We should gatekeep anime more often

Among friends, sure. If they ask for recommendations, or you feel like they would enjoy a show, by all means go crazy. But genuinely when an anime goes mainstream it all goes to shit. Not because “everyone is suddenly liking this thing that I liked first!” but because most anime fans feel a show should always blow their fucking mind if it’s popular, and that they have to go on every thread saying “uhrr duhrr overrated trash” “idk why it’s so popular” “it’s not for me” like ??? No shit it’s not for you, if you watch a show only because it’s popular, why do you think you not liking the show is such a big scientific discovery that everyone has to hear about it?

One discussion I came across asked “what’s an anime that disappointed you?” Now then I thought “oh wow that’s a good one. I wonder how other people would answer, with what expectations they had of an anime, how they got those expectations, and how they felt after it diverted from it, why they thought it was so bad?” because I’ve felt that way before. An anime with a first episode that got me hyped so hard but left me as unsatisfied as my ex was when I finished. Guess I’ll add this thread to the list of major disappointments since every answer was just “Frieren… Frieren… Frieren…” and every reason given is “mmm it’s not for me teehee”. And I don’t even like Frieren that much, but this is crazy bruh. I’d rather think y’all are just so enthralled by the idea of playing the devil’s advocate or being a contrarian or something than believe that this is actually the way anime fans engage with discussions. Mushoku Tensei as well, I think is a fantastic anime. But oopsie, I can’t say that, can I? lest I get called a pedophile by people who watched the anime through tiktok.

Not going to lie, I really am just salty. But I think I bring up decent points. If an anime is gatekept from someone, it’s no biggie. They’ll come across it eventually. If they do and feel like watching it, then they’ll watch it and probably enjoy it. If they don’t feel like watching it, they won’t be missing much, just another anime they will just think of as “well it’s not for me”. It’s so refreshing to imagine a world where communities don’t constantly shout out which anime to watch and which anime to not watch. Let people discover shows organically, let them see for themselves if they enjoy it or not.

My point is not “more people = worse discussion, therefore GATEKEEP!”, it’s that “more of the type of people that are easily swayed by public opinion (which is more likely to appear than just normal people, if the way people discover anime is continued) = worse discussion”. Because let’s be real, who in their right mind would say, come across a discussion on a random show they watched but dropped since they didn't vibe with it some time ago, then engage on it? I feel people would only do that on popular shows, in order to be, as the I said, a contrarian. If the show isn't popular (or at least if they didn’t know it was) if they didn't like it, they would just ignore the discussion, like a normal well-adjusted human being. People finding anime organically helps guarantee that the type of people who would engage in discussion have an actual interest in the show, therefore more likely for deeper engagement.

TLDR: when shows are discovered organically, discussions around them have a higher chance of being better.

(PS. It's a little embarrassing to admit this, but I'm double posting this, since I want opinions from different places. Just wanted to get this out of the way)