Gatekeeping is GOOD…or is it?

Gatekeeping is defined as “the activity of controlling, and usually limiting, general access to something,” and in the case of the internet and especially fandoms, it is a method of determining who is and is not a real fan of a certain medium. Typically, you’ll see gatekeeping behaviors being used against newer fans of the medium who are not displaying the proper knowledge that would be acceptable if said individual wants to be able to join the discussion of the medium. If you call yourself an anime fan, you better have seen more anime than the typical seasonals. If you call yourself a gamer, you better have played more than just Undertale, Fortnite and KFC Dating Sim. Call yourself a movie buff only after you watch more than just typical blockbusters. You get the idea. It’s not as if the idea is all too unfamiliar to us since it’s the same within any large group, especially when it comes to fans of music and sports. You have to show that you are knowledgeable enough on the topic to be able to prove that you are, in fact, qualified to be as much of a fan of that fanbase as you are. In a sense, the idea is sort of reasonable. If a person spends so much time being a fan of the Warriors, for example, to the point where they buy tickets to every game, buy every single unique jersey, shirt, hat, shoes, and jacket, know the stats for every player not just on the current lineup but every member of Warriors history AND you listen to Mac Dre every day then yeah. You are obviously more of a fan than the average person. The issue that’s coming up, however, is that gatekeeping is being used to determine whether or not people are allowed to be a part of the fandom…or at least, people are saying that it should be.

In this video, I am going to be speaking from the lens of the anime community as this is where I got the inspiration for this video. I see this on my timeline all the time (FOLLOW ME ON TWITTER @WTWANIME) be it because of Ninja saying that Kimetsu no Yaiba is gonna be the greatest anime ever made, people complaining about an aged-up lewd fanart of Nezuko that is explicitly labeled as aged-up and is by all facts and logic not loli hentai but whatever, the topic that I covered in “Uraraka Breaks the Shounen Female Lead Curse!?!”, this funny tweet about how you’re not a real anime fan if you can’t name 15 Dragonball characters, so on and so on and so on. There are people who want gatekeeping, people who don’t want it, people who think the very act is detrimental to the furthering of the anime community, people who think that without it the community is going to be worse and worse. Because of where I stand in the community, the people that I interact with seem to lean towards the desire for gatekeeping. The conversation has devolved into two sides fighting over who deserves the right to watch anime, and I wanted to stand here before all of you and say that I do believe gatekeeping is necessary, but the conversation is not so simple that it stops there.

What those of you who do not want gatekeeping do not understand is that the issue is not solely stemming from people saying that you are not allowed to talk about anime unless you’ve seen X amount of shows or these types of anime. It’s part of it, but the rationale behind it is far more nuanced than that and the only people who believe those two things should be the sole criteria are, as always, the vocal minority who also should not be talking. You will see these funny posts titled “list of necessary anime to watch” or “if you haven’t watched these then you aren’t an anime fan,” but these lists will include shows that are not only not that niche, but to many of us are entry level and WERE entry level in the sense that it got us into the fandom. Madoka Magica, Cowboy Bebop, Hunter X Hunter, Samurai Champloo, Neon Genesis Evangelion, Fullmetal Alchemist, JoJo, Code Geass–even if they aren’t specifically “first anime material” even though a lot of these shows end up being many people’s introduction into anime, they are seen by many in the community who are more experienced to be fairly easily accessible. Even then, there are the tweets like the Dragonball characters one where somehow not being able to name 15 Dragonball characters doesn’t make you a true anime fan even though Dragonball is the most entry level of entry level anime and not watching it really doesn’t hurt your credibility at all if you’ve seen literally anything else.

These sorts of people fail to realize that the act of watching X amount of shows or certain types of anime does not make you more enlightened than the average anime newcomer. There are people who have seen hundreds of anime and still do not understand that Shounen, Seinen, Shoujo and Josei are demographics and not genres while there are people who’ve seen below 100 who do know that. There are experienced anime fans who still think that the slice of life genre is just cute girls doing cute things instead of the wide and all-encompassing genre that it is with shows like Sakamichi no Apollon, Love Live, 3-gatsu no Lion, Mob Psycho 100, Toradora, Mushishi, Beck Mongolian Chop Squad and so many others being encompassed under the label of slice of life. There are still experienced anime fans who do not know what is and isn’t an isekai. Whether this be a critical thinking argument or not, the point is that the number of shows and types of shows watched alone do not determine the level of fan one person is. The issue is stemming from the general lack of knowledge. Those three things I mentioned are frequently discussed by so many people because so many people lack the knowledge to make those determinations for themselves, which is why you still see people calling Madoka Magica a deconstruction despite the fact that Mahou Shoujo anime have existed before that are not only as dark as Madoka but that what Madoka’s doing is pretty standard, especially considering that the show is about the power of love. Don’t even get me started on how Madoka isn’t even doing its own thing and is heavily taking influence from Kamen Rider Ryuki. Just look at chapter reviewers. They watch almost every show under the sun yet they are being made fun of by anime fans who’ve seen less than they have because the knowledge that they are displaying is not sufficient if one is to call themselves an experienced member of the anime community.

Even within people who desire gatekeeping, you see all kinds of hypocrisy. The two videos that I watched on the topic have people start talking about how it’s good and then immediately bite themselves in the ass when they say they don’t know what Toradora is. The Ninja situation had people bombarding him with shows that were better to prove him wrong but 90% of the people just spammed JoJo and Hunter X Hunter, not to mention that Ninja later on revealed that he actually HAS seen more than he was letting on in a single, sensationally worded tweet, not to mention that the anime community was and still is proclaiming Kimetsu no Yaiba to be the anime of the year and one of the greatest shows ever made, but whatever. There’s more to this than just “watch these shows” because at some point there is going to be someone who knows more than you.

On the flipside, there is the argument that gatekeeping is damaging to the community because it repels people from wanting to join, saying things like “you’re just a bunch of nerds, you’re no better!” or “haha this means more money and more anime coming out!” which does not address the core of the argument either. For the sake of illustrating this point, let’s pretend I am an artist. I haven’t been drawing for a while and my art is fairly mediocre. However, I start to promote my own views on art, saying that certain artists are lazy and should have better artstyles. I started to say that this inferior, mainstream type of art software and tablet is the best of their kind and that all others aren’t as good. I started to say that there is only one type of style that is even good and that all others are just not appealing to me and not worth mine or anyone’s time. And these things are clearly wrong and I’m pushing these values out onto other people until you, a more experienced artist, comes to tell me that I am wrong. I see this and say this: “WHY am I seeing people PRAISING gatekeeping?? On art no less!! Come on guys, don’t pretend you weren’t the nerds who were always picked last in any school activity – we geeks are the FIRST people who should be opposed to gatekeeping!! xD Also, uhhh, more fans = more people wanting art. So, if you guys want your own commissions and appreciation, don’t go takin’ those profits away otherwise you won’t have any ;3” That would probably piss you off, because there is a very blatant ignoring of the way art works and why people were upset in the first place. What you just did was gatekeeping, which is apparently allowed for your own community, because it isn’t just artists and anime fans who will use this type of logic against anime, you’ll see it from anyone new from another fanbase that wants to get in, but they’ll allow it in their fanbases and but not for anime because “it’s just cartoons” or “you guys are weirdos too, so calm down.” Many fans of anime do take this seriously, and the act of belittling them for wanting better discussion in their medium, especially for those who are content creators, artists or aspiring filmmakers who take influence and inspiration from anime or even just people whose lives are affected by these shows. But saying things like “FMAB is just a panel for panel recreation of the manga”, that “all shounen shows are the same” or that “anime is for children and pedophiles” is fine for some reason. 

In the aforementioned examples of the Nezuko lewd fanart and Uraraka, we have new fans of anime who are not used to the nature of the anime community and anime as a whole, complaining about sexism in the community. I’ll hold off on my opinions on the nature of anime tiddle diddles which I’m just gonna shill Craftsdwarf’s video on the anime pervert for you again to illustrate that, but with the Uraraka example, this is stemming from not only a lack of information from an inexperienced member of the community, but also a lack of deductive reasoning that not only is poisonous to the discourse, but also belittles the work of so many different creators whose works are going without being understood or appreciated, and if you are an artist who advocates for the success of other artists, you owe it to yourself to become more knowledgeable on the medium in order to prevent yourself from saying these things and not being consistent on your own standards. 

You cannot view gatekeeping from these narrow lenses of don’t do it or absolutely do it because the conversation is more than just that. It’s not how many shows you’ve watched, which shows you’ve watched and it’s hypocritical to say that it’s bad when every other fanbase does it for a reason, and yes there is a reason why gatekeeping exists and it’s not to “push people out of the community.” Gatekeeping has and always will exist in every fanbase, whether you are aware of it or not. 

I believe gatekeeping to be less like going to the Pokemon League and showing how many badges you have to get in and more akin to going against the Elite Four and facing off against them with what you have and seeing if it is sufficient, because what gatekeeping really is is a bar for those to determine who is or who is not capable of partaking in the discussion, not a measurement of whether or not you deserve to be a fan.

I recently had a conversation with my irl friend about anime as Toolman was unfortunately forced to sit there and listen to us sperg out, and during this discussion he made the following claim:

“I view My Hero Academia as a fresh new take on the shounen genre and Demon Slayer as a shounen that does everything the same as the others but good.”

I’m paraphrasing, but that’s essentially what he said.

If you’ve watched, or more importantly, read more than one shounen it’s not hard to figure out how wrong this claim is. Boku no Hero Academia is, by many who are experienced with anime and especially the shounen action genre, almost quite literally the same as every other shounen action series in existence, down to the rivalry between the underdog and the talented one, edgy rival, badass role model, main character getting the strongest power and having the story revolve around him, tragic backstories, school, pervert characters, and so on. I am not saying there isn’t nuance and that I hate the series, (I made two videos analyzing it after all) but what I am saying is that to call it “a fresh new take on the genre that is different from everything that came before” is a claim that is only typically said by those who are not, in fact, well versed in the genre. What I just did was gatekeeping. I can not prevent my friend from being a member of the anime community because that is something that anyone has access to and join, but what I can do is make sure that he has sufficient knowledge and correct him if he so chooses to discuss and make claims.

While you can’t control who enters the community, you can control who does and who doesn’t participate in the discourse. Many people currently gatekeep themselves by refusing to participate in discussion, but the ones who do participate in it are the ones who end up in conflict and end up getting bullied for their opinions. What the people who are opposed to gatekeeping don’t understand is that you can’t make claims, criticize other shows and other people’s tastes and other things like that and expect no one to talk back. The discourse is called the discourse because it’s a dialogue and not a hugbox where everyone is right and no one can be criticized. What people who say that we should “bring back gatekeeping” don’t understand is that the very action of entering discussion and driving people out based on their inability to defend themselves properly or not wanting their opinions criticized is in and of itself gatekeeping. Gatekeeping has and always will exist because the act of discussion will force people to show whether or not they are capable of staying there. What DOES need to happen is that people need to be reminded of this fact, especially if you want to become someone who is an authority on anime knowledge, and this is going to become increasingly more important as anime becomes more and more mainstream as it already is.

I remember back when I was just getting into anitube when Gigguk made that Anime Rant about whether or not anime could be mainstream, and the consensus then was that it would be better for the medium because it would become more widespread, but then others pointed out that it would lose its niche appeal and then we’d get all the normies. Guess what? It’s happening now, and all of you are acting as if we should go back to the days of the funny Gigguk tea and cake jokes. The idea behind getting someone into a medium is that, if you want them to get into the show that you want them to, you guide them to do so. You do not ostracize them simply for not watching it. You DO ostracize them, however, if they do want to be an authority on the discussion. 

Part of what’s really spurring me on to make this video is that I’ve noticed anitube likes to talk about anime without really trying to understand what it is they’re talking about. While it’s only recently that the opposite view has been presented and well-known in the community, it was pretty common for anitube to proclaim that Boku no Hero’s aspects are somehow unique within shounen despite anyone who has even seen or read a bit of Naruto knows that to not be true. However, we still have people making claims on genres they don’t have much experience in, as shown in the three videos before. Manime Matt proclaims Shigaraki to be Revolutionary, that Promised Neverland is “reinventing horror”, a video on power creep in shounen based on a flawed understanding of the series at hand and many others. Scamboli Reviews is a channel that I’ve found recently that has so many thumbnails and video titles that just makes me very sad for the future of humanity but also, when watching the content of the video, he makes it a point to throw more popular shows and genres under the bus in order to strengthen his own points despite those points about other genres being made almost entirely out of ignorance of the genre.

You will never see me make a video on horror anime or horror anything or make statements as to the quality of them simply because I do not have the sufficient knowledge to do so. In my K-On WAIAOP I specifically requested the help of YouTuber Shabu to help me with the terminology and breaking down the musical elements of Houkago Tea Time’s music because I lacked the qualifications to make those statements. I am willing to say my opinion on those things, but to proclaim myself as an authority on those subjects is dishonest and almost inherently disrespectful to those who are actually knowledgeable on the subject. You owe it to yourself as a content creator to do research on a subject because you are a person with an audience that is spreading this misinformation. I gatekeep myself to prevent myself from making claims that I lack knowledge on when possible, and should there be information I am lacking understanding on, I will correct it later. 

The reality of gatekeeping is that it’s not as if it’s not happening nor is it a bad thing if it does happen. I and so many people care about anime. Those who are movie buffs put time into watching, experiencing and understanding film. People who are fans of sports and especially certain teams will do so because they care about them. That is why these fans will gatekeep, because people come into the fanbases and communities and expect the same treatment without doing half the work. They haven’t put in the time to understand what it is that makes this medium so special to so many people. Are you really a Warriors fan if you only became a fan of them when they won championships and leave when they lost to the Raptors? No, you’re not. You’re a bandwagon fan who jumped onto a trend while there are people who are from Oakland, from Vallejo, from the City who have watched and supported this team this whole time, and to expect you to have the same level of respect as a fan is insulting. If you are an artist, it is insulting to be approached by someone who knows so little about art and say all of these fallacies, these generalizations about this skill that you have poured your heart and soul into. The same is true of anime fans. I care about this medium, so much so that I dedicated my online presence to it, but just because you don’t doesn’t mean I am more of a loser than you or that I wasted my time. After all, you are the one trying to get into MY fandom. If anything, you lose the right to call me a loser the moment you talked about what I do.

Does this mean that we should drive people out of fanbases and keep them sterile? No. That is just a hugbox, a place where views go unchallenged and everyone agrees on everything. The discussion only moves forward so long as new people with fresh perspectives come into the medium with their own ideas and put those ideas to the test of discourse, either coming out better informed or never wanting to participate in it again. We cannot and should not try to keep people out of the anime community. This medium is growing in respect and popularity every year, just like many of us wanted, and with that growth comes more respect and more shows but also worse fans and poisoning of the intellectual discourse if it goes uncontrolled. It is our job to determine, just like with sports and gaming, who has the right and ability to involve themselves in discourse and proclaim themselves to be an authority on the subject. It is not a matter of whether or not we should let people in, it is about holding yourself accountable for entering a space where people can and will disagree with you and can and will try to prove you wrong. Do not complain if you put your thoughts out there and they get challenged because you knew what you were getting into. Don’t place the responsibility on people who don’t want toxicity in the discussion. For those who are more experienced, you need to remember to constantly improve your own knowledge in order to keep your understanding where it needs to be because there are people who don’t know much about the medium and have no one else to help them know where to turn. You were in their place at some point too, don’t pretend you weren’t.

And yes, this video is gatekeeping.