anime’s political correctness BECAUSE Soranews’s article is doing the rounds on social media.

Intentional or not, this is manufactured hype.

This tweet says it all.

 

Kotaku is another culprit with a misleading title.

On Feb 20th 2020 they created a post called “Pokemon anime accused of whitewashing”. The reason It wasn’t covered here on Anime Motivation, is because after looking into it – it wasn’t REALLY an issue to begin with.

Nobody complained about it, except 1 or 2 accounts on Twitter (at most). Kotaku’s clickbait has blown it out of proportion and created an issue that isn’t even real.

Even now there’s hardly anyone complaining, Kotaku just manufactured hype for clicks.

 

Some people seem to “get it” and understand the blatant anime clickbait that’s going on here.

 

How anime clickbait gives “power” to FAKE outrage culture:

 

1. It creates outrage out of thin air

Going back to the Kotaku article again – like this Tweet says: they’re stirring sh*t up for clicks.

Pokemon’s so-called “whitewashing” backlash isn’t and wasn’t a real thing.

Kotaku CREATED it.

pokemon whitewashing kotaku fake outrage

What’s crazy is how there’s over 400+ comments and how close it is to almost half a million views.

And this is on top of the fact none of this was an ISSUE to begin with.

Kotaku used their influence to create “fake outrage” and only now is it a topic people are “supposedly” outraging about.

 

This is disingenuous

It creates outrage out of thin air, which then gives POWER to the handful of people crying about a non-issue.

Or even in cases where nobody is even complaining until the “fake outrage” is created by so-called journalist and unethical websites.

If it’s REALLY an outrage then it makes sense to report on it. But if no one is outraging, you’re just doing it for clicks, views, at the expense of spreading lies and causing controversy for the sake of it.

 

2. It gives the LOUD minority a platform

Sometimes speaking AGAINST outrage culture is 100% necessary. You can’t let certain things and people push false narratives and spread lies.

The attempts to do this against anime are comically more frequent these days.

In 2019 it had REAL outrage and controversy surrounding it. Feminist sites (and SJW’S on Twitter) went all out attacking the anime. Claiming the false rape allegation against the main character was toxic.

sjw triggered rising of shield hero

This was a real thing, so in cases like this you gotta do what you gotta do.

Even Anime News Network took part in pushing a narrative.

 

The opposite is true when it’s “not” really an outrage

Take this Tweet as an example.

Someone complained about Shounen Jump.

They mention Dragon Ball as if they’re a fan, but then cry because Shounen Jump published the “crude” scene from Dragon Ball with Bulma and Master Roshi.

bulma master roshi ecchi

 

This is the fake outrage that should NEVER be given a platform

By giving fake outrage a platform, or outrage that’s really a few people complaining – means giving these people a platform to spread lies, toxicity, and their agendas.

It’s dumb to report on this type of sh*t if it’s not really a thing. That’s the type of insincere crap clickbait sites, bloggers and “journalists” are known for.

These types of anime clickbaiters only make things worse and can cause more harm than good.

 

rwby suicide

Now don’t get me wrong – I’ve been caught up in controversy BECAUSE of point #2.

I reported on a fan of RWBY who committed suicide back in 2019. I was the only one to report on it since I caught it first (no site covered it).

By giving this person a platform – it turned out it was a troll creating fake news for attention.

DELETED TWEETD RWBY

They deleted their account, and it was confirmed to be a hoax.

This news story BLEW UP all over Twitter and the internet.

The point here is this is why giving fake outrage or trolls a platform is DANGEROUS.

It might have driven an insane amount of views to this site, but at what cost?

Some anime influencers prostitute their attention so much, they don’t care about the consequences. But it’s a trend that clearly does more harm than good. Especially when it’s intentional.

We should:

  • be more thoughtful
  • or straight up ignore sites that create problems and fake outrage for their own personal gain.

Speaking out against outrage is a double edged sword and shouldn’t be done carelessly.

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Recommended:

So Called Anime Journalism, And How Everyone’s In It For Clicks

This Is Why Anime Will Never Be Politically Correct