As the political season comes into full bloom here in the U.S., it's time to reflect about the nature of democracy and its parallels into the world of Anime. In the current political climate of the U.S., the minority interest groups wield vast power because they have discovered a simple fact: at any given time, the majority of the population could care less about what's going on and has no opinion or urge to do anything. This means that the vocal minorities can activate a small percentage of the population or politicians to act on their limited agendas.
The concept of minority rule and majority stupor was exaggerated quite admirably by George Orwell's 1984. However, for those of you who are not familiar with this work, Orwell asserted that the common people (the proletariat) were the key to any political upheaval, since they possessed the real power. However, they were always the victims of manipulation by the upper or ruling class and the middle class who were always struggling for dominance and using the clueless lower classes as pawns. In the end, any revolution only brought about a change in the top two classes, but never an upheaval for the benefits of the masses.
A similar disparity exists in Anime, but there's less point to it. At any given time, less than one hundredth of a percentage point of the U.S.'s population (and by extrapolation, an even smaller percentage of the world's population) actively participates in Anime and Manga entertainment. In the world, most people would rather watch the paint dry than debate the merits of the dubbing of THOSE WHO HUNT ELVES, or if Sailor Moon would rather kick Vegeta's ass or sleep with him. However, within our microcosm of the world, the minority voice is very loud since there aren't that many voices to begin with, and with the advent of the Internet, one voice is just as loud as any other.
Despite the fact that many people live quite rounded lives and are active in other areas, the chat rooms and newsgroups provide a place for people to distill their interests and purify them to a point where reality can no longer taint their point of view. If you only meet some individuals in the wired world, you may think that they don't worry about the long-term effects of smoking or economic disparity within the urban areas. Instead, it seems that is far more important to find scapegoats for the wrongs done to fandom and to crucify others via e-mail.