Monday 2 October 2023

Japanism Is Awful

 
日本はひどいよ


There is something wrong with Japan


2.8.2023 


Today I visited Facebook. It is flooded with ‘people you may know’ from Japan, all of whom are cute young schoolgirls or the occasional professional businesswoman. 


I was so excited. 


‘May’ is a legal term. It means ‘given permission’. It is used here to indicate that Facebook is giving me permission to connect to this advertised demographic selected by an algorithm. 


Why today am I flooded by cute Japan girls? 


Yesterday I watched a movie called ‘Lost Girls and Love Hotels’, which I enjoyed sufficiently to order online the Catherine Hanrahan novel it’s based on. 


Fifteen years ago I loved Director Sophia Coppela’s debut movie ‘Lost In Translation’ with Bill Murray which is comparable with Lost Girls, as both are about lonely American women living in Tokyo. 


That I watched a movie set in Japan yesterday is the only reason I can think Facebooks invasive cookies might (not ‘may’) have advertised lots of cute Japanese women to me today. 


I usually ignore Facebooks recommended connections. However from curiosity and from respect for Japanese culture, history, tradition, and cute schoolgirls, I clicked on two of the profiles. 


This is where observed something very frightening about them. So I clicked on all of them to do some observational research. 


They’re almost all the same. 


The content is almost identical. 


I quickly categorised them into five types: flowers, sushi, cakes, fingernails, older professional business women. The sushi and fingernails profiles often cross over. 


A sixth type is professional photographic body models although high standard of Japanese selfies and professional studio photography are usually quite interchangeable. Accounts feature either cutesy ddlg / schoolgirl aesthetic or mild eroticism. Usually both. Professional business women accounts instead have sexy-in-suits and are mature by comparison. 


All of them, even those not living in Japan, primarily promote Japanese culture. 


Almost all of them are new profiles from 2023 (after AI technology). 


There are no male Japanese accounts on the promoted ‘people you may know’ scrolls which feature between every half a dozen regular posts on the Facebook home feed. 


I took the liberty of making screenshots. 


NON-PROFIT, FULLY ACCREDITED, WITHIN INTERNATIONAL FAIR USE POLICY FOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES 


This legal disclaimer means nobody can sue me for doing this because the world needs to see what is occurring. 


I do question whether the evidence points to the culture of Japan having created a generation Z of citizens whose options for communicating with the outside world are severely restricted to having to conform to approved topics and opinions, being seen to be a particular ‘state endorsed, culturally approved persona’. 


Observe the identical rhythm of the word structure in these posts.


“Today I (did a thing). It made me feel (awesome). Here is how I think like a robot about it to expand upon that!” 


One such profile would be believable, however there are lots of them almost identical. That is a red flag. 


No racism is intended here at all. 


“I love Japanese girls, so cool, so cool, Japanese girls.” Sultans of Ping FC 


A punk-pop band I saw play live several times, promote the Western culturally approved sentiment. Their best song is Turnip Fish. I have a very strong feeling Japan has changed significantly since the 1990s. 


Contemporary Japan is retro-(post)-post-post-modern pastiche of its former self. While the history of Japan is to ‘Japanise’ or ‘Japonify’ itself (famously during the Edo period), the contemporary Japan presented by Facebook is a Japanism of itself. 


To be quite honest, I would not be at all surprised to later discover all of these are fake profiles ‘created by the Facebook AI to give its users an authentic experience of talking with Japanese people who don’t really exist’. 


If that is the case, as AI advances the merit of my recording this experience for posterity while AI is still at a stage where we can just about recognise it to be an AI, is a historic necessity. 


The other option is more terrible; that these are genuine profiles of individuals who are all programmed to think in exactly the same way to such extent it is indistinguishable from talking with an AI.


But, where is my empathy? I must remember how Shinto teaches us there is no difference between a flesh and blood life form or a robot, because Life can be recognised in both, therefore both are equally as alive. 


How should we appropriately react to this? 


There is a scene in the influential movie Blade Runner where Deckard, who might or might not be a robot (he is), decides to ‘consensually-non-consensually’ sexually-assault Rachel, who he knows is a robot. 


“How does it not know it’s a machine?” leads us into Frank Herbert’s Bene Tleilaxu.


“Replicants are like any other machine. They’re either a benefit or a hazard. If it’s a benefit it’s not my problem.” Deckard. 


In an overtly narcissistic culture as portrayed by these Japanese girls Facebook profiles, there are benefits to identifying people as kawaii machines. 




Copyright images 
used within international fair use policy 
for educational purposes 















































CONCLUSION:


Japan has a serious major outbreak of Toxoplasma Gondii. No government tests for it despite it causes schizophrenia and 1/3 all humans living where there is cat urine are infected. 












Japanese Cat-Girls have gone viral






The title of this blog is inspired by S6E1 of tv series Black Mirror, ‘Joan is Awful’. 





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