So I guess I’m a narcissist, or something? I dunno how it happened, but my ask.fm profile has somehow become one of the central parts of this whole internet-personality gig I’ve got going on. Answer a couple thousand questions, and suddenly everybody wants to know what you’ve got to say!

Look, there’s just something kind of flattering about random people asking you for advice on anime, relationships, or the course their life should take at all hours of the day. And don’t think I don’t take this shit seriously! I legitimately do try to provide the best advice I can for people, even as I feel it’s vaguely surreal that people are asking me questions in the first place. And though I’m being kinda snarky here, believe me, I am very grateful to have this extremely random opportunity to be helpful to people – I hope it’s clear in my essays that I’ve got very transparent agendas when it comes to convincing people to be good to each other, and this is about as direct a platform as I’ll probably ever get for hopefully doing some good.

The directness of that platform goes both ways, of course, and I’ve certainly gotten a fair share of sexism, racism, and just general hatred thrown my way. Having opinions and a platform for them automatically makes you a target on the internet, and I can still remember getting piles of hate-filled messages when I first started talking about social issues. And that stuff never really ends – the volume of good to bad is extremely positive, but one really hateful message can do a lot to ruin your day. But overall this has been a really flattering and rewarding experience for me – it’s forced me to seriously engage with a lot of my own values, and it’s a great feeling to be able to answer questions in a way that I hope actually helps or at least actually entertains people.

So if you haven’t seen it, feel free to stop by sometime. I can’t answer every question, but Ask Bobduh is always open for business.