>>48708629
>When did the word weeb become popular?
Popular on 4chan around the turn of the 2010s as people abbreviated weeaboo, and then over the next decade it seeped in to general Western anime culture. It was a word people who were into anime recognized when I was in uni in the mid 2010s, and I think the rise of social media, streaming, etc. did a lot to give an aesthetic sense to the term where previously it would've just been another word for "nerd with Japanese media and culture interests," like otaku is often used.

>Is it like black people with the n-word?
In the sense of "owning" a term used derogatorily toward you and people you relate with to make it lose its sting, its much less intense but basically the same idea.
One thing that evolved was "weeb" carrying the idea of casualness and naivety towards Japan and their media, rather than just an obsession. /jp/sies love to hate such people, but once you get outside of online crab buckets that's actually appealing to many people. At least in the states, most people looking for some new media to get into didn't grow up with beyond a few dubbed shows, have no desire to do research to consume media, hate subtitles, and have the social need to couch their tastes and preferences in a socially palatable way if they desire to bring them up. I've seen subtitled films being more accepted when I've lived in other countries, so I know this isn't universal. But there is always going to be some friction unless they grew up watching it with their peers.

I KNOW this is a complete nothingburger to many here, but when growing up I remember people who would watch some anime and be interested, but wouldn't discuss it or share it with many others because of the vibe it gave off. I'd compare it to telling people IRL about stuff on 4chan - a few people around might also browse and not judge, but you'd much more likely run into someone who either had little to no idea of the site and simply could not care, or considered it something inherently degenerate and deplorable. And as people love to judge and label, you'd likely get that label and reinforce the bias unless you had the rule of cool on your side.

Also, in the popularity contest that is media culture, a piece of media is at a massive disadvantage if you need an audience with an exceptional context to a foreign culture to digest it, as self-professed Western "otaku" tend to acquire.
"Ironic weebs" broke through that glass ceiling both by Westernizing content about Japanese media (often bemoaned here), and by forming communities online and off with a IDGAF attitude towards stuff like hentai, weird cultural norms, etc. to the point of leaning on the degenerate parts to own them. This is PRECISELY why the ahegao collage fashion became a thing. Previously that was mainly isolated to places like 4chan, forums, conventions, etc. Social media also had a large role in bringing weebs together, at least because people who'd fail bringing it up IRL could still explore their interest with others and relate through networks, which is what ultimately cultivates culture. Post ~2014 I noticed an uptick the fusion of Eastern and Western media and memes in places outside of here and IRL. It felt a bit weird then to have someone at work casually talk about ongoing shonen series or an anime film but that paradigm shift feels pretty normal now.

>If possible, who coined the term or at least popularized its use?
Technically pic related, but that has nothing to do with anime. The comic inspired the filter as used as a tongue-in-cheek joke by whoever implemented the wordfilter as >>48708668 mentions.
The initial anons who made it stick either used the filtered word or intentionally used weeaboo in place of the filtered word, and any anons downstream of that would assume that weeaboo was some synonym of wapanese, japanophile, etc. by context.

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Anyway, I predict in a few years we'll be seeing people who just flat-out grew up on anime from a young age due to the rise of streaming services who will have little bias against the media, and they'll look back on weeb and ironic weeb culture as overblown in the same way self-labelling weebs tend to react to otaku pedantry, especially as works that pander to otaku/weebs/wapanese/etc. but aren't Japanese in ownership, language, or context become increasingly popular.

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When did the word weeb become popular?