Anime simp culture
So I recently found my forgotten love for anime again and I blame YouTube for it. I was looking for a new study playlist and I still don't know how I ended up on a playlist with a title saying "A playlist for simps" and a picture of an anime character, who was at this point of the story still unknown to me. So to shorten things up a bit my reaction basically was: What the hell? Since when do we use the word simp for 2D characters?
For all of you who do not know what a simp is, where have you been on the internet to not come across this? However, the basic definition was:
A man that puts too much value on a female for no reason. (Urban Dictionary, 2012).
Back then, it was used as an insult for men regardless of them being only respectful to women or actually expecting something in return from them. Nowadays, I feel the definition of a simp has changed to a more varied usage of it. So especially in this whole anime bubble simping seems to be quite common meaning that when you simp for someone, you basically have a crush.
Crushing on someone is not that uncommon and even before we all started to use the word simp for it, crushing for a nonexistent character was already known as well. We now just have a new word for it, I guess?
Nevertheless, this whole thing about simping for your favourite character gave me a thought about a new form of celebrated escapism. Who is guilty of imagining situations with you and your comfort character as the protagonists? Definitely not me! (ahem) But to bring it back on a more serious note, there seems to be a growing acceptance of imagining relationships with people who do not exist, although this is only my perception and it is not based on any research. When I say this, I have to think of all the recommended videos with titles like "sing along if you simp", "POV: You are alone with your comfort character" or "You had a dream about xyz" etc.
I mean true, our world currently sucks and sometimes imagining things for the benefit of your own mental health is probably okay. But the big question of this whole topic now is how much is too much?
Will we all be incapable of functioning relationships because our favourite anime character is just ten times hotter, nicer or more understanding and our imagined situations are just way more exciting than anything else that happens in real life? I am exaggerating now, but I would be interested if this should be seen more critically. On the other side, you could argue that it is only for fun and because of Covid we don't have better things to do anyway.
I guess I'll end this by saying make up your own mind about it.
PS: I am sorry for not having posted anything last week. Procrastination (watching too much anime, while having an assignment) is hard...
See ya,
Na
















