Why has this character archetype seen a surge in popularity within the western anime community during the past two...

Why has this character archetype seen a surge in popularity within the western anime community during the past two years? What is the key event that set this off?

I like how most of them are straight

and lets be real Chihiro has a huge dick, that's why he had to wear the giant poofy panties.

They're a bunch of normalfags that like memeing and shitposting about boypussy. As far as I can tell, it's been a while since we last got a bunch of these kinds of characters, so when reaction videos for seasonal anime start getting spread on Twitter and Tumblr, traps are seen as some sort of new brand. That, combined with confusion over whether or not they count as transsexuals, makes them big among westerners.

Are you talking about traps or shy girls?

Because of retarded teenagers sprouting meme phrases like "traps are not gay xDDD"

Yeah, yeah, I get that. But what made it catch on to begin with? Anime traps have been around forever.

I honestly can't recall an exact event that would've triggered this trend
but let's put it this way, Blend S helped it grow

Yeah if anything it was an accumulation over time.

It just so happens that in the past decade extremely popular shows had this trope (S;G) and through that it spread. And recently we've had one almost every season for a while now, so more than ever it appears big.

This guy. He's a trap in a more or less normie manga that got adapted into anime.

The big epic memes of
>cute girl kawaii uggu
>le bored face
>But she is a he epic lol
>LE GLOWEY EYES EXTREMELY HAPPY FACE
that's what caused this. Everyone wants to be ironically gay haha and make the epic boypucci joke to all their friends

they want to be someone people wish to protect and dote upon because the harshness of reality has made them suffer.

"they" being people that like this type of character. they can partially relate to their timid nature. anime fan's are weak. so they want to see weak character's in their media, like how girls want to see female superheroes, etc.

I know that's why I liked Chihiro specifically. Dude was so nice he didn't squish a mosquito drinking his blood. I can't even at that pureness.

Big-dick bottoms are a thing.

oh my god /s4s/ did this to us

More series, notable popular ones. Danganronpa and Re:Zero, stuff like that.

They're designed for straight males.

I know, trap x female gets me harder that the hardest of diamonds.

I bet most of Sup Forums is fine trap material, if they lost weight, shaved, dressed, etc.
most of them are self-inserting. (potentially)

we're already at that point

I despise traps with girls actually. A trap bottom to a guy with a smaller dick is pretty good, though.

They are straight until they lose to other guys' D.

You think the average weeaboo knows who Jun Watarase or Ryo Akizuki is? Most of them probably found out about traps through Steins;Gate or Dangan Ronpa.