Pre-2012, I was a pure physics nerd. I didn't watch cartoons because 'it wasn't nerdy or intellectual'. I only watched the Discovery Channel or Discovery Science or any other low-400 channels on my Starhub cable TV that piqued my interest.
People have a goth phase or a rebellious phase or a chuunibyou phase, etc. I had a nerdy phase.
I was also a follower of memes (because memes are apparently intellectual amirite?). Like how I mindlessly scroll down Instagram nowadays (bad habit, don't do that kids), I used to mindlessly scroll down 9GAG in my 'boredom time'. 2012 was the era of rage comics. You know, trollface, Forever Along Guy, cereal-spitting guy, me gusta, Yao Ming face, confused Jackie Chan, etc. So I saw one particular 9GAG post showing some stills from an anime Seitokai Yakuindomo as a blatantly ripped low effort comic. And so I started watching it, via the plebian method of Youtube Downloader. It took me a couple of months to finish the entire 1st season since I only watched it on the bus home from school (I'm busy chasing Z's on the bus to school). I did find the ecchi humour interesting though. But it's not something I can comfortably watch in public or with anyone else for that matter XD
It's also around this time period where I stumbled upon and picked up Vocaloid and Touhou.
In 2013, my friend Ryan Chin (Hi Ryan, if you're seeing this) introduced me to a few animes (is the plural form anime or animes?) which I promptly consumed since it was 'O' levels time, and every Singaporean kid knows that exam times = procrastination time. Here's the rough list from memory in no particular order:
Angel Beats!
To aru Kagaku no Railgun
K-ON!
Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya
Lucky Star
Clannad
idk was there anything else
And thus these 6 were my start down the weeaboo rabbit hole.
My level of weebness today (hint: it's not over 9000 yet)
About 400 entries on MAL, clocking in at about 58 days worth. Meh, mid-tier only I guess. I've seen people with 3 digit days worth. The spectrum I watch covers both shorts (Teekyuu, Aggressive Retsuko, etc) to full-length films.