OS-tan hot takes

[Lily1027 She/Her]

What are some of your opinions about OS-tans that many people would probably disagree with?

My hot take is, that even though I like how the Animecore, Frutiger Aero, 2000s etc. aesthetics rised up the OS-tans's popularity a bit, I don't like that like 60% of the people just treats it like it is just a part of the aesthetics and are not really into OS-tans. For example, Madobe Nanami is kinda popular in the Frutiger Aero aesthetic, but most of these people just see her as some random Frutiger Aero character, and doesn't even knows her name actually, and calls her random names like Win-chan or Frutiger Aero-chan. No, Nanami is not Frutiger Aero-chan, Nanami is not just a Win-chan, she is a Windows 7-tan. Or ME-tan is just seen as a  random anime character from the 2000s by majority of the people who are into these aesthetics. I don't say that everyone who know about OS-tans by those aesthetics are like this, I know some people got into OS-tans thanks to these aesthetics, but this is just my feeling that I've been noticing in the majority of things that focus on 2000s, Frutiger Aero etc.

[Bella]

Oh this is a fun thread!

I like that frutiger aero/y2k-core/etc. has introduced people to OS-tans and other aughts web properties, but I agree that it's unfortunate they've been subsumed by those aesthetics among some newer fans.

My hot take is that I think the idea of OS-tan "canon" is kind of overblown. I think the OG group of OS-tans (95-tan, 98-tan, XP-tan, etc.) are cohesive enough visually and personality-wise to count as distinct characters, but ultimately they are a group of characters designed and popularized by regular people on image boards, not a corporation, not an anime studio, not a published manga. I don't really see what the fundamental difference is between, say, ME-tan and Amiga-tan, besides one having the benefit of being developed on a large board and being popularized among more people, while the other was developed in a smaller community with less reach. But both are basically the result of a labor of love by regular netizens.

[VonDaab]

As youths nowadays would say. Larpers.