Wow, I recommend everyone to read the whole piece. The title does not do the interview justice.
The Booming Japanese Rent-A-Friend Business
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Re: The Booming Japanese Rent-A-Friend Business
#12Went into reading this article expecting it to be a one-off, rental boyfriend type deal (that kind of trope is used very frequently in movies/tv shows/manga there), but this way way deeper than I expected. I'm pretty mind blown at how far they are taking this fake/real replacements. Pretty close to some dystopian scifi actually. >If the client never reveals the truth, I must continue the role indefinitely. If the dau…
Same here. I can't help but wonder about the ethical implications of lying to a child about something so fundamental for her entire lifetime.
Re: The Booming Japanese Rent-A-Friend Business
#13Is this the world that we're creating in modern life?
The best world money can buy, with organic gluten-free interaction with real humans./s
Re: The Booming Japanese Rent-A-Friend Business
#14Can someone confirm that this is real? It reads like (dismal) satire.
Re: The Booming Japanese Rent-A-Friend Business
#15Earlier quoted context omitted.
What's stopping an otherwise normal late middle aged man from making friends?
It's pretty hard to just up and make friends in Japan. People generally stick to social/activity circles, but even then, you have boundaries. For example, if you have a golfing group, you guys may go out for drinks but that would be that. You'd almost (key word) never go over to someone else's house, or go see movies together, or any of that -- they're your "golf people." But that's assuming that you do have a golf g…
This is exactly my experience. I felt that the only "western level" friendships of openness and directness [1] were made before college.
[1] To be fair each society has its own expectations on what interpersonal relationships should be like. American openness/directness likely isn't inherently virtuous.
Re: The Booming Japanese Rent-A-Friend Business
#16Went into reading this article expecting it to be a one-off, rental boyfriend type deal (that kind of trope is used very frequently in movies/tv shows/manga there), but this way way deeper than I expected. I'm pretty mind blown at how far they are taking this fake/real replacements. Pretty close to some dystopian scifi actually. >If the client never reveals the truth, I must continue the role indefinitely. If the dau…
The TV Series "Dollhouse" also explores this, although there the actors can only be rented on a day-to-day basis and their memory is wiped (OR IS IT?) after every assignment.
Re: The Booming Japanese Rent-A-Friend Business
#17This is sick. That girl is going to find out one day that he is not her father and she is going to be very fucked up when she realizes her entire life is a lie and she can't ever trust anyone. I can't believe someone would be willing to do that to someone for $50/hr.
> The child had a father when she needed him most. It might have been a brief period, and she might know the truth now, but she had a meaningful experience at that time.
I find it hard to dismiss the concept completely. There are times when help is needed and perhaps sometimes this deception is better than having no help at all. I feel conflicted.
Re: The Booming Japanese Rent-A-Friend Business
#18Wow, feels straight out of a Black mirror episode. What really disturbs me is this: > With a burgeoning staff of 800 or so actors, ranging from infants to the elderly, the organization prides itself on being able to provide a surrogate for almost any conceivable situation. Infants!! Reminds me of a Jim Carrey movie - The Truman Show.
https://www.marjorieprimethemovie.com/, or the trailer https://youtu.be/a7PtcOLJDco
Re: The Booming Japanese Rent-A-Friend Business
#19This is sick. That girl is going to find out one day that he is not her father and she is going to be very fucked up when she realizes her entire life is a lie and she can't ever trust anyone. I can't believe someone would be willing to do that to someone for $50/hr.
> The child had a father when she needed him most. It might have been a brief period, and she might know the truth now, but she had a meaningful experience at that time. I find it hard to dismiss the concept completely. There are times when help is needed and perhaps sometimes this deception is better than having no help at all. I feel conflicted.
I am not dismissing the entire concept, but there is a difference between it being a shared delusion between willing participants and a deception. This service seems like it is primarily used to deceive others, and there are situations where that could be more appropriate like getting a kid into a private school. Most of the examples in that article are immoral uses of the service though.
Re: The Booming Japanese Rent-A-Friend Business
#20Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's pretty hard to just up and make friends in Japan. People generally stick to social/activity circles, but even then, you have boundaries. For example, if you have a golfing group, you guys may go out for drinks but that would be that. You'd almost (key word) never go over to someone else's house, or go see movies together, or any of that -- they're your "golf people." But that's assuming that you do have a golf g…
This is exactly my experience. I felt that the only "western level" friendships of openness and directness [1] were made before college. [1] To be fair each society has its own expectations on what interpersonal relationships should be like. American openness/directness likely isn't inherently virtuous.
Americans are direct only about a certain set of things.
My Thai friends are much more direct discussing appearance, for instance. As an American, that was actually quite a shock visiting Thailand -- but you get used to it and adjust, and now it feels weird that there is this taboo in the US.
Americans are more open and direct than Japan, but I don't know that I'd say they're particularly open and direct -- about the only thing I'd say Americans are uniquely is boisterous. But that's probably still only among the developed world.