You must be registered for see links
"The mere-exposure effect is a psychological phenomenon by which people tend to develop a preference for things merely because they are familiar with them. In social psychology, this effect is sometimes called the familiarity principle."
it's also covered towards the beginning of this video
What I'm getting at is, we spend a lot of time looking at the characters in Naruto because of how long a series it is. Could this be why fans develop a preference for certain characters? Could this be why people are so repulsed by Sasuke's changed design? Suppose you become interested in Itachi after watch an arc he has a lot of screen time in, you go online and look up fanart and his wiki article and just read up about him. This guy slaughtered his entire family and clan and yet to you he's a likable and pleasing character.
People who look like celebrities are considered handsome or attractive, why? Have you ever seen a celebrity and though "I've seen normal people who look better than them, what are people crazy? There's nothing special about these guys" Well the more media coverage you get the more people are looking at you and thus the more people will get used to how you look, and begin to see you as pleasant and familiar to look at, so those people who follow media are going to consider these celebrities as the pinnacle of attractiveness.
How could anyone find the "Moe" characters of a series like Higurashi attractive with their oversized eyes? Well it starts with an anime that has characters which look more human, like Naruto, and then as someone gets into series with more exaggerated "anime features" they begin to see that as normal and attractive, thus you get Otakus railing on real girls calling them "3-D pigs" and stuff. The more you expose yourself to something, the more you're going to prefer that, thus the more you're exposed to your favorite character the more you're going to prefer them.
Last edited:
