In the wake of a famous Facebook event, “Area 51, They Can’t Stop Us All” the creator of the event suggested in the description that they “Naruto Run” to evade bullets. While the act of pulling one’s arms back in a slight V shape will not allow a person to evade bullets, the fact that Naruto running has become such a famous reference shows how Japanese pop culture has influenced American society. From anime to manga and light novels to video games, there is now a prominent market for Japanese pop culture in the U.S. Despite the prominence of Japanese media, it is still quite a niche market in the U.S. compared to the overwhelming force of Hollywood Movies and the massive investments in entertainment giants such as Disney have made. 

Thus it is common for people who openly show their interest in Japanese pop culture to be known as “Weeaboos”, or weebs for short. Contrary to this common notation that people who are interested in Japanese pop culture are weebs, the textbook definition is much more specific. A weeaboo is “a non-Japanese person (especially one of Caucasian ancestry) who is obsessed with Japanese culture and behaves in a stereotypically Japanese manner,” while other sites define a weeaboo as “a mostly derogatory slang term for a Western person who is obsessed with Japanese culture, especially anime, often regarding it as superior to all other cultures.” Though both formal definitions are slightly different, the definitions convey the idea that not only is the individual invested in Japanese pop culture, but they both go one step further to insist that such individuals have a reverence of Japanese culture or at least a more favorable opinion of it compared to the individual’s own culture. The disparity between the socially endorsed definition of weeaboo and the formal definition leaves the term in a flexible limbo where it can be used either way.

What is interesting about the term weeaboo is that because it was so commonly used as a slur to describe people interested in Japanese pop culture that such people (most notably the anime community) have accepted the term weeb and have used it amongst themselves. As a point of speculation, this adoption of a usually offensive term may be a way to cope with a lack of social acceptance pertaining to the group, as when compared to other forms of mainstream media such as American T.V. shows or Hollywood movies, anime and manga are relatively unknown or unfamiliar to a lot of Americans. 

So what is a weeaboo? In theory, it is a person who is deeply embedded in Japanese pop culture to the point where they genuinely believe it is better than their native culture, but in practice, the term is used to describe all fans of Japanese pop culture. 

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