So, for those who don’t know, there are many people in real life who identify as an anime archetype called “yandere”. Yanderes are “someone initially sweet and loving who becomes dangerously obsessed and often violent due to intense romantic love, frequently targeting rivals or anyone perceived as a threat to their relationship with their crush”. They will go from “deredere”, which is basically like very lovestruck, to “yan” which means “mentally sick” basically.
There is a whole subreddit called r/Yanderes on Reddit that I lurk through sometimes and it pops up in my girlfriend’s feed sometimes despite her never commenting on it and being banned from it because we are polyamorous.
Often these IRL yanderes will talk about how unfair it is that their crushes say they want a stalker partner and then get mad when they actually get stalked, though I can’t see why you would want that in the first place.
They will talk about being controlling, obsessive, and some are even stalkers like mentioned above. I heard someone found a site and shared it with people to stalk their crushes.
More often than not, because their whole theme is being obsessed with one person and that person only, they HATE polyamorous people and open relationships and some of the subs are more hatred of polyamorous people than yandere content.
They view polyamorous people like me as cheaters, ban them from the sub, and talk about how they “hate polyamorous ‘people’” and such.
They constantly talk about how they’re going to kill/castrate “cheaters” too, which likely includes polyamorous people who they view as cheaters.
What I don’t get is that I understand not liking polyamory because it isn’t your thing, or only being obsessed with one person so you are monogamous but I don’t get hating on a lifestyle that doesn’t affect you and caring about it so much.
Furthermore, lack of consent such as in stalking is not “love” or romantic at all.
These kinds of people usually end up in the evening news after having murdered someone or at least tried to. Very rare for obsessions to become that extreme.
I did experience a soft version of this though. Met this girl through some mutual friends and immediately she developed a crush on me. She messaged me constantly on Facebook for months talking about how unfair it was that she was single while all her friends had boyfriends. She also messaged other girls that I knew trying to find out if there was any potential competition for my affection.
When I finally got her to admit that she was into me, I told her that I didn’t feel the same about her. Unlike a true yandere though, she actually left me alone after that. In fact, she had no interest in talking to me at all once she realised I wasn’t going to date her.
Any “IRL Yandere” would be a horrible person IMO. I don’t see any issues with liking such tropes in fiction, but in real life, stalking and that kind of obsessive behaviour is definitely not okay. I would just stay far away from that community.
Yes, exactly my thoughts! They’re very weird, I’m so glad I’m not one of those people…
Combinations of abuse, not being able to tell fiction from reality, and honestly having a pretty bad taste in fiction to begin with.
Have you encountered one of these people in real life?
I have never met anyone who espouses any values like this nor have I see any online presence of someone like this, either.
What I mean is, don’t overvalue the people on this online community you’ve found in a way that impacts your life. There aren’t throngs of people out there trying to castrate or kill you for being polyamorous because they want to replicate toxic relationships in anime and manga.
Good idea, I’ve only seen them concentrated on subreddits
If the only place you are seeing this sort of behavior is Reddit, it’s not worth worrying about. If you are so obsessed with what other people are doing on Reddit that you feel the need to ask about it on Reddit/Lemmy, it’s probably time turn off your devices and go touch grass. Always remember the Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory. People with pseudo-anominity say a lot of stupid stuff.
Understandable
Well, I find such things interesting just for entertainment because I love stories. Recently, I’ve become fascinated with stories about real people and have read many such stories on Reddit, and no, it wasn’t like anime at all, it was all quite sad. For example, there was one story where a girl stalked a guy and almost killed him out of jealousy when he was talking to another girl, piercing his leg with a crossbow arrow, causing him to move to another state and change his phone number and appearance, and now the poor guy has a lifelong injury. So yes, people like yandere in real life are very dangerous and not as cool and beautiful as people would like to see them, and it’s better to avoid them if you don’t want to be stabbed to death out of jealousy at 3 a.m. Alas, real life is not anime. By the way, if you’re very lucky, your yandere may turn out to be a 70-year-old woman… And no, I’m not joking, this happens.
