It wasn’t Aimed at You

One of the things people say to those who didn’t like a show is “It wasn’t aimed at you.” It’s not in your preferences or what you usually watch, so of course and you didn’t like it. This statement makes it sound like you can only like certain things, and nothing else because your tastes are very narrow-minded.

This implies open-minded people would like pretty everything, and that is not the case. Take me for example. I may be talking almost entirely about anime, but that does not mean I am not dealing with anything else, such as live action series, movies, cartoons, videogames, and board games. This makes my tastes very broad and by the above definition, I should like almost everything. And yet I don’t, I like very few things in every medium, and I am indifferent towards most of the rest. So what gives?

To the most part, when they say “It wasn’t aimed at you”, what they actually mean is that you didn’t like the pretty colors. Let’s be honest here, the reason many people don’t watch anime, is because they don’t like the artstyle. People who don’t watch cartoons, is because they don’t like animated stuff. And people who don’t watch foreign movies, is because they don’t like the different mannerisms of the actors. It does have to do with narrow-mindedness but only on a superficial level.

Claims such as cartoons are just for kids, or anime are just for socially inept virgin manchildren, or live action movies are for a mature audience have lost their meaning decades ago. You can say the majority of each medium follows certain trappings and is mostly aimed at specific audiences, but saying people outside those demographics can’t enjoy a title is silly.

There is also the part where they can claim it’s the themes that are not aimed at you, regardless of the medium they are part of. It doesn’t matter if they are live action, cartoons, or anime, if you don’t like thrillers, you won’t like them no matter how they look. Standards are universal, with their presentation being mostly about the uncanny valley effect than anything else.

The thing is, just because something is made for a certain type of people, it doesn’t mean that you can’t criticize it if you didn’t like it. I do not belong to those certain groups of people who bang dakimakuras, or fap to ponies, but I can still openly make fun of the whole thing. Stories about beta males screwing their sisters are not aimed at me, but they are still deprived, immoral, unhealthy, and make those who like them to look bad. This no longer has to do with preferences; it’s a plain case of bad taste.