Addison Rae flamed on social media just for watching anime

TikTok star Addison Rae has found herself in the middle of a social media storm after saying that she watches anime. Fans of the genre have been flocking to her comment section on all platforms to beg her to “leave anime alone.”

Despite a general lack of recent drama, Addison has not stayed out of the spotlight, largely thanks to the interest surrounding her romantic life. With her recent confirmation that she and former love interest Bryce Hall were just “friends,” fans had begun to look for new people to pair the successful influencer with.

She even had to call people out for going overboard with creating rumors about her dating fellow TikTok star Troy Zarba, saying she was “losing friendships” thanks to the false stories.

She also said “do y’all not hang out with your friends or should I just not have them?”

Instagram: Bryce Hall

Addison Rae and Bryce Hall parted ways in September, leading to mass speculation among fans regarding her love life.

While those rumors were laid to rest and fans were encouraged to take a step back from speculating, new drama arose rather unexpectedly from the anime community when Addison posted a series of tweets about the app CrunchyRoll.

CrunchyRoll is a popular streaming service that people primarily use to watch anime and similar content.

Addison clearly had an interest in being part of the fun, when on September 7 she tweeted that “CrunchyRoll is now downloaded onto my phone. Ttyl,” with another tweet saying “CrunchyRoll and chill.”

The anime community responds

Despite the harmless nature of the tweets, some anime fans immediately grew concerned that the form of animation was becoming a “trend.” One fan said: “Anime was supposed to be a sanctuary, how in the world did it get to this. We anime watchers have been bullied for liking anime and now people are just using it for clout. Shame, what a shame.”

• Read More: Mr Beast, Jeffree Star & more got millions in small-business PPP loans

Another said: “I don’t want anime to become a trend. I’ve been bullied because of anime by people who watched one episode of HxH are now “wEeBs”. Seriously, people are watching it superficially but don’t understand how much it means to us and how important it is.” Some fans even flocked to her TikTok comments to repeat a similar message, “leave anime alone.”

However, not everyone agreed with the extreme nature of the backlash to the rather innocuous tweets. One person said: “The amount of people saying they were bullied for liking anime, but continuing to gatekeep is crazy! Don’t do what was done to you,” and that they “love seeing new fans.”

• Read More: Fans think Nessa Barrett is shading Josh Richards and Oliva Ponton

One warm message came from a fan who said: “QUEEN BEHAVIOR! Please ignore these weirdos trying to gatekeep in the replies. Hope you find a series you enjoy and have fun!”

Addison Rae is one of the most popular TikTok influencers, with a huge following of over 60 million on TikTok alone. No doubt she will be hoping that this social media storm will subside soon enough.