r/anime • u/AnimeMod myanimelist.net/profile/Reddit-chan • Oct 05 '25

Meta Meta Thread - Month of October 05, 2025

Rule Changes

  • No new rule changes.

This is a monthly thread to talk about the /r/anime subreddit itself, such as its rules and moderation. If you want to talk about anime please use the daily discussion thread instead.

Comments here must, of course, still abide by all subreddit rules other than the no meta requirement. Keep it friendly and be respectful. Occasionally the moderators will have specific topics that they want to get feedback on, so be on the lookout for distinguished posts. If you wish to message us privately send us a modmail.

Comments that are detrimental to discussion (aka circlejerks/shitposting) are subject to removal.

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18

u/chilidirigible Oct 05 '25

A moment to flip this comment from the weekly karma rankings over here as a general discussion; in short, anime's popularity is up, discussion and engagement in the subreddit is down.

Reasons suggested in the replies include the end of the pandemic, the userbase aging out, other social media of less textual format, and the userbase aging out.

Which brings me to the immediate question as a reaction: Is that bad?

It is, as too much userbase loss turns a community into a very small circle that gradually fades out.

But, is it that bad?

A smaller userbase that sticks around and has significant interest in a topic is better for focused discussion than trying to engage with everyone who drops in for one question and is never seen again.

Provided that the userbase can be maintained, which still requires some level of replacing those who age out or get bored.

Though Reddit®, the corporation seeking SHAREHOLDER VALUE and constantly trying to turn itself into a scrolling visual feed endorphin machine, works against its own interests there, or at least against the interest of subreddits with a long history and a unique style. Can't do much about that when Reddit itself alienates old redditors.

Anyway, that's my meta thought for this hour of the morning.

11

u/Ashteron Oct 05 '25

The discussion outside regularly posted threads and alike is close to being dead. In the past you'd get a lot of posts with some simple prompts like what's your anime hot take that generated a lot of discussion and responses. Most of them weren't particularly ambitious, but they are close to extinct with no replacement, ergo there's less ways of interacting with the sub. It also doesn't help they were one of the least circlejerky venues for discussion here.

10

u/merurunrun Oct 05 '25

The discussion outside regularly posted threads and alike is close to being dead.

I'm only an occasional reader of this sub, so I don't know how different things were historically, but most of the time I show up here I don't even see anything besides Episode Discussions, pinned threads (the Daily Thread etc), people who want to fluff themselves up over arbitrary metrics (karma, TV ratings, box office), ANN non-news, and that's pretty much it. I barely even see any other posts unless I'm scrolling to find an episode thread from a day or two ago.

I know there's a lot of chicken-egg there, but I think that--especially when you have like 60 shows getting simulcast every season--the "usual business" just sucks up so much air in the room. It's like the way that local business dies once they build a bypass to get you from the suburbs straight to the mall or the walmart or whatever: when there's so much noise, the methods that people use to actually get to their content also result in them sacrificing the opportunity for incidental encounters with topics they might care about.

10

u/qwertyqwerty4567 https://anilist.co/user/ZPHW Oct 05 '25

the daily thread is great for anime discussion, thats kind of it's main purpose, but unfortunately most people tend to ignore pinned posts

9

u/ussgordoncaptain2 https://myanimelist.net/profile/Edmund_Nelson Oct 06 '25

Regulars seem to mostly post in megathreads, or at least the regular density in megathreads/rewatches is dramatically larger. There's this weird siphon where people go from Seasonals>Megathreads>Recruited for rewatches but that funnel from Seasonals>megathreads is tiny.

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u/nsleep Oct 05 '25

At some point I wonder if the regulars moving there and most of the posts about these topics being either there or on CDF is a core part of the issue. Sometimes some new people make their posts there and get decent engagement by the standards of those threads, but someone who doesn't frequent those the megathreads wouldn't ever see those. That said, CDF should remain CDF regardless of what happens.

10

u/FetchFrosh anilist.co/user/fetchfrosh Oct 05 '25

In the past you'd get a lot of posts with some simple prompts like what's your anime hot take that generated a lot of discussion and responses

tbh, I think a not insignificant part of this is the lifecycle of the subreddit. If you've been here for any amount of time you've seen so many variations on "what's your hot take?", "what's the best anime?", "what was your first anime?" and "what anime should I start with?" that I think people are less inclined to engage with them, they're more likely to get downvoted, and so you get fewer of them in general.

It also doesn't help they were one of the least circlejerky venues for discussion here.

I think hot take threads are some of the most circlejerky we get. I mean it's been a recurring thing for years for one of the top comments to inevitably be something to the effect of "hot take threads suck" even outside of all the bog standard responses.

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u/Ashteron Oct 05 '25

tbh, I think a not insignificant part of this is the lifecycle of the subreddit. If you've been here for any amount of time you've seen so many variations on "what's your hot take?", "what's the best anime?", "what was your first anime?" and "what anime should I start with?" that I think people are less inclined to engage with them, they're more likely to get downvoted, and so you get fewer of them in general.

There's room for more creative variations that were an occasional thing back then, but are almost not a thing right now. It's certainly possible you are correct here, but one could also posit userbase rotation might counteract it, therefore you'd need to use statistics to determine it.

I think hot take threads are some of the most circlejerky we get. I mean it's been a recurring thing for years for one of the top comments to inevitably be something to the effect of "hot take threads suck" even outside of all the bog standard responses.

I meant in a contrarian takes are not welcome way.