In the West it's a lot more culturally acceptable to be an anarchist than it is to be a socialist and especially more acceptable than being a communist. It's like how the 90s Geo Prizm and Toyota Corolla we're the same thing but to laymen the Geo had a bad reputation and the Toyota was considered the best vehicle of the era. Anarchism is when Toyota Corolla, Communism is when Geo Prizm

No I don't think that is happening.

What is more likely is that they are anarchists who just have a couple good takes about specific things. Most anarchists have their own boutique version they follow and there isn't as many set "lines" as there are with MLs. So there are a lot of anarchists who haven't moved passed anarchism because they are overloaded with anti-communist programming, but still come to some correct conclusions that align with ML

I haven't encountered this phenomenon myself, but I think it's likely that if you're an ML in an area where the only communist orgs are reactionary like the RCP and ACP, or full of sex pests, you'd opt to just stick to anarchist orgs. That might mean that anarchist orgs are getting new ML members and the ML members introduce ML ideas in a subtle enough way that the ideas get adopted.

I tell people im an Anarchist all the time if I think they are likely to be the type of person to be affected by the mind terminating cliche of marxist=tankie=fascist.

I dont feel bad about it, im an Communist-Anarchist and an ML anyway, (I know its a lot but shit, its just the range of ideology where im like, yeah core principles are good) I could work with either and would be fine with either ideology getting us past the finish line. I have issues with anarchists who are anti-communist, but if they havent got an issue with me I havent got one with them - we want the same thing after all.

What do you mean by ML? You mean they unconsciously reproduce democratic centralism and anti-imperialism?