リン・ミンメイ
is derived from a Japanese term for another person's house or family (お宅, ). The word can be used metaphorically, as a part of honorific speech in Japanese as a second-person pronoun. In this usage, its literal translation is "you". For example, early in the anime "Macross", first aired in 1982, the characters Hikaru Ichijyo and Lynn Minmay use the term this way to address one another, until they get to know each other better. The modern slang form, which is distinguished from the older usage by being written in hiragana (おたく), katakana (オタク or, less frequently, ヲタク) or rarely in rōmaji, first appeared in public discourse in the 1980s, through the work of humorist and essayist Akio Nakamori. His 1983 series , printed in the lolicon magazine "Manga Burikko", applied the term to unpleasant fans in caricature. Animators Haruhiko Mikimoto and Shōji Kawamori had used the term between themselves as an honorific second-person pronoun since the late 1970s. Supposedly, some fans used it past the point in their relationships where others would have moved on to a less formal style. Because this misuse indicated social awkwardness, Nakamori chose the word itself to label the fans. Morikawa Kaichirō, an author and lecturer at Meiji University, identified this as the origin of its contemporary usage.