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this post was submitted on 19 Apr 2026
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Just looked it up. Otaku (お宅) is essentially 宅, which means "house". It became an adjective which describes someone who seldomly leave the house, which relates to animation (anime). It probably means somewhere to host images or videos now.
The etymology is a bit different from that. Otaku does mean "your house" (important distinction: it's always the second person's house, not your own), but it's also used figuratively as a formal way to refer to your family or just you. There was a culture, at least in the 70s and 80s, for enthusiasts in non-mainstream fields of interests, whether that be ~~TV manga~~ anime, science-fiction, wargaming etc., to talk to each other in a weirdly formal way, so they kept calling each other "otaku".
Only thing I want to add is outside of Japan, otaku almost exclusively mean anime fan
You're uh... Way off. Good try though.
Putting aside specific etymology, what it means in common parlance is basically "nerd" with a heavy implication of "really into anime and manga."
Well, sir, it is of course way off because I was only saying what the word originally means. It means "house" and there is no argument about it. "Nerd" is developed later.