I think this most recent conversation is a generational thing, although calling it generational is a bit inaccurate since people usually refer to that by age when it's not necessarily the case here. Obviously I'm going to generalize about Japanese stuff since I'm not actually one of them, but I have read stuff now and then and of course see references occasionally.
Being an otaku/nerd was definitely not cool and something you would generally hide. With otaku being a pejorative, especially after the aforementioned otaku killer thing, it seemed better to hide your predilections unless you know you're among your own kin. Not only will it avoid harsh judgements from strangers, but it will prevent you from creating awkward social situations. From what I've seen Japan is great at accepting that people can be weirdos in private, but being one in public is heavily frowned upon. This is also the case outside of Japan, but I don't think it ever reaches the degrees of tolerance for fantasy in private and intolerance towards straying from the social code in public.
Sometimes it seems strange to me that people can't understand that otaku was a bad thing to be called, just like being called a nerd or a geek was a bad thing to be. I think it's a modern internet thing where such terms have been "reclaimed" (watered down) as something you can put on your status page without elaboration, so such words carrying weight is a bit unusual if not incomprehensible.
On the English imageboard side of things people called it "powerlevel" and while it sounded funny, most people had the understanding that it was a form of protection not just for the individual but for the group as well. You can see this in older internet stuff when someone shares a clip of someone violating this safety net (like on local TV news or a college presentation or something) and people have trouble watching it because they feel empathetic shame and even anger at the person for doing it. As
>>129775 said restraint is a force for good and it's important to keep society functioning... probably.
Maybe this is a bit of a moot point now since the algorithm will expose and destroy everything we hold dear until it moves on to the next thing tomorrow.