Plus, now I'm old.

Growing up in an era where people still said "japanimation" and the word "weeaboo" wasn't even a term yet, connecting with the few others who bothered to give niche media a chance gave me solace that there is value to be found outside of public expectations. Apart from fulfilling a role or succeeding at the trivia checks of common knowledge. Those more personalized finds were a small spark lit from within, to be shared with others who have found the same.

But even then, I wasn't some sort of scholar. I didn't plumb the depths for the most obscure media, for the accolades or the betterment of public knowledge. My unpopular tastes were always incidental, and I also wasn't immune to falling in with the crowd when it happened to suit me. But when it wasn't enough, what I realized was that I could only find what I was looking for by searching where others wouldn't, and it was my joy to find peers who would do the same around me. But it was only ever among them that I felt real.

Dramatized for effect.

"You didn't see this movieHow do you not even know the actors???"
"You don't watch this TV showbut EVERYONE is talking about it!?"
"You don't listen to this musicWhat will you sing when we make you do karaoke??"
"You don't even like any sportsIt's the least you can do. You don't have any other real interests.?"
"Then what do you like?? Other than that nerd crapmath doesn't count.."

Casually invalidated all around, by friends and family who were merely trying to understand why I wasn't on the same page. As we all do. It's societal understanding of one another that prompts this concerna charitable read for schadenfreude, but also makes assimilation the natural, comfortable course, to the point that anything else can be frustrating to see.

But some time in the mid-2010's, the paradigm began to shift, and I hadn't even noticedI hadn't even been looking.. It was like I had meandered into an alternate dimension. I was being told suddenly that I wasn't special at all for my interests, as if that was ever once my foolish concern.

Everybody plays video games now. Everyone watches anime.
Didn't you know? Did you think you were the only one?How could you be so out of touch?

…Disorienting as it was, this was actually good news for me. It was a relief that my fears, apparently, had always been in my head. The ridicule I faced, the odd looks, the othering sense that I would never relate to normal people, those were all a localized issue only I dealt with. Something only people in my life made me feel - or, perhaps, that I had always imagined it from the start. That is fundamentally good… and best of all, things were going to be different from now on.

So where did that lead…?

Thankfully, the internet is vast, and I have a basic enough sense of socializing that I always find myself in the company of likeminded people. But even outside my own circles, all around me, everyone really liked games, everyone really watched anime. On a large scale, what was said to me was true!

But it also wasn't.

Those people weren't playing my favorite games, few watched the shows I really liked, or engage in what I'm really into. It wasn't nobody, but it felt like the same amount as before. I was still cultivating an island away from a culture that has been developed around me, shaped into something familiar yet still unrecognizable.

Effected for drama.

"You haven't played this new gameyou don't even OWN an xbox??? yet?"
"You don't even keep up with this animebut EVERY weeb is talking about Attack on Titan.?"
"You've never heard of this streamerI get it, they're a little too crazy for most people.?"
"You call yourself a nerd, but what do you even like? Other than that weird stuffcoding doesn't count.."

Naturally, capitalism is to blame.

I mean yeah. Lets beat that dead horse for a bit.

When I wasn't looking, it was the invisible hand of the free market that got its grubby little paws all over my favorite things. Once it was clear they could profit from it, they had to become the culture to monpolize it, and then shape the culture so they could exploit it. It wasn't one single evil entity that was responsible for this, but the pattern came from the exact world I could never fit myself into: a world where everyone could naturally relate to one another without fear of rejection, because everything was known and safe and ubiquitous and inevitable.

You have to play the game of the year. Real fans watch the hypest battles of the anime season. Everyone simps for the newest waifu/husbando. You have to goon. You can literally goon. It's on goon. Just subscribe to goon. You can goon it you can watch it on goon get your goon on

Market growth was astroturfing the space I lived in until I no longer recognized it, then telling me it's everything I already thought it was, but I was just always doing it wrong.

I wasn't doing it enough.

And it took me this long to realize through all this gaslighting that I was never in good company - bad company just figured out how to wear our clothes. It happened so fast that now I almost don't even belong in my own comfort zone.

I don't think people like me are supposed to relate.

It simply isn't the prerogative, the main goal or aim of how we engage with an interest. Chicken or Egg: maybe it was that we all understood early on how it feels to fall into an unpopular niche, or maybe we naturally reject popularity, even if we might think we want it.

There have been many pejorative nicknames for our ilk over the years: wannabe, poser, hipster, performative. Not all of them actually directed at us, but something we belong to all the same.

And they are all descriptors that center on a desire for recognition, rather than a lack of itThat one is "loner".

But it doesn't stop a feeling of imposter syndrome from taking root. Even as I type this, I recognize that there are countless others who made peace with this and became even weirder, even more niche, and ever so much more fulfilled for it. And on the other hand, I still indulge in seasonal fads just like everyone else, too. I just don't - I can't - engage in quite the way everyone seems to expect.

I'm an imposter for thinking I'm aligned enough to roll with the crowd, but I'm also an imposter for thinking I'm so radical I can call myself unique. Yet imposter is another word centering on a desire for recognition.

But it isn't all bad. After all, nothing changed.

It's all the same as it has been. I don't relate at large to the people around me. I can sort of communicate because I've lived here all my life, but fundamentally we can only see past each other. But that is what my comfort zone is. The essence of this is what I've lived in - on the fringe, in the dim edges of the brightest light where I can more clearly find others with their own spark to share. But not in total darkness, either.

In these days filled with worries and disappointment, in our subcultures, in its industries, in the world around us, it's become more important than ever to ween off a reliance to the approval of crowds. To separate yourself and your joys from an ever-changing tide that may one day leave you stranded. To enjoy what the current brings, but not follow it off a cliff, and to remember that your love and passion always comes from within, even when fueled from without.