My first anime was Fairy Tail, and I liked the manga even more in second grade. I made the mistake of being super open about it, but when my classmates caught a glimpse of one of the manga pages I was reading (I believe it was Mira in a bikini or something) and it just so happened to be one of those fan service pages, I was bullied for it for the following years of my life, and this resulted to me not telling a soul about my interests from that day on (but that was probably my fault since I was reading something like that in the public in school).
anyway, all I can say is that many people have a more positive view on anime(?) and people who do enjoy anime are no longer more often considered weirdos/otakus as they were b4.