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The Booming Japanese Rent-A-Friend Business

theatlantic.com

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Re: The Booming Japanese Rent-A-Friend Business

#51

Post by vog »

yodsanklai wrote: post #32
sdrothrock wrote: post #6

Earlier 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…

> It's pretty hard to just up and make friends in Japan Certainly not unique to Japan. I see many lonely people in western big cities for instance. Surprisingly, I find it much easier to find a girlfriend than a friend. You just go to a dating website, find someone "similar" and spend time together and you can get close very quickly. It's not the way regular friendship works where it takes much longer to get intimate…

> I see many lonely people in western big cities for instance

Not true for Berlin, though. If you regularily visit some hackerspaces (or other meetups with like-minded people, such as various user groups such as Emacs user group, political groups such as FSFE, whatever), or go to university and study there, you have very good chances finding friends, some of whom may turn out to be very good friends.

Sometimes it seems hard to get into groups, but usually this is just a matter of having the courage to talk to people, and not so much a matter of being actively rejected by others (although that happens sometimes, too, of course, because every "club" has some low percentage of anti-social-minded people, but those people are easy to ignore).

I assume this is true for the other large cities in Germany as well (Hamburg, Frankfurt/Main, Munich, Bremen, etc.) but I don't know for sure.

EDIT: To those who downvoted: Do you care to elaborate? Did you have different experiences in Berlin? (especially as technically-minded people)

Re: The Booming Japanese Rent-A-Friend Business

#52

Post by cosmic_ape »

I think there are a couple of really different types of situations these actors resolve.

The fake groom for a wedding is just a workaround for a cultural issue, maybe not uniquely Japanese. The society requires a groom, so here is one. I wonder how many politicians today have fake family lives due to similar reasons, for instance.

But there are other situations, like fake boyfriends/girlfriends. What the company provides here is trust, sort or removing counter-party risk. The client needs to know that the friend will confirm to certain protocol, will be in a certain way. Many people would do that for free, but the actors are guaranteed to do that. If there was some mechanism to establish that kind of trust without the company, that would be nice. Without that trust, its just the usual dating, of course.

And then, there is a commitment aspect. That man acted as a father for 8 years. The must have been growth in that relationship. The actor and the girl developed an inner world in which they exist, are part of each other's lives, and, the girl at least, relies on him to be there in the future. Many man could probably act as fathers for some time, but 8 years, they'd actually have to want to be fathers.

edit: maybe its worth adding that this is not a suggestion that that business is a good thing overall. Just an attempt at the analysis of why it might be "booming" (if it indeed statistically is).

Re: The Booming Japanese Rent-A-Friend Business

#53

Post by imustbeevil »

tyingq wrote: post #35
thriftwy wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not lie if everybody accepts and supports it, merely a convention. There's father-by-birth, and then father-by-adoption, and then father-by-convention.

Sorry, but it's just terrible. The mother is paying $200/month for a service that could disappear at any moment. The daughter thinks the rental is her real father. That's highly likely to unravel sometime in her life time. Certainly at his funeral...he is using a fake name and personna.

> The mother is paying $200/month for a service that could disappear at any moment.

The real father actually did disappear, after a history of abuse.

Re: The Booming Japanese Rent-A-Friend Business

#54

Post by Pharylon »

sho wrote: post #47
moonka wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The article specifically mentions the positive outcome of the arrangement - the young woman's confidence has improved, destructive behaviour stopped, bullying stopped, and she has the father figure she obviously needs at this critical part of her development. And from all appearances he is genuinely doing his best to be that. It's very hard for me to condemn this when the outcome seems so inarguably positive. Truthfu…

It seems positive from what he says, but we only have one side of the story.

How does the daughter feel about having a father she sees so infrequently? Is it hard on her? Does she wonder why he won't come help her when she calls him out of the blue over some emergency? Now that she's older, would it be easier for her to know the truth?

We don't know. What I do know is eventually she'll find out, somehow. What happens then?

Re: The Booming Japanese Rent-A-Friend Business

#55

Post by hrktb »

tyingq wrote: post #35
thriftwy wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not lie if everybody accepts and supports it, merely a convention. There's father-by-birth, and then father-by-adoption, and then father-by-convention.

Sorry, but it's just terrible. The mother is paying $200/month for a service that could disappear at any moment. The daughter thinks the rental is her real father. That's highly likely to unravel sometime in her life time. Certainly at his funeral...he is using a fake name and personna.

I think the fact that the daughter or her surrounding world has troubles rooted in the lack of father representation is the terrible part.

Not that someone has to be blamed, but it’s the shitty start of the story.

From there if the mother can fake it until her daughter is in a better situation, I think it’s positive.

Even if it doesn’t turn out that well, I am not sure it would much more devastating than having been bullied for all that time she was decieved, and it could a start for a discussion on how she deals with her father image.

Re: The Booming Japanese Rent-A-Friend Business

#56

Post by hrktb »

hkmurakami wrote: post #29
SomeStupidPoint wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

That's a good point. We generally don't talk about our finances or deep personal life (vs the stereotypical Chinese aunt who demands to know your income as well as your dating history). American men tend to not talk about our emotions to one another. I'm not sure how best to describe the difference. When I talk to Japanese "friends", I feel that I am talking to a mask, or that they're playing a part. In the States, o…

This might not be for everyone, but I think alcohol helps a lot in this respect.

The most sincere and interesting discussion were late into the night where half the people were sleeping under the table and the few left awake were articulating thoughts they had very deep in heart.

There’s of course the part where everyone is a bit more lubricated, but there’s also the social protection of “being drunk” that helps to shield from repercutions if we step too far on people’s feelings.

I found this specially true for people who are pretty strong to alcohol, and tend to wait for these “end of party” moments to start discussing intimate feelings, even if they are still almost sober.

Re: The Booming Japanese Rent-A-Friend Business

#57

Post by thatcat »

avar wrote: post #49
hkmurakami wrote: post #2

Went 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…

Now imagine a future technology where you could undergo some hypnosis / gaslighting treatment to forget you even hired this person. I.e. pay a lot of money in advance, it's invested and the actor gets paid from the interest. You undergo memory treatment, and now your mother who you see once a week is real as far as you know, but really she's an actor you hired years back because your actual mother died.

>You undergo memory treatment, and now your mother who you see once a week is real as far as you know, but really she's an actor

Sounds like a sort of reverse Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind; things could get really awkward and confusing when you end up having partial memories.

But also, possibly a brilliant way to fund nursing homes/increase visitation.

Re: The Booming Japanese Rent-A-Friend Business

#58

Post by mikekchar »

stickfigure wrote: post #14

Can someone confirm that this is real? It reads like (dismal) satire.

I've lived in Japan for nearly a decade and never heard of anything like it. However it seems legit: domain name was registered in 2012 with a Japanese registrar and was renewed in 2015. The company (from their website) claims to have operated since 2010.

It's worth noting that most Japanese people would find this a pretty weird thing, I think -- it's not normal. I can't imagine that it would actually work out well if you got found out.

Re: The Booming Japanese Rent-A-Friend Business

#59

Post by batushka »

knlam wrote: post #33
stickfigure wrote: post #14

Can someone confirm that this is real? It reads like (dismal) satire.

Having been living in Japan for 4 years, i doubt this is fake. Loneliness is huge problems in Japan, you just can't become friends with stranger

Would a 1.9m blond bloke find a role or would be considered too foreign? Few gigs would help with travel budget.
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