A thank you letter to Digibro

Note: this is an open letter because I’ve been wanting to address Digibro on my blog ever since I started blogging.

Dear Digibro,

I think that a brief introduction is warranted because I want to explain where I’m coming from. My reaction to your newest vlog, just shittalking other anime youtubers for like half an hour, oh god what have i done, was that I have to talk about it. Whether you know/care or not, you’re a figure I look up to when it comes to writing, critical thinking, and establishing a presence, I’m hoping that you might read this if I post it to r/Digibro.

Simply put, watching your analysis videos is what seriously got me into anime, and I want to express my appreciation. Before discovering your videos, I didn’t know that people were looking at the anime culture critically. Of course, since then, I’ve found other YouTubers who also do this, but none have resonated with me as much as you have.

At the risk of sounding like a fanboy/stan, it makes me so satisfied to hear you talk/rant because it so closely resembles my thinking patterns. And I love the way you articulate your thoughts because I often feel that this is how I should be writing. Here, you say the exact same thing about another person, and I love that. I can’t remember from which video it was, but your advice to new writers was to just keep on writing no matter what, because your writing also sucked for the first few years. You’ve been very humble and open about your beginnings, and admit that you’re excited to continue progressing. The fact that you sought out a mentor, ghostlightning, is a passionate indication of you wanting your writing to improve.

Because of this, I can’t help but be a little envious of what you’ve established. The way I understand your come up is that you’ve just been doing what you’ve always been doing: blogging. But you make it look like an inevitable progression, even though you’ve been putting in the work.

I strongly relate to your act of reflecting on and explaining yourself. The way you reflect on your writing style, the way you look back on the year, and the way you revisit your past and turn it into an interesting reveal about who you were and who you are now is intriguing and inviting. A few weeks ago, I posted a blog describing my blogging tendencies, and like a day later I see you’ve put up On the 3 Types of Videos I Make. Crazy.

The impulse for writing this post/letter was further motivated by a few other instances. One, after finishing Girlish Number back when it aired, I couldn’t help but think that you would actually love it. It just made sense that you would from following your videos. So I felt this sense of validation when you announced your favourite anime of 2016. Two, I also didn’t enjoy Non Non Biyori, even though it totally makes sense that I would based on the other anime that I like. Finally, in the aforementioned vlog, you highlight the issue of weak writing in the anime community by mentioning Gigguk’s unnecessary introduction. I know that this is a particular pet peeve of yours (and I admit to doing this — my bad). I can definitely relate to the frustration because 90% of MAL reviews start out like this and I remember lightly thinking, ‘who cares?’. But I couldn’t help but think that this was what I was supposed to do since it’s so prevalent.

From time to time, I do notice a difference in our opinions, but I think we both welcome different perspectives. Overall, I really wanted to express the sense of connection and understanding I feel when watching your videos. I don’t know if I’ll ever make videos myself but I’ll definitely be around. I feel very passionate about anime (among other things), and I hope to join in on the conversation at some point. Even if you’re not reading this, then, at the very least, my thoughts are now out there.

If you are reading this, thank you.

simok

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Image is of Shinobu from the Monogatari series