K-On! Fans Are Racist

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About

K-On! Fans Are Racist is a fandom generalization meme semi-ironically stating that fans of the slice-of-life anime series K-On!, and often other slice-of-life anime series and anime in general, are extremely racist. The meme was spawned by users with K-On! profile pictures purportedly being regularly caught posting racist and anti-semitic content on social media, gaining particular prominence in the /r/okbuddybaka subreddit.

Origin

On October 28th, 2010, DeviantArt^[1] user prikkSG1 posted the earliest found Nazi-themed K-On! fanart, an image of the character Azusa Nakano given a Nazi armband and superimposed over a Nazi flag. The image (shown below, left) received over 12,000 views in 12 years and was widely used on imageboards through the 2010s.

In early 2016 a photoshopped image of K-On! characters standing next to Adolf Hitler went viral, with the earliest found repost made by iFunny^[2] user KidSquid_Marie on January 3rd that year (shown below, center). Starting in 2017, a photoshopped K-On! frame in which the characters salute Adolf Hitler has been widely circulated^[3] (shown below, right).

On June 16th, 2016, an unknown Redditor^[4] shared a fan theory that stated that K-On! is set in a world where the Axis won World War II. On February 12th, 2020, an anonymous 4chan^[5] user made a post on the /a/ board in which he wrote that K-On! was the trigger point for him turning fascist (post shown below).

On December 26th, 2020, iFunny^[6] user MugiMilitant made the earliest found fandom generalization meme about K-On! fanbase being racist, a Don't Mess With Fans meme that gained over 220 smiles in two years (shown below).

Spread

The trope did not achieve widespread public recognition until early August 2021. On August 1st, 2021, Redditor^[7] Rocketeer posted a collection of three racist tweets made by users with anime profile pictures, including a George Floyd meme about the anime and a Wojak Comic featuring the K-On! character Yuri Hirosava (shown below, left and center). The post gained over 5,700 upvotes in the /r/okbuddybaka subreddit in 10 months. On August 5th, Redditor^[8] leaderofthebunch_ posted a screenshot of a Twitter user with a Haruhi Suzumiya profile picture acting anti-semitic, titling the post, "Least Antisemitic K-On fan" (shown below, right). The post gained over 5,500 upvotes in the subreddit.

Starting in early August 2021, fandom generalization memes about K-On! achieved notable virality in the /r/okbuddybaka subreddit. For example, on August 6th, Redditor^[9] Cornual_of_boats1492 posted a GIF Caption meme that gained over 1,400 upvotes in 10 months (shown below, left). On August 31st, an unknown Redditor^[10] posted a screenshot of the October 2020 /a/ post to the subreddit. On October 17th, 2020, Redditor^[11] arghmelegs posted an Evil X Be Like meme about K-On! fans that gained over 2,200 upvotes (shown below, right).

By April 2022, the fandom generalization format spread to Twitter through frequent reposts. On April 9th, 2022, Twitter^[12] user @BirthdayChad posted a White Man Has Been Here meme about K-On! fans that gained over 560 retweets and 16,800 likes in roughly two months.