"We need to bring back bullying" - Twitch streamer Northernlion jokingly gives his take on anime fandom

Ryan “Northernlion” is a popular Twitch streamer known for his dry wit and hot takes. While interacting with his chat during his April 12, 2024 stream, someone brought up something an anime fan did in their town. This led to a joke from the streamer himself, while also discussing how popular certain things were in the anime fandom.

After hearing about the car that had “Waifu Hunter” in a huge font across the back of it, the Twitch streamer Northernlion joked that maybe, it might be time to start bullying people for the things they liked again:

“We need to bring back bullying.”

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Twitch streamer Northernlion jokes about anime car wraps

(Clip begins at 36:00)

While playing Balatro, the popular Twitch streamer read a comment from his audience, from “Punky_wood.” According to the viewer, someone in their town has “Waifu Hunter” on the back of their car. This is almost certainly a reference to anime, or gacha games, where players collect a variety of pretty female characters. Northernlion reacted to this with a statement he immediately claimed was a joke after:

“There’s a car in my town that has ‘Waifu Hunter’ in huge font across the back? Yeah, there’s been a, people aren’t gonna like this take but I’m gonna say it anyway, it’s Friday. We need to bring back bullying. I’m joking! I’m just joking!”

Specifically, the Twitch streamer was discussing anime car wraps—a special vinyl decal someone can put on their car. These are incredibly popular in real life in anime culture, and can even be found in GTA Online. Northernlion would say that anime is different from other fandoms in his follow-up:

“That being said, there has been a precipitous rise in, incredibly cringe anime car wraps. And I don’t think like, listen, all I’m gonna say, is anime is like a different fandom. Okay? You never see someone drivin’ around with a f**kin’ Tony Soprano wrap on their car. And then when you’re like, ‘bro, what’s up with the wrap?’ and they’re like ‘I really like Tony Soprano.’ That’s like, never happened.”

This culture in the anime fandom is known as Itasha, which translates roughly to “painful” or “cringeworthy,” the act of putting anime, manga, or video game characters on your car using one of these vinyl wraps. The Twitch streamer would continue to discuss the car wraps, even saying he was often jealous in these situations because the cars are very nice in most cases:

“But if you really love My Hero Academia, apparently, there’s an extra motivation to wrap your car in that stuff. I’m just sayin’, me personally, I like to think of myself as a constellation of interests. I’m not merely defined by my fandom. But you do you. But the thing that’s really annoying, is I get jealous.”

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The streamer would joke about it for a bit longer, discussing seeing incredibly nice cars, with a wrap featuring Tracer from Overwatch. The Twitch streamer also opened up about Jerma985’s “retirement” earlier this year, who was sympathetic to the streamer’s announcement.