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'Rent-a-person who does nothing' in Tokyo receives endless requests, gratitude

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Re: 'Rent-a-person who does nothing' in Tokyo receives endless requests, gratitude

#91

Post by CobrastanJorji »

Blikkentrekker wrote: post #84
Karuma wrote: post #18

A friendly reminder that Japan's rent-a-family industry was completely fake: https://newrepublic.com/article/160595/new-yorker-japan-rent... Everyone loves stories about how weird Japan is (especially the Japanese), so these stories should be taken with a grain of salt.

The difference is that this article alleges the existence of a single individual, rather than a trend. The other article spoke in vague words of quantity, which is quite common in news articles, that a certain quantity is suggested, but actual numbers are never shown. They are then not technically wrong but know full well most readers would infer a more spectacular claim than what they know the truth is. I'd argue th…

Yes, but the article's critique is a good one. "Look at this weird thing that they do in Japan" is practically a genre of online story. Japan gets a special media callout, to quote the article, as a "menagerie of the weird, the alien, the freakish."

When you see these articles about folks in the U.S., it's framed at "this guy is weird." When you see these articles about folks in Japan, it's frequently framed as "Japan is weird, and anti-social, and they don't have enough sex, and if we're not careful this could be us one day!"

Re: 'Rent-a-person who does nothing' in Tokyo receives endless requests, gratitude

#92

Post by rchaud »

breck wrote: post #49
liquidify wrote: post #34

What he is doing is certainly not easy. I can understand why people would pay for it. I'd use it as a form of rubber duck programming, but with an actual person that you have to at least act like you are trying to make understand.

Listener as a service.

'Conversational Commerce'

Re: 'Rent-a-person who does nothing' in Tokyo receives endless requests, gratitude

#94

Post by Igelau »

hospadar wrote: post #80

Isn't this just describing a therapist? I don't mean that to belittle this (whether it be real or fake), I think therapy is great, and I often feel like therapy could (and does, I suppose) exist in many more formats than just sitting-on-couch-in-quiet-office (rent-a-friend, good psychics, good religious leaders, bartenders, etc, etc). Whether real or not, I think the fact that it _sounds_ plausible [at least enough t…

> having a fairly neutral companion is pretty valuable

I think this is true. Not a "yes man", but an "is that so? man".

Conversely, the friends I can argue with vehemently and yet have neither of us take it personally -- they are rare and dear to me.

Re: 'Rent-a-person who does nothing' in Tokyo receives endless requests, gratitude

#95

Post by Blikkentrekker »

CobrastanJorji wrote: post #91
Blikkentrekker wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference is that this article alleges the existence of a single individual, rather than a trend. The other article spoke in vague words of quantity, which is quite common in news articles, that a certain quantity is suggested, but actual numbers are never shown. They are then not technically wrong but know full well most readers would infer a more spectacular claim than what they know the truth is. I'd argue th…

Yes, but the article's critique is a good one. "Look at this weird thing that they do in Japan" is practically a genre of online story. Japan gets a special media callout, to quote the article, as a "menagerie of the weird, the alien, the freakish." When you see these articles about folks in the U.S., it's framed at "this guy is weird." When you see these articles about folks in Japan, it's frequently framed as "Japa…

Yes, it does seem to be about stereotypes, not so much quirks per se.

The Japanese stereotype is that they are lonely, and it is true that in Japan various things that cater to that, such as Host Clubs, are more common place.

There was also an article about how the Netherlands supposedly pays for prostitutes for the disabled, diving into the stereotype how the Netherlands tends to sit at the vanguard of encouraging sexual nontraditionality — the reality was less interesting and could be summed up as: A) disabled persons obtain financial support from the state; B) prostitution is legal.

I also read articles about the Norwegian military having unisex showers and dorms, which also ties into stereotypical expectations, notwithstanding their existence in other places, I'm sure.

Re: 'Rent-a-person who does nothing' in Tokyo receives endless requests, gratitude

#96

Post by fastball »

robofanatic wrote: post #62
jeffbee wrote: post #5

I've been renting hundreds of people who do nothing for years. From Capgemini. Nothing Japanese about it!

and how is that relevant to this story?

It's a joke, and it's funny. Lighten up.

Re: 'Rent-a-person who does nothing' in Tokyo receives endless requests, gratitude

#98

Post by lhorie »

scarmig wrote: post #71
not2b wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Has anyone found this guy's Twitter handle? That would be one way to check the story. Probably easier for a Japanese speaker to locate.

Twitter handle: https://twitter.com/morimotoshoji Obviously the existence of the Twitter handle is just the first step in some kind of real verification. But it does confirm that, if it's a con, it's a long lived, dedicated one.

The pinned tweet explains the service. Auto-translation is a bit broken, but should translate roughly to this:

"I'm starting a service called 'rental person who does nothing'. [For example] for stores where entering alone is difficult[0], for matching the number of players in a game, to hold a hanami[1] spot. Please only use it for cases where one person is needed. I charge 10,000 yen, plus transportation fare from Kokubunji station, and food and drink (if applicable). I won't do anything other than very simple responses."

So it's not strictly a listening service per se.

[0] in Japan, there are food stores that are geared towards couples

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanami (the context here is holding a picnic spot)

Re: 'Rent-a-person who does nothing' in Tokyo receives endless requests, gratitude

#99

Post by scott_s »

This reminds me of one of the most insightful quotes about loneliness and grief I read in one of the most insightful essays on loss and grief:

I was reminded of our friend Liz’s insight after she lost her husband to melanoma. She told me she had plenty of people to do things with, but nobody to do nothing with.

From "The Day I Started Lying to Ruth" by Peter B. Bach, https://nymag.com/news/features/cancer-peter-bach-2014-5/

Re: 'Rent-a-person who does nothing' in Tokyo receives endless requests, gratitude

#100

Post by Blikkentrekker »

ravenstine wrote: post #75
Karuma wrote: post #18

A friendly reminder that Japan's rent-a-family industry was completely fake: https://newrepublic.com/article/160595/new-yorker-japan-rent... Everyone loves stories about how weird Japan is (especially the Japanese), so these stories should be taken with a grain of salt.

Yeah if you just read all these articles about Japan, you'd think that all young men beat off to hentai all day at their parent's home, and that everyone is visiting "love hotels", or buys used panties from vending machines. The media loves to spin up an image of Japan to naive westerners by exaggerating its quirks. It reminds me of HN. If you read HN too much, you might think that you can only write applications in…

> Yeah if you just read all these articles about Japan, you'd think that all young men beat off to hentai all day at their parent's home, and that everyone is visiting "love hotels", or buys used panties from vending machines.

Firstly, love hotels are a sign of not being lonely. They do not offer a prostitute; those batteries are not included

Secondly, I do not gain the impression from that that all do it, merely that they note that the very existence thereof is exceptional. In particular, of the used underwear vending machines, when the story broke many would not believe it and thought it was a hoax, but it actually exists.

No one thinks that every U.S.A.-man bought an assault rifle at a gas station or got one as a gift for opening up a bank account, but that the practice even exists, that the number of occurrence isn't zero — that is something remarkable in and of itself.

> The media loves to spin up an image of Japan to naive westerners by exaggerating its quirks.

What I must ask is why the term “western” invariably always drops whenever Japan is discussed.

Experience taught me that more often than not “the west” in that context simply means “The U.S.A.”.

There is no “west” relevant to what you claim. All that matters is “Japan” vs. “everything else” or at least anyone not particularly experienced with Japan which applies as easily to, say, India, Russia, Uganda, or Indonesia.

> It reminds me of HN. If you read HN too much, you might think that you can only write applications in Rust and Go using K8s, no JavaScript but Typescript only, but in reality the vast majority of apps being written are using boring technologies to implement CRUD around a relational database.

I find that every time an article about a, shall we call it “exciting language” is posted most of the comments, though impressed with the theoretical innovations thereof, doubt it's real world applicability.

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