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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

#81

Post by microcolonel »

thatcat wrote: post #57
avar wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> things could get really awkward and confusing when you end up having partial memories.

All memories are partial.

Re: The Booming Japanese Rent-A-Friend Business

#83

Post by AndrewKemendo »

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…

We all create our own version of reality, and this is just an intentional, multi person extension of that. That's what most "entourages" are anyway - basically rent a friends. I see nothing wrong with living in a more advanced fantasy land if you can afford it.

Re: The Booming Japanese Rent-A-Friend Business

#84

Post by sametmax »

yorwba wrote: post #61
vog wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 see…

One problem with your comment is that you do not actually address the point you quote. Instead, you present an anecdote about how you went to lots of places where you met new people, had the courage to talk to them and made friends. I agree that what you described is a good way (maybe the only way) to make friends. But consider what proportion of attendees at those meetups ended up becoming your friends. I'm guessing…

> Making friends takes work, and success is not guaranteed;

That's the gist of it.

In our society, people think human relationships are obvious, should be natural and self evident.

It's a concept that is reinforced by the medias, but also by the childhood memories where it kinda was.

But in the adult world, there are many social contracts and artificial boundaries you have to overcome, and connecting with people IS work.

What's more, it's work a lot of people are not trained to do anymore. And it's work with important consequences, good and bad.

I lived in Africa for a while, and there, you HAVE to connect to people to live. In some countries, basic informations and services can only be obtains by direct contact with another human. So the locals have no problem with loneliness, they make and break relations with ease.

Our modern society are making us kinda handicaped in that mesure, providing so many ways to avoid human contacts: delivery services, text informations everywhere, listings of things, etc. You don't have to ask where to find a product, what it contains, the price, then negociate it. You go to the shop, read, then pay, sometime even to a machine, or order it online.

It clicked, going back. I realized how easier my life was, and what a "cheat code" it is to just be able to talk to a random girl or joke with the guy next to me in the waiting room. I don't miss my times of being an introvert. It had zero benefits for myself.

We may mock Japan, but we are not making progress ourself.

Re: The Booming Japanese Rent-A-Friend Business

#85

Post by belorn »

musage wrote: post #73
sho wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> the young woman's confidence has improved, destructive behaviour stopped, bullying stopped What makes you think that wouldn't have happened over time by itself? What's the message here, bullying someone for having lost her father is okay, not having a father is not okay? That's normalizing people being bullied for being humans. It's normalizing not allowing a widow to find another lover who at least may have an act…

> How about having a decent society

Everyone wants this. An end to bullying would be great. Social expectations, roles, and conformity is harmful when it leads to groups ganging up on individuals.

And it doesn't end in school. I have personally had job interview in which the lack of popular social activity outside schools hours resulted in me not getting the job. Every time I see a studying looking at appearance and conformity to social expectations and norms I see a global phenomenon where society rewards conformity and punish non-conformity. Faking conformity is not a solution, but I can't say there has been much progress in removing the underlying issue. From my view there was progress until about mid 1970, in which the trend reversed and now we have a polarized world in which you either must conform to a naturalist or purist view (The Chromium Fence).

> When I worked in a hospital, I was constantly amazed at the idle chit chat relatives made with people who had very short time left.

Measure the stress levels and I think you would get a interesting correlation. There were a study done on parents to cancer sick children, and there were some direct correlation between behavior and stress management. In short summery to what I recall, suppressing the idea that the child was sick gave short-term stress reduction but that had a major price to pay when reality crashed in. Those that accepted reality early and gave themselves some room to exercise control (like making sure someone was in the room, that the nurses read the right bed-night story, and so on) generally faired better in the long run. It is not a fun study, but it is a good explanation for human behavior.

Re: The Booming Japanese Rent-A-Friend Business

#86

Post by tgb »

mrSugar wrote: post #67
avar wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This was explored (all the way to its grim dystopian conclusion) in tv series Dollhouse. Might want to check it out.

I only watched the first season, but wasn't it the reverse of the suggestion?

Re: The Booming Japanese Rent-A-Friend Business

#87

Post by Yizahi »

tyingq wrote: post #38
donquichotte wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That seems like a wiser operating plan. Avoids any long term deception.

You should check how Dollhouse ends then :) .

Re: The Booming Japanese Rent-A-Friend Business

#88

Post by 11thEarlOfMar »

"In an increasingly isolated and entitled society..."

If true, it seems an odd mix of outcomes for a national psyche, but perhaps it can be explained.

How would a society become both isolated and entitled? Are they independent outcomes with independent causes? Correlated by some common cause? Or did one cause the other?

Re: The Booming Japanese Rent-A-Friend Business

#89

Post by bringtheaction »

walterbell wrote: post #78
mrSugar wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was explored (all the way to its grim dystopian conclusion) in tv series Dollhouse. Might want to check it out.

WestWorld too.

Spoiler ahead

In season 1 of the modern adaption of Westworld it's the robot actors that don't know they are not real. The customers know it's not real.

If anything else happens in the books or the movies or other series I don't want to know.

Re: The Booming Japanese Rent-A-Friend Business

#90

Post by mistersquid »

stickfigure wrote: post #14

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

I believe this is real, though I've not confirmed this outside of links here on HN.

My first exposure to this phenomenon was in March of 2016 right here on HN. [0] The linked article there was more in the vein of journalistic confession/reportage and like this linked article, it is a fantastic read. [1]

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11359641

[1] http://www.afar.com/magazine/the-incredibly-true-story-of-re...

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