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A response to The Mary Sue´s Moé post

Ah, yes, The Mary Sue (which is a feminist geek site for females who covers pop culture of different kinds) is at it again. Sure, the site is quite well-known for targeting popular mediums throughout the years (games, movies, TV-series, Comics. You name it!) for ragebait clicks. However, this time it appears as if The Mary Sue might have gotten water over their heads. You see. They dropped a post called “Moé, Misogyny and Masculinity: Anime’s Cuteness Problem–and How to Fix It“, where Amelia Cook took (“Freelance writer viewing anime through a feminist lens“) a swing at cute anime girls, masculinity and Moé-fandom. So as you might imagine, it didn´t take long before fans of anime responded back to The Mary Sue´s article (thus the Twitter hashtag “#OperationMoe”).

“This undercurrent of misogyny runs through The Moé Manifesto”

“Then there is the fact that moé characters are designed to appeal to adult men with the income to afford DVDs and models, but the vast majority of moé anime have teenage protagonists.”

“As a woman keen to see increased representation of female characters on-screen, I find moé alienating.”– Amelia Cook, The Mary Sue

moe misogyny and masculinity animes cuteness problem and how to fix it

First it was games, then cosplayers and comic females…And now it´s anime girls? What´s next after that?

I bet that there is a whole lot of truth to this picture…

The more attractive a female looks (real or fictional) the more salt will flow.

That´s just a part of the story though, as it´s simply one piece of a bigger puzzle. As all of this is a part of a culture war that´s been ongoing for years now, and if you read through some of Sam Riedel´s (Contributor coordinator at The Mary Sue) tweets (as seen in the third picture down below) and Amelia Cook´s (Freelance writer at The Mary Sue) previous posts at The Mary Sue. Then you will soon realize that Cook and Riedel ´s biggest fear is anime booty, fanservice and lewd content in general.

I honestly didn´t think that I would live to see the day when anime would become “offending”, “toxic”, “triggering” and “too cute”.

cute anime girls equals harassment sam riedel

Sam Riedel (Contributor coordinator at The Mary Sue) doesn´t seem to like cute anime girls all that much (“muh harassment narrative!”).

Furthermore, Riedel and Cook are far from the only ones (sadly enough) that gets “triggered” and “offended” by cute anime girls and anime booty. I mean, just take the case with Danny O’Dwyer (Irish Streamer and Youtuber) who brought in rape into the subject of female anime asses (as seen in the picture down below)…

Danny O’Dwyer (a Irish Streamer and Youtuber) gets very offended and triggered by female anime booty.

The Mary Sue pretty much dissed an entire culture that likes cute things with their Moé post, and they knew exactly what the outcome would be.

I also thought about another thing in the case with The Mary Sue´s Moé post, there are a lot of female fanservice animes as well (like “Yamato Nadeshiko Shichihenge”, “Diabolik Lovers”, ” Osomatsu-san“, “Uta no Prince-sama Maji Love 1000%”, “Amnesia“, “Free!”). Heck, there is even a female eye candy anime genre called “reverse harem”. So I take it that The Mary Sue will do a follow-up article on that matter as well in the near future? (I highly doubt it, as it would go against their own feminist agenda).

This picture could probably summon up the whole deal with “SJWs Vs the Internet” situation/war (aka “My opinion is correct, while yours is all wrong”).

The only reason that Cook (and The Mary Sue) dropped their Moé article, was to ragebait and cause a lot of drama (they love to attack popular mediums in-order to generate clicks from angry fans).

Then again, this was what Amelia Cook ‏had to say on the matter of her Moé post on Twitter:

“I don’t think liking moe is wrong. I just ask people to acknowledge its problematic aspects as well as the positives.”
“Believe me, I knew what the consequences would be for criticising moe, whether they are necessary is debatable though.” – Amelia Cook, The Mary Sue

So in a way, all of this made me think about Katherine Cross’s “Press F to revolt” publication (which would be a really biased anti-GG piece). However, I´m more than aware that Cook has her own point of view on her Moé post at The Mary Sue (her points, intentions and so on). So feel free to read through her post and come to your own conclusion.

And with that said, what´s your take on this matter? Let us know your thoughts in the comment section down below!

Source:
The Mary Sue
Amelia Cook
#OperationMoe
Sam Riedel
thebackloggers
Mark Kern