Anime has entered the mainstream for a while now, idk what you're talking about. You see the number of NBA stars saying they love anime? There's a video just a few days ago of wiggs talking about demon slayer, a ton of players love Naruto, etc. Don't act like a dweeb and anime isn't the turn off it once was.

Appreciated, but this is the first sentence in your citation:

> We examined the content of anime fan stereotypes in a sample of non-fans (N = 146). Self-identified non-fans of anime wrote about a prototypical anime fan and rated the prototype’s personality their desired social distance from the prototype.

I think we can both see where conclusions drawn here might fail. Replace any human characteristic and have non-fans of that characteristic respond, and you’re likely to get similar results.

I think that’s more the statement ‘I like anime’ without context?

If you already see the person in front of you is not a pasty white nerd the statement doesn’t make as much of sn impression.

In which case the problem is really being a pasty white nerd.

I've only skimmed some the paper, but does it distinguish between _types_ of anime fans?

I think the people the non-fans are probably thinking of are more likely "weeaboos", or people who are so obsessed with Japanese culture that they completely reject their own (the ones in really cringey videos). However, there are so many more people now that are either more open to the medium or just openly enjoy it but aren't really as visible - I'd love to see a reproduction of this test with this distinguishing factor.