The Death of Ani-Twitter | A Brief Pre-Mortem
The sun is setting on the quasi-toxic anime community that has, for better or worse, served as a centralized hub for anime discourse. Surprisingly enough, it wasn’t our fault. Known Tokyo Ghoul enthusiast, Elon Musk, has compromised to a permanent end the platform that our niche, little community called home. Anime Twitter wasn’t all that bad mind you. Many of us forged bonds with people from around the world over our shared love/hatred of Japanese cartoons. I’ve attended Ani-Twitter weddings, have been to world premieres for shows with friends I have made on the platform, and have seen new generations of otakus discover a medium that has been a major part of my life for well over 3 decades. Despite recognizing it as a hell-site, it was a huge part of my life that I wouldn’t trade for anything. Maybe Twitter gets the last second bullshit shounen power-up and survives this death blow, but I’m not counting on it.
I believe that in its final hours credit should be given to the content creators on that platform that brought us together. While anime brought us to the dance, they were the liquor in the punch bowl that got us all to talk to each other. From journalist like the folks that work for ANN, to anime youtubers, to independent ani-bloggers, many of us can trace our initial thought to create an account and send a sternly worded tweet to an individual person on the platform. To those people who depended on the platform to monetize their content and earn a living, I’m sorry that this is happening and wish you all the luck in the world. Hopefully I will see you all again somewhere down the road.
To wrap things up before I get all emotional, I want to thank you all for getting me to give a chance to shows I wouldn’t have given a second look like Magical Circle Guru Guru and Odd Taxi. Thank you for posting sakuga clips and memes. Thanks for being there when my life was falling apart. You all saved me, and I’m sure I’m not the only one.
