Less "Unpopular" than "Not fully understood", but it took me this long to realize when people said that certain people see themselves in ugly video game characters, I
knew that, but the full implications didn't really sink in for me until recently.
Believe it or not, it was this specific image that made it click for me and raised me to a whole new level of understanding:
They LITERALLY AND FULLY see themselves in that thing with the stomach roll! They look at it and say "This is me!" some of them really, truly can't see this and go "This is me":
This whole time I knew they wanted "Things that look like them" in video games but I was thinking of it in the same way where it's like "Oh I may not personally be Doom Guy, but I see myself in him because I can relate to how he acts."
They don't feel "represented" until they see the Thing That Looks Like Them because they NEED the thing to be THEM! It would be like if I needed a character maker in Doom so I could recreate
myself in my physical body. It's almost ineffable how subtle the difference really is, but
I get it now, and I wonder what understandings remain to be uncovered!