the main difference is that cartoons are for children and anime is for people who are sexually attracted to children

I mean ... some people say it to be insulting. "you still watch cartoons?"

It shouldn't be but you know how people are ...

I don't think it's inherently an insult, but most of the time that's how people mean it, so of course you'll get lumped in with them

I'm not sure that's unpopular at all. They are objectively cartoons.

Whether you agree with it or not, there is a significant cultural stigma in the West around the word "cartoon". As others have pointed out, for a very long time it was almost exclusively associated with comic strips in the newspaper and then animated children's television.

It's similar to how "comic books" was set aside in favor of "graphic novels". "Watchmen" is not, colloquially, a comic book. Neither is "The Killing Joke".

"Animated film" is another example of a term that was adopted to distance some content from the stigma of "cartoons".

For a very, very long time in the west animated content was the exclusive territory of children's entertainment.

Literal, dictionary definitions may allow the use of "cartoon" to describe any animated content, but it's a lot like the word "sports". Its usage has evolved to imply a specific subset (athletic competition), even if you can technically say you're doing a variety of non-athletic activities "for sport".

And I say all this as someone in their 40s who truly enjoys American cartoons, adult animated series, anime, and a variety of other media generally skewed towards a younger audience.

So yeah, I don't call anime cartoons for the same reason I don't call hunting a sport :)

The people you hang out with seem like giant jackass nerds. You should aggressively make them feel bad for their shitty gate keeping.

I bet you “acktuallly” is their most used vocabulary.

Anime is just a specific subset of cartoon. 🤷‍♂️

What about calling manga's reverse comic books

It is japenese cartoon. So yes call it as it is

As someone who likes both Cartoons and Anime equally, I have yet to find someone who doesn't get offended by me saying that.

Hi, it's me, someone who doesn't judge what you enjoy. This does not affect me or put anyone down. I am unoffended. Pleased to meet you.

I mean... yeah... sorta. That's like saying Comic Books and Manga are the same thing. Sure, there is some overlap, but they are both on a pretty different wavelength. I think the difference is the cultural weight behind them. Cartoons in the west are entertainment mostly aimed at children. Anime has that, sure, but there is a whole slew of it aimed at adults, too. You can argue that the West has adult cartoons, but I think you'd be stretching it to say they are even remotely the same. Only in recent years have cartoons really taken a transgressive turn in the public eye.

I get it. I think you may be preaching to the choir here on the fediverse, but I think this is actually an unpopular opinion IRL.

There's a connotation of childishness or simple-mindedness to the word "cartoon", at least in my neck of the language, born of the era of newspaper funny pages and saturday morning cartoons for kids. Some people (but not all) use "cartoon" to mean any visual art (still or animated) that isn't either hyper-realistic or actual IRL footage, and I think those two things give rise to the notion that all animated or cartoonish media is only suitable for children. The natural next step in this chain of thought is that any adult who enjoys any animated or cartoonish media must be childish.

It's a stigma I learned as a child and had to get over as an adult, and I'm glad I did; there's a lot of great animated content out there that I would have missed out on if I hadn't. Some of it, like Bob's Burgers, is kid-friendly but still has some really great storytelling. Some, like Bojack Horseman or Archer, are more squarely aimed at adult audiences, and also have some really great storytelling.

I haven't mentioned anything that falls under the "Anime" umbrella; that's not because I don't like anime, but I am simply late to the game and there is an insane amount of content, and it feels paralyzing figuring out where to start. I keep having One Piece recommended to me, and I would like to start climbing that mountain one day, but 1000+ episodes and counting is a daunting mountain.

That's all, I'm just writing stuff because I should be sleeping but can't, and this is preferable to lying awake in bed with my thoughts. Hope your boredom is a pleasant one :)

“Cartoons” have an English interpretation for being narratively simple. Whether they’re 3-4 panel comic strips or political speech or 30-minute kids shows, they tend to be fundamentally bite-sized morsels of media and do not traditionally evoke notions of grand storytelling or significant narrative merit.

There is no shortage of anime series and films that I’d classify as cartoons. Cartoons are fine and respectable entertainment, but they are only a small subset of all animated media.

Fans of the anime art form are justified in bristling at someone who calls all anime “cartoons”, or animated media from any other country for that matter. Tokyo Godfathers, The Tale of Princess Kaguya and Mind Game are all dense, complex films, which pushes them outside the bounds of what most people categorize as cartoons. Yuri Norstein, Hayao Miyazaki and Jan Švankmajer make animated films, not cartoons.

I ~~Soviet~~ Russia people jokingly call anime "Chinese porno-cartoons".

It's not an insult, but it's different worlds. Cartoons were marketed for kids, while anime (in Europe) was marketed as "animation for teenagers and adults."