Unpopular Opinion

Current trend? Lolis have been a thing for decades in anime.

This is definitely not an unpopular opinion. Except on lemmy maybe... there's some weird ass shit on the NSFW instance. Like I try not to kink shame folks but hot damn is it weird sometimes. I got someone banned for reporting their degrading women/get back in the kitchen rape themed shit I stumbled on. People get way too comfy expressing their technically not illegal fetishes.

Pedophiles exist, have existed through human history, and will continue to exist for as long as humans in meaningful numbers exist.

You can hope and wish and pray that every pedophile comes to recognize their trait in themselves and immediately, voluntarily walks themselves into the sea, but they never will.

So you are left with A) a victimless outlet for their antisocial kink in the form of drawn imagery, or B) hoping that those pedophiles all manage to keep their sexual proclivities in check from puberty to grave with absolutely no outlet, even alone in a room with a cartoon drawing.

In the former, less actual children get hurt, in the latter you get to make non-practicing pedophiles who didn't choose to be pedophiles lives more difficult and tempt them further to act on their shameful sexuality irl for lack of victimless options.

So the question in the world as it is is, which is more important to you? Preventing acts of pedophilia with children, or taking active measures to hurt the people you hate for being something they probably never wanted or chose to be, by depriving them an artificial outlet for their sexual proclivities?

ITT: Horny incel nerds that can not fathom that despite loli anime has been around forever and despite there are no victims of child abuse in making the imagery etc etc - for normal nerds it is gross and cringe that adults are swooning over sexualized cartoon teenagers.

It's becoming normalized in various Linux and FOSS stuff too. Like the Android distro I tried out recently that looked clean and business and and then the menu backgrounds had anime tweens with balloon tiddies. WTF is this tacky bullshit? What is going on? Why do all these fellow nerds think this is normal or cool or edgy or whatever?

Well done, FBI agent. The incels are coming out of the goddamn woodwork up in here.

If anime girls are just now becoming cringey in this community, I may need to reconsider going back to Reddit. Hasn’t the anime girl thing always been cringey? Or is Lemmy just more full of teenagers thinking this is cool?

These subjects are hard topics to discuss openly. It doesn't help that when they are being "discussed" it usually ends up as a "it ain't real" vs "shut up, scum" as it did here.

It's fear versus fear and it shows.

"It ain't real" - studies have shown that porn has affected the way people see relationships, often with unrealistic sexual expectations from themselves and their partners. Rationally, they could recognize how different reality is from what is shown in the media, yet unavoidably still felt a pang of disappointment from their expectations not being met.

As a psychological example specifically, stalkers who build an idealized imaginary form of their favourite idol are known to become violent with rage when the idol in question does not meet their self-created expectations. Yes, one can say that the stalker fan had deep mental issues beforehand, and one would be wrong. They had slight mental issues beforehand that were multiplied by repeatedly reinforcing their self-indulged fantasies. A reinforced behaviour will cause the brain to normalize it over time.

"shut up, scum" - studies have shown that vilifying those we fear or are prejudiced against will almost always create a sense of resentment in that individual or group that will have them act exactly as they are claimed to have acted without actual evidence. Retaliatory responses with the sole purpose of doing harm are the most common and factual type of act we humans have repeatedly shown the willingness to perform. There is no sense of a discussion here, only a demand to accept one point of view or face discrimination, shunning, shaming, legal and criminal consequences or isolation. By acting in fear, we bring our own monsters to life.

As humans, knowledge defines us. We seek it, we are it. The constrains are self-imposed either from mutual agreement or authoritarian force. Which is why, in my opinion, we will never as a people reach consensus. Because before we are a society, we are individuals and as individuals, the knowledge we gain, accept and maintain over time is different from one another. And these differences will eventually come into conflict. At that time, in order to coexist, we make compromises with the precept to do no harm to one another, else there can be no peace between us.

...

OP is correct to be worried, but directs this worry at the wrong party. These people are victims of the failings of society and unless society itself can be changed, OPs worries will only create conflict if not thought out constructively. As it did in the comments. Be better OP. Your comfort in not seeing cringe drawings should be the least of your worries and instead focus on your discomfort in knowing you have brought the cringe here into your post instead. Read it and cringe.