/r/Animemes

About

/r/Animemes is a subreddit on Reddit devoted to making jokes and image macros related to various anime and manga television shows, video games, and characters. Since launching in 2013, the group has grown to over 500,000 members.

History

/r/Animemes was launched January 28th, 2013 by Redditor gaffer88.^[1] As of January 2018, there are seven moderators in the group. The group's rules indicate that all posts must be anime memes and not simply anime-related posts, such as an opening song.^[2] As of January 17th, 2018, the most popular post on the subreddit is an upvote-bait post featuring a "money cat" from the Emoting Mokou series (shown below, left). The second most-popular post by Holofan4life pokes fun at anime protagonists' tendency to be overtly muscular, gaining over 10,000 upvotes (shown below, right).

500,000 Subscribers Milestone

On May 23rd, 2019, /r/Animemes reached 500,000 subscriber count. On that day, two mascots of the subreddit, Chloe and Sachi, created by the artists SrGrafo and chrioxai, were revealed (shown below, top left and right). Additionally, a new banner created by Redditor PlusBurdles was introduced (shown below, bottom).^[6]

In the following hours, multiple posts celebrating the milestone were posted by the subreddit subscribers (examples shown below).

Related Memes

Traps

Trap is an internet slang term used online for people who crossdress and androgynous anime characters. On /r/Animemes, popular posts related to traps include a post on December 9th, 2017^[4] that gained over 2,700 upvotes (shown below, left). Another post from January 15th, 2018^[5] gained over 1,000 upvotes (shown below, right).

The moderators of /r/animemes later updated their rules forbidding transphobic content. These rules state:

Do not post sexist, racist, homophobic, or transphobic content. Do not personally attack, name-call, deliberately spoil, bully, troll, bait, or harass other users. Organising, promoting, or encouraging brigades is not allowed. No shock images/shock sites.

On August 2nd, 2020, Reddtior^[9] AnimemesMod announced the subreddit's banning of the word "Trap." They write:

Rule 5 was previously vague, as many users have different thresholds as to what they consider "sexist/racist/homophobic/transphobic content." We want to work on solving this. Today, we’re introducing a new guideline about appropriate content on the subreddit.

We’re now banning the term "trap." This ban applies to the word as it is used to describe feminine characters/individuals, not the word in the general sense. We are aware that the term "trap" is a controversial term to disallow, but this decision was not made without justification. Don't panic, though – your memes are going to remain all but the same, and nobody is coming to take away your cute boys.

They continue:

The word “trap” when used to describe individuals has been controversial since its inception, and even more so in recent years. Broadly speaking, most communities readily consider the term to be a slur. The offensive nature of the word lies in the implication that individuals are trying to trick (“trap”) others and by extension are not valid in how they present their gender. The use and misuse of the term in reference to both characters and people often results in the erasure of trans people and dismissal of their validity.

Lolicon

Lolicon (Lolita Complex) refers to a complex in where a person is attracted to fictional prepubescent girls, usually named as lolis. Lolicon is often portrayed in various japanese types of media such as anime, manga and doujinshi. On /r/Animemes, popular posts involving Loli include a post from December 28th, 2017 that gained over 1,700 upvotes (shown below, left). Another from November 11th, 2017 gained over 2,000 upvotes (shown below, right).

Earth-chan

Earth-chan is an anime-style anthropomorphic representation of the planet Earth. She is depicted as a young girl with hair dyed in the colors blue and green, resembling a photograph of the planet taken from space. Online, image macros featuring the character often contain jokes using the popular anime trope of characters being insecure about their flat chest by referencing to the flat earth theory.

On December 12th, 2017, Redditor WatBoi19 submitted an illustration in which the Earth-chan character complains to a man wearing a NASA shirt that "everybody call me flat," leading the man to say "Don't believe what they said, senpai. You are not flat!" (shown below). Within 24 hours, the post gained over 5,900 points (93% upvoted) and 280 comments on /r/animemes.

Satania

Satania (Full name: Satanichia Kurumizawa McDowell) is a character from the anime Gabriel DropOut. She is often shown as being abused by other characters from the show, and is often used in no bully posting.

Canada-Themed Memes

Between January 16th and 19th, 2020, the first round of Meme Lounge Olympics took place on Reddit.^[7] One of the participating subreddits, /r/animemes was assigned Canadian Stock Images^[8] as its theme for the week, with subreddit being flooded with memes based on stock images of lumberjacks, maple syrup, moose and other aspects of Canadian culture during that time.

Search Interest

External References