mochichan00 said: maybe fans aren’t answering bc you already come with this kind of assumptions about what the group is and how fans are without knowing anything about them…….?touché! and really I wouldn’t be asking in the first place if I didn’t feel uncomfortable about it, and curious to see some analysis that differs from the perception I do have, which is that Japanese idol culture, while not wholly creepy, regularly slides into a zone that creeps me out a bit.
but Tumblr has managed to enlighten me on the redemptive aspects of so many weirder subcultures I’d be surprised if there’s nothing out there for AKB48 and the like, but I’m hoping for more than just “look, cute!”
As
far as idol groups go I’m not super familiar with much of it but I do
genuinely enjoy Babymetal as fun pop mixed with powermetal.
I have a ton of deep, murky, poorly explored and half-assedly researched theories about music fandom as a whole and the Idol fandom reminds me very strongly of the cult of personality surrounding pop boybands who are similarly mediocre, though the demographic differences between Japanese Idol fans and O-Town fans are pretty stark.
My theories and research basically boil down to: the groups cater to a niche with disposable cash who are marketed to in a way that provokes fierce loyalty. A lot of the “Britney Spears is Craaaazy” stuff seems to have grown out of resentment over her relationship with Justin Timberlake, the One Direction fandom experienced a massive shake-up over Zayne leaving. I can’t comment too much on Japanese idols or K-pop fandoms because I haven’t done the research but at first glance it seems like the exact same thing we’ve seen with The Spice Girls and The Beatles, only the group with disposable income and a lot of free time seems to be young-to-middle-aged men instead of teen girls.
Also Tiger Beat magazine plays a huge, huge role in music fandom as an industry and the Idol marketing and gossip mags seem to follow the exact format Tiger Beat laid out half a century ago.
(I’d also like to note that the only place I see similar attitudes from a young-to-middle-aged audience of English speakers is Metal, but instead of jealous rage over a musician starting a relationship it manifests as long arguments about how the band hasn’t been the same since the original guitarist left, or how the new singer brought the band to a totally different level and everything before the third album is shit)
I have a ton of deep, murky, poorly explored and half-assedly researched theories about music fandom as a whole and the Idol fandom reminds me very strongly of the cult of personality surrounding pop boybands who are similarly mediocre, though the demographic differences between Japanese Idol fans and O-Town fans are pretty stark.
My theories and research basically boil down to: the groups cater to a niche with disposable cash who are marketed to in a way that provokes fierce loyalty. A lot of the “Britney Spears is Craaaazy” stuff seems to have grown out of resentment over her relationship with Justin Timberlake, the One Direction fandom experienced a massive shake-up over Zayne leaving. I can’t comment too much on Japanese idols or K-pop fandoms because I haven’t done the research but at first glance it seems like the exact same thing we’ve seen with The Spice Girls and The Beatles, only the group with disposable income and a lot of free time seems to be young-to-middle-aged men instead of teen girls.
Also Tiger Beat magazine plays a huge, huge role in music fandom as an industry and the Idol marketing and gossip mags seem to follow the exact format Tiger Beat laid out half a century ago.
(I’d also like to note that the only place I see similar attitudes from a young-to-middle-aged audience of English speakers is Metal, but instead of jealous rage over a musician starting a relationship it manifests as long arguments about how the band hasn’t been the same since the original guitarist left, or how the new singer brought the band to a totally different level and everything before the third album is shit)
Indeed!
And I figure this thread will end with me being revealed to be super
problematic for finding older guys crushing on teenage girls to be a
little creepy while finding teenage girls crushing on boy bands to be a
little funny.
That seems to be a likely outcome.
But I’m not going to disagree that it’s a reasonable response, if for no other reason that the teen girls who are fans of bands tend to be, you know, actual children, while the men who are fans of idols are frequently aggressively fannish and controlling of performers who are actual children.
I think a better one-to-one comparison might be the Twilight/50 Shades fandom - that was a group of *a lot* of older women straight-up lusting after MUCH younger men (and I think Taylor Lautner may have actually been 16 while filming the first film).
But a lot of people saw that as more funny than creepy too.
If I put on my *very serious feminist* hat I’d say that’s because as a culture we still see women’s sexuality as somewhat laughable and non-threatening whereas we’ve started to see men who pursue much younger women as more in the “creepy” category than the “powerful” category.
However I do remember lots of young women commenting on how creepy it was to see their mom or librarian or whatever reading 50 Shades. Perhaps the idea of sexuality in older women isn’t laughable so much as gross?
Taking off my *very serious feminist* hat and putting on my intersectional monocle I’d say that there’s a decent chance that we’re being presented with a somewhat distorted view of Japanese Idol fan culture because that tends to happen with a lot of “look at Japan being weird” stuff in English media, but also that there are some significant differences in the wider culture as well; Japan still has attitudes about women’s sexuality and roles in the world that seem incredibly regressive from my point of view [1-3], and there do seem to be large numbers of lonely young men in Japan who have a more-difficult-than-expected path to forming relationships [4]. A fair portion of all of these issues seems like perhaps Japan is much more of a raging capitalist hellscape than I’d previously understood (worry over permanent jobs, dropping out of the workforce because of having children, and no time for a relationship because of work demands are cited alongside less pressure to marry as reasons that people are forming fewer long-term relationships). So a part of me wants to go, “yep, creepy older men creeping on younger women” but a bigger part of me goes “yeah, aim for women closer to your age to admire but hey man, do you need a hug and someone to talk to because you seem really lonely and the concept of work/life balance seems pretty weak in this environment.”
Like most things it appears to be pretty complicated. But I honestly just really wish that teenage children weren’t being marketed for their cuteness and singleness and purity, that seems like the grossest part of all of it to me; not so much that these men want the fantasy of a young woman waiting for them, but that someone is marketing that fantasy and punishing young women if they have the gall to be caught out in public on a date. That middle-man is who I’m concerned about, because the managers and corporate handlers and whatever are profiting off the exploitation of both young girls and women AND lonely men.
(quickly, shittily, and half-assedly researched sources:)
[1] Princess lose their royalty upon marrying commoners, princes don’t, big whoop monarchy isn’t my bag but that says something about the culture’s belief that men are more valuable then women.
[2] Depiction of vaginas even in non-sexual contexts is considered obscene while depiction of penises is not.
[3] Women don’t participate equally in the Japanese work force, largely due to institutionalized attitudes about when it is appropriate for women to work or what kind of jobs are appropriate for women to hold.
[4] Apparently 1 in 4 Japanese men have never married by age 50, compared to only 1 in 7 Japanese women (though that makes me question whether there’s really enough of a difference in the male and female populations for those numbers to make sense)
But I’m not going to disagree that it’s a reasonable response, if for no other reason that the teen girls who are fans of bands tend to be, you know, actual children, while the men who are fans of idols are frequently aggressively fannish and controlling of performers who are actual children.
I think a better one-to-one comparison might be the Twilight/50 Shades fandom - that was a group of *a lot* of older women straight-up lusting after MUCH younger men (and I think Taylor Lautner may have actually been 16 while filming the first film).
But a lot of people saw that as more funny than creepy too.
If I put on my *very serious feminist* hat I’d say that’s because as a culture we still see women’s sexuality as somewhat laughable and non-threatening whereas we’ve started to see men who pursue much younger women as more in the “creepy” category than the “powerful” category.
However I do remember lots of young women commenting on how creepy it was to see their mom or librarian or whatever reading 50 Shades. Perhaps the idea of sexuality in older women isn’t laughable so much as gross?
Taking off my *very serious feminist* hat and putting on my intersectional monocle I’d say that there’s a decent chance that we’re being presented with a somewhat distorted view of Japanese Idol fan culture because that tends to happen with a lot of “look at Japan being weird” stuff in English media, but also that there are some significant differences in the wider culture as well; Japan still has attitudes about women’s sexuality and roles in the world that seem incredibly regressive from my point of view [1-3], and there do seem to be large numbers of lonely young men in Japan who have a more-difficult-than-expected path to forming relationships [4]. A fair portion of all of these issues seems like perhaps Japan is much more of a raging capitalist hellscape than I’d previously understood (worry over permanent jobs, dropping out of the workforce because of having children, and no time for a relationship because of work demands are cited alongside less pressure to marry as reasons that people are forming fewer long-term relationships). So a part of me wants to go, “yep, creepy older men creeping on younger women” but a bigger part of me goes “yeah, aim for women closer to your age to admire but hey man, do you need a hug and someone to talk to because you seem really lonely and the concept of work/life balance seems pretty weak in this environment.”
Like most things it appears to be pretty complicated. But I honestly just really wish that teenage children weren’t being marketed for their cuteness and singleness and purity, that seems like the grossest part of all of it to me; not so much that these men want the fantasy of a young woman waiting for them, but that someone is marketing that fantasy and punishing young women if they have the gall to be caught out in public on a date. That middle-man is who I’m concerned about, because the managers and corporate handlers and whatever are profiting off the exploitation of both young girls and women AND lonely men.
(quickly, shittily, and half-assedly researched sources:)
[1] Princess lose their royalty upon marrying commoners, princes don’t, big whoop monarchy isn’t my bag but that says something about the culture’s belief that men are more valuable then women.
[2] Depiction of vaginas even in non-sexual contexts is considered obscene while depiction of penises is not.
[3] Women don’t participate equally in the Japanese work force, largely due to institutionalized attitudes about when it is appropriate for women to work or what kind of jobs are appropriate for women to hold.
[4] Apparently 1 in 4 Japanese men have never married by age 50, compared to only 1 in 7 Japanese women (though that makes me question whether there’s really enough of a difference in the male and female populations for those numbers to make sense)
No comments:
Post a Comment