Yeah I get why people don't want to call them cartoons. I will say though that animation in the us has changed so much that it is kinda moot.

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

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

Connotation vs denotation.

It was a bigger deal a generation ago when adult themed animation was relatively novel.

I feel the same and I think taking offense to people referring to it as such is kind of gatekeeping in a way.

I think on a technical note, in Japan, anime is just short for animation anyway. It's not actively trying to be it's own thing. They're literally calling out what it is: animation.

Cartoons are also animation. In my mind, whatever you call it, it's an animation. Retro Disney movies, people would commonly call an animation but not a cartoon in the similar way people take offense about calling anime a cartoon. Makes no sense to me. Then again, maybe that's just the engineer in me trying to apply logic to it all.

In any case, to me, they're all just animation. Different styles and target audience, yes, but just animation.

Anime is just a specific subset of cartoon. 🤷‍♂️

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

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

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

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.

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.