One thing I have noticed in the Naruto fandom is how when certain events come up, people tend to do one of these 3 things:
1. Take said event and drive it to insane or unrealistic proportions
2. Twist the meaning of the event or think it means something else
3. Interpret it as something incredibly cryptic that can only be deciphered by a select few.
The truth is, its not like any of these. One thing a great majority of the fandom does not understand, just who is the target audience? Many would say boys or men, yeah it does cater to the male demographic, but many girls and women also read naruto. Now just what age group does the Naruto series designed for though? Would some say teenagers (13-18), others would say around 16 and older given the content and some moderately bloody scenes (land of waves with Kakashi killing Haku was a very graphic moment). Others may say younger around 10-13 but this is crazy to most people.
The shocking thing? This is the age group Naruto is originally intended for. Kishimoto's main target believe it or not is boys in middle school. This means on average grades 5-9 (it was 6-8 where I went here in America but many countries around the world and even schools among states here in America do things differently in that range).
Now I know what most of you are thinking, "10-13 years of age? Are you insane? These themes are met for teenagers!" Yeah they are, but content rating and whats determined as appropriate and inappropriate for age groups differs by nation. Here in America, Naruto is intended for at least those age 14 and higher. It may be for a younger audience in one place aside from Japan and be for older audiences in other places. But again In japan this falling back to that main point, its designed for boys in middle school.
Now many of you may be asking, just how the heck does this matter? Well this brings us right back to the first point, the way the story is designed is so that its enough for middle schoolers to be able to understand the context and elements of the story. What this means is, any events the fandom brings up no matter what it is be it action, drama, comedy, and the rare romance (which is ultimately the gasoline of this fandom) its designed so simple, a middle school student can figure the stuff out, yet the fandom on any and all ends takes things so crazily, its just downright, embarrising.
What do I mean exactly? Okay lets take a good event, many speculated on who Naruto's father was. Many thought it was Minato when we first saw his face in a picture during the chunin exams. Many speculated Naruto's parents were some other people or would never be known, well then we got Jiraya saying he looked like Minato during the return of Itachi arc, then we got the input from Jiraya again with Tsunade before he left for the rain village. It was ultimately confirmed at the 8 tails event when Naruto went berserk. Now the whole deal to this however, it was obvious, this was enough for anyone even a simple 6 or 7th grade student to make out.
Another one, who was Tobi? Many said Obito, others thought it was Inzuna Uchiha. Then Obito used the name Madara himself as a cover, all true identity theories were viable but some however became incredibly insane such as Suisui or even the elder son of the sage of the 6 paths. The first 3 were completely understandable. Yet the fandom made a few strange theories and never knew the simplicity behind things.
Now lets get into a darker topic, pairings, sadly every fandom has been jumping in rabidness for the tiniest things, There are no shipping wars like Naruto. Being a NS fan, I have been at the lower end of well, lets say fair treatment for my fanbase has been one of mass insults. Now let me say this, I am a NS fan, but all that romance stuff takes a backseat to the Action first, comedy/drama second, and journey element third. Romance is behind all this and maybe a few more. Yet in my experience events like 469 were proclaimed to be the end of NS, all was done, lets ignore the future facts that will be brought up. What happened after 469? We found out Sakura was doing it for Naruto's feelings. This was just recently after Hinata defended Naruto from pain too, yet again, it was left unresolved and there were still things like 457 which showed why Naruto could not confess to Sakura. Yet NS was still proclaimed dead. Fans lept at this stuff to say it was dead without a resolution to 457, there still has not been one. Too many loose elements.
Now here comes a bombshell of one, recently chapter 615, it let all NH fans hold their heads high, promclaim canon, guess what? Same issue as 469, how can it just be called without the loose ends tied up? Sakura still has some stuff to take care of, did Naruto ever even start loving hinata at some point either? This is what I mean, fans jumped the gun, again. NS was again proclaimed dead, but we have not seen everything.
Then a few weeks later, we got 631, this was like a reversal of fortune. The whole Sakura-Kushina event, yet this one put in a huge bombshell accross the fandoms, NS fans, yeah there were a good amount just shouting CANON when there are still other things that need to be done, like Hinata's end and Sakura's feelings for Sasuke. I enjoyed that parallel moment, but still said other things had to basically be fulfilled. Yet again both sides of the fandom, those for and against NS made some insane claims. NS was calling canon (jumping the gun) but the anti-NS crowd however made some quick claims like "Minato was wrong", "This proves the Kushina-Kushina relation to NS." This just made me think, how freaking hard is it for some people to understand a simple notion? We got this insane twisting of a moment or statement, then in 632, from two panels, we get another mass twisting.
Naruto sees Sakura's yin seal power enhancement and says he will never annoy her again, what was this scene ment for? Simple comedy, yet others twisted it to saying, "he realized she would kill him in a relationship." Others claimed or were worried (on both sides) about SS with Sakura saying Sasuke's name and launching an entire debate over her cheeks being covered in dirt or blush after Naruto and Sasuke saved her from the giant Jubbi clone. At this moment, people were ignoring the 2 things of the chapter, Sakura's determination and growth and displaying her power and Jugo's foreshadowing on what Sasuke's real intentions were. Seriously, did people even ever consider if these middle schoolers, who the series is designed for would actually do this? Why is it the majority of the other fandom, the older fandom at that doing this stuff?
Lets take another one, flashback to Kushinas last night, the "find a girl like your mother." This statement sent the NS and NH fandoms into overdrive, what info it intended to provide the reader however was very very simple, That Naruto would possibly find a girl and end with one in the end, there simple. The fandoms debated for a few years, yet there was one very simple thing put in, in her flashback on how she met Minato, her background and how she first saw Minato it was eerily similar to the early chapters of Naruto and Sakura, notably chapter 3. What was the purpose of this? Sakura possibly had stuff in common with Kushina.
Yet the fandoms twisted these things, made some insane claims (even Minato being like Hinata? Seriously?) Are any of these middle schoolers doing this? I would be willing to bet hardly few actually think like this. Fans debated for 2 years on this stuff, then we get 631, all hell breaks loose.
Then we had fanbases fans of pairings and no pairings just acting insane over Minato's compairsion thinking he was wrong, Sakura got lucky, wait til he sees Hinata, its just insane now. All this simple statement did was say this: building on Kushinas foreshadow, Sakura may have been the girl like her as Kushina said to find a girl like her, Minato simply built on that foreshadow by Kushina. Yet many act as if its insane, the end of the world or already canon. NS is not canon, even though I hope it is, there are still things I see that need to be addressed, this parallel moment is simply advocating that they are alike yet fans take it and basically, instead of it being 1+1=2 they try to make it like its dividing by zero. In otherwords, people take many simple story elements and make them into these insane perceptions that just don't make any sense or just sound desperate and delusional. This applies to all fanbases, even i have seen the ugly side of my own fandom NS. As much as I like this pairing, I still remain aware of the other story elements but don't dive into these theories that just go insanely off course, they make no sense.
And this is stuff for simple middle schoolers to understand and yet the fandom thinks its something much more.
Its not hard to understand somethings yet people try to make federal cases out of these, its simple:
-This is a fictional story in the first place, its not going to make sense, characters are not going to act "realistic."
-It uses Japanese culture, people of other cultures may be lost if they don't understand the themes and elements of the story, I cannot fully blame them if they don't know, but this lack of knowledge does make an impact, I'm a geographer myself, knowing other cultures is kinda a big deal when you want to look for meaning in just about anything.
But for the long run, many story elements like who tobi was, how pain worked with the bodies, how Sasuke got his powers, how the ten tails could revive itself, and so many more, these things are made to be easy enough for people aged 10-14 on average can understand, yet I'm betting most of us age 19+ that read this series, take these things too far, and we are supposed to be the mature ones.
All I can say is, we need to take a good look at things, remove the pairing goggles for some people, and pay attention to the story. If its easy enough for them to understand, why do we as fans with our baises need to make it harder then it needs to be? All i can say is, with events like Minato being obviously Naruto's father from the start, the sage of the 6 path story involving only the Uchiha and Senju clans, no others, and Sakura being advocated similar to Kushina, if its open to these kids, why as adults must the rest of us take these things so freaking seriously and out of proportion?
All I can say is, don't overthink things, if its easy enough for them, it should be for us. Otherwise some of us may be reading the wrong way.