I am Otaku.

Please don’t jump to conclusions.

I am not a weeb who stays in their house all day eating Cheetos and watching little magic girls fight bad guys with their moon crystal powers.

I am a normal college student who likes to go hiking and likes to party, but at the same time I really do enjoy the Otaku lifestyle.

I started watching anime my senior year of high school. My classmate would watch it in history class and I would pick on him because, like everyone else, I thought only losers watched anime.

As the year went on I would become more engrossed watching from the sidelines as these little cartoon girls used big guns and a boy followed his dream to become the Hokage.

When I graduated I finally made the transition of swallowing my pride and admitting that anime was cool.

The Otaku life has really opened so many doors for me. It has allowed me to read and experience so many captivating stories. It has taken me on adventures to conventions and different states, permitting me to meet many individuals who enjoy the same nerd things I do.

There are setbacks to being Otaku, however. As a 21-year-old college student, it can be difficult to make new connections with people when they find out that you are the Otaku in the room, and thus you become the Elephant in the room.

While it is my guilty pleasure, being Otaku comes with the stigma of being a freak.

In the process of meeting new people, they tend to be curious about you.

They want to know what interests you have, what you do in your free time, and what shows you are currently watching.

That’s the halting point, a decision must be made of telling them about the new anime I found on my Crunchyroll account or talk about the latest TV trend that I must pretend I am caught up on. This whole process forcing me to feel something akin to being ashamed for liking something a little different from the social norm. This mindset usually forces me to wait for them to get to know me before I tell them this significant part of who I am.

Even with my current friends, it can be a weird subject. I let one of my friends borrow my Hulu account and the next day they acted like they stumbled upon my dirty little secret of Attack on Titan. That moment made my heart stop. It hurt for a second, I knew she was kidding, but something so important to me was just besmirched and looked down on. I just shrugged it off and she never made a comment about it again. Now don’t misunderstand me, my friends all love me for who I am and would never judge me for something like being an Otaku, but they don’t quite understand why I like being one.

Sure, I have those few friends that I can embrace my nerddom with, but it has gotten to the point that instead of saying I’m reading a manga, or I’m watching my latest K-drama, I hide behind I’m reading a book or just watching a movie so I can save face and not have to worry about feeling the need to explain myself and why I enjoy what I enjoy.

It’s hard making people understand the Otaku lifestyle. When I say Otaku, it’s not necessarily negative.

Otaku has multiple meanings.

On Urban Dictionary, author Erin best explains what an Otaku is in his #4 definition as:
Casual anime fans use this word in the context of being a well-established fan who knows much about anime and manga.
Japanese see this term as derogatory which represents a person who is a lifeless nerd.
Wapanese(wannabe Japanese. NOT "white Japanese" or anything like that, WANNABE JAPANESE) see this as derogatory given their strong belief that because they watched some anime that all the sudden they are Japanese.
This is a high-context word, in the American dialect, given the type of people using the word and the context of the discussion this OTAKU could mean expert or geek, complimentary or derogatory.

So as you can see, being Otaku can be a little controversial.

What people don’t understand about being an Otaku is that it is just like any other hobby. It is a way to escape. Here you have this whole other culture who creates these worlds and fantastic story lines that you can delve into. You can embrace these worlds wholeheartedly and get lost into them and escape from reality.

Now, of course, there are those who go to the extreme, but that’s where the stigma comes in, isn’t it? The ones who argue if Pokémon if better than Yu-Gi-Oh, and the ones who sleep in their mom’s basements spending all their free time creating their next cosplay.

While these maybe be validated reasons to have a stigma, should Otakus be judged so harshly?

Would you never go to football games because of the screaming fans who get drunk and paint their bodies?

Would you never give hiking a chance because some people climb Mount Everest with the possibility of death?

Would you never paint a picture because Picasso cut off his ear?

These are all perfectly acceptable hobbies, with many extremes who are passionate people doing what they do because they love doing it.

So why judge an Otaku so harshly before you even give anime, or manga (or anything nerdy, really) a chance?

The fact that I feel like I should hide my interest so I can save face is disappointing and unacceptable.

There is nothing wrong with embracing another culture.

There is nothing wrong with enjoying your hobbies.

There is nothing wrong with embracing who you are.

I am Otaku.
And, I am proud.