Thread by @PedanticRomantc

So, I saw the usual suspects reacting to the news with takes along these lines over the past few days, getting MASSIVE viewcounts on videos covering it, and upon literally 3 minutes of reading their narrative entirely collapses; it's really quite stunning and hilarious, a thread:

https://twitter.com/PimpMasterYoda1/status/1295135577222897665

Here's Hero Hei getting over 200 THOUSAND views in under a day talking about how this move "DESTROYS" CR & Funi

It certainly WOULD be devastating if anime studios were banding together to create their own non-CR service b/c they were mad at the company

If only that was true...

So, what actually happened?

An AMERICAN venture capitalist teamed up w/ a bunch of anime studios to make a youtube channel where they'll be putting up tons of classic, often kids/family-aimed anime that isn't on places like CR/Funi anyway to get some ad rev & marketing off of it

Far from being "Japan banding together to strike back against the West b/c of CR's repressive practices!" this is a WESTERN-LED venture trying to monetize a kind of anime which has lots of cultural value but which performs terribly in the simulcast-driven environment of streaming

This is a great, exciting move (aside from venture capital being involved which is always concerning), archiving and opening up global access to a huge swathe of the medium's history

It does not, however, in the slightest, undermine anything companies like CR are doing lmao

Hero Hei's remarkably successful video here, which will inform a huge group of people, is a LIE

And worst of all it's not a lie of omission, or a lie of tact; it's a lie born from simple ideologically-fueled STUPIDITY, the kind that 3 minutes of reading could've corrected

This is utterly textbook construction of a culture war; it's fiction

Hero Hei & his ilk just totally made up a clash between CR/Funi & Japan where literally none exists purely to validate the injured egos of their ideological allies who want to feel like "Japan is on their side"

And this is how our fandom spaces are GENUINELY invaded and hurt by pointless outsider political squabbles

Instead of news being spread of this exciting development for the very medium of anime, it's being reduced to being framed as a blow against the fake CR "anti-anime agenda"

These artificial culture wars are made up because they're PROFITABLE

How many views would Hero Hei have gotten if he covered this article and framed it truthfully? 10K? 20?

It's not very spicy or eye-catching

But if you lie hard enough about it then it can be

For all the talk of our greedy corporate overlords like CR & Funi destroying the medium of anime & its fandom, culture war tabloid garbage like this, which sets ppl against each other & creates animosity where there is none just to make a quick buck, is at least just as nefarious

On the one hand, I feel some desire to get back on the platform & combat this; on the other, this mental toxin is so entrenched, the constructed echo chambers so impenetrable by now, that I wouldn't be able to do much of anything but throw more kindling into the culture war fire

I REALLY care about anime, as a fan

How many of these idealogues like Hero Hei, who are theoretically serving as voices for "the true fans" have ever watched an anime from before 1995? Ever googled an interview with an anime director b/c they're curious about the medium?

For them, "fan" is a constructed political category; the battle lines are CR & "the puritans" on one side, and "the fans" on the other

But that construction is a lie; it always has been

Anime HAS been taken over by politics, just not the ones they warned us about

/end thread

Very amusing update: Heo Hei has put out another video, where he giddily discusses his discover that Toei invested in Animelog

Surely this must mean theyre seeking to fight back against Funi!

He seems not to know about Daisuke, the 2013-2017 streaming site invested in by...Toei

(*Daisuki my apologies)

Toei (among other anime studios), literally already did this same thing 7 years ago, and we didn't get what Hero Hei and his followers desperately dream of, Toei pulling the Dragon Ball license from the evil sjw localizers over at Funi

It's not as if we needed proof of this, because it's constantly made apparent, but like, if Hero Hei actually had any investment in the anime industry before it fired Vic Mignogna, he'd KNOW this shit

He'd also know it if he was capable of the most bare-level research

*ONE AND A HALF MILLION* subscriber youtuber Lost Pause is now also getting in on the clickbait cash money this lie can provide

Props to him for being LESS incorrect w/ his info; he at least mentions that the channel's catalogue is all older shows

It's kind of hilarious, certainly vindicating, but also genuinely devastating that when he mentions that, he goes, "I-I...I dont even know what this stuff is"

The disdain in his voice when he says, "what you'll be greeted with is some really....old.......anime" is just heartbreaking on some level

This is the man with one of the largest platforms in the community; this is how he feels towards the history of the medium