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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

#241

Post by underwoodley »

sdrothrock wrote: post #238
andischo wrote: post #21

This interview makes me wonder where we are heading as the human race. The Japanese society, so certainly very different in some aspects, does strike me as a glimpse into the future of western society. Technology has a much bigger impact on the daily life there and I believe that this is one of the main reasons, why (face-to-face) social interactions are becoming more infrequent. What struck me the most from the arti…

> Technology has a much bigger impact on the daily life there I see this a lot and I'd like to see what kind of technology you think exists here and has an impact on daily life here that doesn't exist/have an impact elsewhere. Japanese technology that reaches the west is often the high-concept/prototype kind that definitely does not have any daily impact on anything, urban or rural. The most ubiquitous pieces of tech…

if 'cashless payment via touching a card' is what I think it is, it is completely widespread in London, in all shops/restaurants, and also on public transport.

Re: The Booming Japanese Rent-A-Friend Business

#243

Post by zimpenfish »

jordache wrote: post #226
zimpenfish wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably the same as already exist for when you rent* one's infant to modelling agencies or film sets?

the guardians can be on set while an infant is on the job. You can't have the real mom follow around while the fake mom is using the rental infant.

A fair point, well made.

Re: The Booming Japanese Rent-A-Friend Business

#244

Post by freeflight »

pagnol wrote: post #181
freeflight wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Pretty close to some dystopian scifi actually. But it's not really that surprising, as much as I love Japan, the way they've commoditized casual social interactions has always been downright scary to me. Hostess club culture might be the most obvious example, but it's only the most well known atop a whole mountain of service industry which revolves around people paying for casual social interactions, which imho bel…

There's a great documentary about host clubs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pW0RV2nSg0

Thanks for sharing, it's really very well made! I always wondered what kind of women would earn enough money to visit host clubs, the answer is quite depressing, just like pretty much everything about these social dynamics, lonely broken people lying to other lonely broken people.

The tragic thing being that we are all just lonely broken people but nobody likes to admit it, so we just keep on playing games of pretend with each other.

Re: The Booming Japanese Rent-A-Friend Business

#245

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

Re: The Booming Japanese Rent-A-Friend Business

#246

Post by cJ0th »

> For them, it’s a lot of hassle and disappointment. Imagine investing five years with someone and then they break up with you. It’s just easier to schedule two hours per week to interact with an ideal boyfriend.

I fail to fully relate to this sentiment. I get that a failed relationship that you've invested huge amounts of time in is heart breaking. It seems logical (albeit unhealthy) to thus stop chasing real relationships. What I then don't understand: Why is having a fake relationship preferable to one that might go south?

Either the "real" relationship turns out to be "fake". In that case the one that is "fake" from the beginning is no better. That is, the upshot is no true soulmate in both cases. Or, the "real" relationship turns out to be great. In that case the acceptance of uncertainty will pay dividends.

To me it seems that these people don't actually want a real relationship because no real relationship can come with the limited amount of attributes they desire. It's like they're complaining about an awesome Italien Pizza because it doesn't match a frozen one.

Re: The Booming Japanese Rent-A-Friend Business

#247

Post by thanatropism »

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.

Look up the movie _Synecdoche_, where a theater production about the producing of a theater production (about... (about... )...) starts recursively eating real life.

Re: The Booming Japanese Rent-A-Friend Business

#248

Post by bjourne »

Veratyr wrote: post #202
bjourne wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm 100% sure the daughter would have preferred the abusive alcoholic over being tricked like this. If you don't understand that, then you have a lot to learn about Homo sapiens.

Really? Do you think that an adopted child would prefer their birth parents over their loving adoptive parents if their birth parents were abusive alcoholics, criminals or drug addicts? Children who have been adopted are also "tricked" but I don't think all of them prefer their birth families.

You are responding to something I didn't write: "over being tricked like this." Adopted children aren't being tricked as they almost always know that they are adopted.

Re: The Booming Japanese Rent-A-Friend Business

#249

Post by bjourne »

ugfgibcvg wrote: post #155
bjourne wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's very hard for me to condemn this when the outcome seems so inarguably positive. Truthfulness is important, yes, but so is outcome. And if this woman after ten or twenty years, when she is well-adjusted with a career and family of her own, finds out the truth, would she be angry with her mother - or thank her? Given the amount of adopted kids that have been lied to, and later found out, she'll be absolutely fur…

I don’t understand why this is being downvoted.

Western men are deeply conditioned to feel sorry for women in all circumstances. Even when that sorry-feeling is not warranted. They would have no problem understanding that a man doing the same thing to a child is a dickhead, but a women doing it, is a victim of bad circumstances.

Re: The Booming Japanese Rent-A-Friend Business

#250

Post by triplesec »

cableshaft wrote: post #100
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…

This is common in the U.S. too. I can't begin to tell you how many threads I've encountered where people go "How do you make friends after college?" or studies that show that people lose friends over time and hardly gain any after college, on average. But, I don't think it has to be that way in the US. I myself went from having few friends to having more than I can keep up with, thanks to a period of two years where…

I had this exact trouble, and though friendly, didn't know how to tell how to make closer friends. I so wanted, but was so awkward and made social errors. I lucked into finding a bunch of accepting geeks in LA and then SF so I could err in their presence and become friends with some of them, gradually. But even then, knowing how to be closer and accepted as friends was hard. At last, one solution presented itself, through a lover. Being able to talk about myself, being vulnerable, sharing myself, allowed other apes to share about themselves too more, and feel closer. I now can make friends better than I used to. And miss all my friends in the Bay!
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