Anime Kid From Middle School Grew Up Just How You Expected
by Eloise Rollins-Fife
LOS ANGELES, CA — In a completely predictable turn of events, social media posts confirmed this weekend that the kid from middle school who based his personality on anime is just an older version of that now.
“Just a weeb lookin’ for his waifu uwu,” Loel Stevens posted to Facebook on Sunday, in front of his mother and God and everything. His profile picture? You guessed it. It’s Naruto. And this sad sack of beans is 23 years old.
Despite his lack of ethnic or cultural ties to Japan, this adult man has been fetishizing cartoon drawings of teenage ninjas since before anyone can remember, trapping himself into an identity formed around television series aimed at children.
Former classmate Keith Russ and Ashley Lemming, who both started promising careers and have long forgotten their middle school interests, weighed in. “We all hoped he might grow out of it, go to college and get laid, so that Facebook post was a real bummer,” Russ said.
“Yeah, I had to unfollow him ‘cause I can’t see another tragic attempt at cosplay,” added Lemming. “But somehow I felt too awkward and strangely nostalgic to unfriend him entirely.”
Loel’s mother, Shelly, felt similarly disconnected. “I keep trying to get him out of the house and excited about something, but all he wants to talk about is ‘manga.’ So I cut up some fruit for him and his little friends, but I guess he didn’t want the mango anymore, because he started screaming in Japanese,” she said.
As of press time, the anime kid from middle school was seen hanging out in his parents’ basement with the girl who loved “SuperWhoLock” and the boy who wouldn’t stop quoting “Smosh.”
