The irony about this whole trope seems to be in the fact that it all boils down to having a(n actual) open mind, that inner freedom, and of course, an interest in life. Apart from some specific serious cases that qualify as western hikkikomoris, most of these people aren't literal shut ins, at least from what I've seen. They go outside, quite a lot, they attend conventions, sometimes move around the country (or even go abroad). But somehow they manage to completely avoid the life around them. That, and also speaking of inner freedom, in a way being a shut-in for various reasons such as illness, or maybe you moved to a foreign place, or whatever, is a real life experience. It's still something you process, something that bounces off of you (or you bounce off of it), and in a way, people who stay "in the shadows" may offer a unique perspective on things they watch but can't really engage in. But people we are talking about here are incapable of that; they barely process reality, whatever it might be.
Lack of media literacy among these individuals doesn't help either. I don't think it's a coincidence that most of them are troons or troon supporters. You know how trannies see bodies as Mr. Potato heads toys, where the body is a collection of parts as opposed to a whole, complex, interconnected system? That's how they see media they consume and produce and that's that strange vibe that something is off that you get from watching slops like the new She-Ra, Dragon Prince, and these endless weird ass "pilots" spawning out of nowhere from yet another factory-made xenogender nepo baby.
It's lifeless and disconnected. These people don't understand the difference between a character and a caricature. They never have a story to tell. And it's not like you need to be some genius and make a story nobody has ever heard before, humanity has been circulating same tropes and concepts for thousands of years, all over the globe. A lot of cult classics feature core principles that have been around since forever, just with a new cultural spin every now and then. Have any of these people ever picked a mythology book? Or the Bible? Is this what