I've been wondering about something.
I live in Holland, which is a small country and lacks anime on tv; really the only series we ever had were the ole ones like Pokemon, Sailor Moon, Digmon, DBZ and Beyblade. Oh, and Yu-Gi-Oh. But I'm not going to bitch on about how little anime we have on tv, even if it's true. The fact that manga and anime are only recently becoming well-known throughout the country (to people besides us anime fans) shows how late we are in nearly everything. If you look at our neighbouring countries like Germany and France, who have had a good amount of anime/manga and j-pop madness going on for a long time now, the Dutch really know squat.
If someone catches you doodling on a random bit of paper, they will ask; "Oh, I've seen that before! What do you call that style?" To which you will most probably reply, "It's called anime, a Japanese art style." And then, the fun begins when the other one answers with, "Ah right, like Pokémon!"
At first I took the effort of trying to explain to people what the difference was between Pokémon and others, and how everything is not automatically the same, but try doing that about 10 times a week. So now I just nod with a smile and accept the fact that another one thinks I'm childish and probably crazy in the head.
Then again, I started to think about what would happen if anime and manga became really popular here. Since most of the people who like anime, like it because it's not that mainstream, would it becoming popular take all the fun out of it? I personally believe it would. I have to admit, whenever I go downtown to visit the only manga-selling comic store (heck, we've only got one comic store in the entire city) I go crazy whenever they happen to have something new from the series I'm into. But that's because I rarely see it. I get my kicks from having to put effort into finding something related to what I most enjoy. If I were to see it everywhere I went, I wouldn't have to even try and look for it. Has anyone ever gone international and discovered that they have more anime/manga related stuff than in your own country? I remember being dumbstruck when I was at school, busy on my art project (of course doodling a bit in between) and this girl came up to me and asked if the girl I was drawing was from Elfen Lied. The world stopped spinning that day. The same was with when I was in Paris some years ago and discovered Japan Vibes(a French J-pop magazine) for sale at a gas station. Though the cover had spicy Tenjho Tenge on it, I didn't have to think twice on asking my mom to buy it for me.

Now my point is, would anime/manga and J-rock/J-Pop becoming more popular take the fun out of it, just because it's popular? Or because you would get used to the fact of seeing it everywhere you'd go?