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heck, i even semi draw in that style. what i'm meaning to say is, i'm scared about my interest in anime since most animated shows in the west never grab my attention save for my own ideas.

i guess i'll just sit in a corner and cry.

If your relationship with anime isn't impacting your normal day to day life, and you just like animation style/ themes/humor style that are more common in anime than in most modern animated shows/ films you don't have any issue.

Most western animated shows don't grab my attention anymore because they are either aimed at kids (which isn't inherently a bad thing, but that's another issue), are dead baby humor and/or were considered good but have long since passed that point and/or are difficult to track down legal places to view so I have no exposure to them.

Anime is very very popular; so nothing to worry about.

As long as you don't put all your points into anime and try to spec into some other stuff , you should be fine

i just feel ashamed since alot of people feel butt-hurt that cartoons don't get the same respect as anime,

you can blame bill-smith whatever his name is for that

Oh poor bill…

Anyway, there's nothing wrong with liking anime. Just remember that it's ok to do whatever makes you happy as long as you're not directly hurting anybody. In bill's case I believe he simply wants western cartoons to get the same exposure as anime in this site. You're not directly responsible for him feeling that way.

i do feel his pain really. i'm growing sick and tried of it as well.

I can only imagine why Anime is more popular than Western Animation today:

Western animation is mainly based off superhero giants who have been around since World War 2 with continuous stagnant development and rehashing of plot. To give an anime analogy as to why this is such a tired concept, imagine Naruto had over 10000 chapters, multiple anime seasons, Gaiden (side stories), and the characters never aged or did anything different. New comic ideas exist, but do not have nearly the amount of recognition, fame, spread, and budget that the superhero giants do. They even get scrapped if plans fail. Rarely do new ideas surface and become very successful.

Most anime end, rarely do they develop new plot, and the anime that does get rehashed is almost entirely centered around the Shounen genre (Dragonball Z, Naruto Shippuden, FMA: Brotherhood, etc). This allows for many new ideas from different mangaka to surface under the same studios. Successful mangaka either retire or make new manga. We have this constant outpouring of innovation and ideas that Western Animation simply does not want to tiptoe into for fear of rejection and loss of MONEY (eeek!)

As much as I want to say that Western animation should embrace new ideas, if you really want to "appreciate" western cartoons more, go back and watch some old 1920's~ 1950's cartoons. (There is still some good stuff after that, but the average animation quality just plummets by the 1960's). There are hundreds of shorts that are fairly obscure to most people that still stuff that's still fun to watch for the animation alone. Granted, many of them do have things like casual blatant racism/sexism, however, this is a product of their time, and tbh, for me I find humorous because of how offensive it can be, especially because that was not the intent. Likewise, the fact that certain things have a very different meaning now also adds to the unintentional humor (ex: two adult male characters sleeping in the same bed)

While some stuff like Popeye, Tom and Jerry, Looney Tunes, and Disney shorts people know about, things like Little Lulu, Little Audrey, Heckle and Jeckle, and Gandy Goose has pretty much been wiped from the memory of the public under the age of 40. Rocky and Bullwinkle might also be worth tracking down if you can, as though it does suffer from the decrease in animation quality in the mid 50's and 60's, the intentional humor is still fairly good.

But as for more modern stuff (as in made within my lifetime) and trying to "transition from anime" I would go with most of the DC animated universe (Batman: The Animated Series, Batman Beyond, Justice League Unlimited, Static Shock, etc.) King of the Hill, the original Teen Titans. They generally treat their audience as relative adults, and all have relatively realistic proportions like anime compared to shows that have things where a person's head can be twice the size of their body. Godzilla: The Series (1998) dumbs stuff down quite a bit more than the previous, but it still largely fits as well.

I hear a lot of similar stories about this.

I pretty much went through a "phase" where I was really into anime and I really loved it. I still enjoy anime today, but it's appeal has since worn off as far as the "discovery" of how most anime is constructed and the plots they come up with.

As an average American, learning about Japanese culture (modern and ancient) through anime was interesting to me. Plus the unique art style and fashions really are one of a kind.

Whether it is "unpopular" is debatable. Really depends on the circle of people you interact with, but don't expect ignorant people IRL to know anything.

Don't feel ashamed unless you buy a full-sized body pillow of a loli ;^)

i'm a girl, of course i won't do that.

As long as you don't become a filthy weeb.

Call me crazy, but there isn't anything inherently wrong with liking anime, no more so than it would be to like, say, trashy housewife TV shows.

And to hell with anyone who tells you there's anything wrong with your tastes in this, or that.

I do feel the need to point out the fact that if you feel an actual emotional response towards the mere idea of liking or hating something, then you need to resolve to either break that negative mental baggage your carrying or simply ignore that subject altogether.
Remember that shame is something that only you yourself can feel, and that in the same respect, only you can determine whether you let it affect you.