Why Is She So Perfect?

Submission 20,336

Part of a series on /a/. [View Related Entries]

About

"Why Is She So Perfect?" is a catchphrase expression typically used as the opening line in waifu threads that are often posted on anime-related discussion forums, such as 4chan's /a/ (anime & manga) board.

Origin

The earliest known use of the rhetorical question in the context of waifu-worshipping can be found in a reply to a discussion thread posted on 4chan's /a/^[1] board on February 8th, 2008, though the subject of the discussion is unclear due to defunct images. On February 20th, the phrase was used as the opening line in another discussion thread^[2] about Noe Isurugi, one of the main characters featured in the anime TV series True Tears, on /a/.

The earliest known example of the phrase as an opening post on /a/

Spread

In 2008, "why is she so perfect" continued to gain traction through its appearance in at least a dozen of waifu-related discussion threads on 4chan's /a/ board.^[3] In September 2009, the usage of the phrase drastically increased on 4chan as a result of a noticeable influx of waifu discussion threads. In the following years, the phrase began to spread beyond /a/ and into other 4chan boards, including /v/^[7], /vr/^[8], /vg/^[9] and /co/^[10], owing much to the consistent growth of anime fandoms and otaku subcultures in general, and became part of the standard vernacular on 4chan and other imageboard communities at large. However, as more and more anime fans began using the phrase, it has also garnered some stigma as a cheap bait given the polarizing nature of the discussion topic.

As of August 2016, DesuArchive.org returns around 1,000 results for threads which have some form of the sentence as their opening post since 2008.^[4] Newer archive Fireden.net returns over 300 threads since October 24th, 2015.^[5] . Sometimes the phrase is used as a response instead of the OP. Desuarchive yields a further 1,600 results for the meme when used as a reply.^[6]

In addition, the phrase has made its way into Tumblr^[10], where it developed into a popular tag used in the context of anime and celebrity fandoms, in a similar vein to the use of the phrase Nobody's Perf-, as well as spawning the male-specific counterpart tag "why is he so perfect".^[11]