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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

#171

Post by Tade0 »

TravelPiglet wrote: post #121
Tade0 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I started questioning the western narrative about Japan when I learned that the fertility and suicide rates are actually worse in my country. Turns out a lot of "exotic" problems in this country are all too familiar.

As long as people don’t ruin my view of Germany being the EU version of Japan kinky preferences and all

To me Japan is more like asian Switzerland.

The tidyness, amazingly punctual trains, mountains and general conservatism make both those countries stand out.

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

#172

Post by joerter12 »

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…

Thanks, I was just about to comment on how the social trends coming out of Japan are quite disturbing. I hope it’s as exaggerated as you say.

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

#173

Post by jrh206 »

fwip wrote: post #156
jachee wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the risk of getting too meta, the words "joke" "funny" and "humor" don't appear on the HN Guidelines[0] page at all. Nothing in there about staying 100% serious 100% of the time. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

I mean, the second sentence of the "In Comments" section: > Be kind. Don't be snarky. In this case it's snarking at the consulting company, but is that alright because they're not actually involved in the story or thread?

Jokes aren’t necessarily snarky - I don’t read any malicious undertone from this joke, which I think is necessary to be considered snarky

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

#174

Post by skrebbel »

Blikkentrekker wrote: post #164
skrebbel wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're being needlessly confrontational.

Perhaps, but you suggested there was fault to be found with my argument. I'm not sure as to how I'm supposed to challenge the challenge to my challenge without being “confrontational” as you call it and point out the faults with the argument.

> Perhaps, but you suggested

I did not.

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

#175

Post by exclusiv »

jogu wrote: post #111
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.

> Japan's rent-a-family industry was completely fake That's really not what that article is claiming. It's claiming that a particular individual has lied about the industry and made it seem stranger than it actually is and the western media has sensationalized that even further. There absolutely are rental services for boyfriends, girlfriends, mothers, fathers, etc. in Japan, they're just not as bizarre as some of th…

Separately, I've heard personal reports and seen a documentary about young Japanese men in general.

It was said that their mothers do everything for them and for a much longer time than other countries. Is this true?

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

#176

Post by Blikkentrekker »

alexanderdmitri wrote: post #150
smorephism wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you might think that you can only write applications in Rust and Go using K8s, no JavaScript but Typescript only Pff. Everyone knows Haskell, Idris and Elixir are acceptable, too.

once you've started on Idris you've crossed the line over from kinky to deviancy source: there are several people in my weekly support group for exactly this reason, it gets out of control

I would trust any type system that doesn't require me to prove that my sorting algorithm maintains the length of the vector it sorts.

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

#177

Post by exclusiv »

sandworm101 wrote: post #124
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.

>> about how weird Japan is (especially the Japanese) Like countries where you can rent young girls to help launch your latest computer game? There are people in LA that can provide babies for TV/film appearances, preferably twins, with only a few hours notice. That's how the Olsen twins got started. The entire entertainment industry, from strip clubs to hollywood, is premised on renting people to pretend to be somet…

No the article is odd/fascinating because most people's "rent-a-person" would be a friend or family member. And there would be no exchange of money.

It's kind of sad people have to hire people to do friendly things, but this is a pandemic. And you would "rent-a-person" to move probably in most places (unless you had great friends haha).

Also this makes sense "I'm not a friend or an acquaintance. I'm free of the bothersome things that accompany relationships, but can ease people's sense of loneliness"

So you want a throwaway friend. Or a casual therapist that does things with you. Rent them. Ok I guess not as weird as first glance. We have something similar in the US - life coaches which seemingly everyone on LinkedIn is nowadays.

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

#178

Post by dang »

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…

This subthread was originally a reply to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25779139.

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

#179

Post by bitcoinmoney »

bitbuilder wrote: post #76
andygcook wrote: post #48

Listening intently without injecting criticism, condemnation, or your own complaints/opinions is extremely difficult. In fact, that skill is one of the major tenants of the timeless classic, How to Win Friends and Influence People. This quote is straight from the book: “Any fool can criticize, complain, and condemn—and most fools do. But it takes character and self-control to be understanding and forgiving.” With iso…

>With isolation becoming a major issue during the pandemic, I'm not surprised people want to hire someone with these skills to just listen to their ideas and stories. I think you make a great point, but at the same time it feels like you're also describing conventional talk therapy. And if you have good insurance, it's free. If you don't, it still doesn't break the bank. I frequently joke with my friends that I'm onl…

What’s the hourly?

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

#180

Post by michaelpb »

Blikkentrekker wrote: post #137
jogu wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Japan's rent-a-family industry was completely fake That's really not what that article is claiming. It's claiming that a particular individual has lied about the industry and made it seem stranger than it actually is and the western media has sensationalized that even further. There absolutely are rental services for boyfriends, girlfriends, mothers, fathers, etc. in Japan, they're just not as bizarre as some of th…

Girlfriend experience -escorts are also not that uncommon outside of Japan. Bars where one buys a good conversation along with the meal, cafés where the waiters roleplay as one's doting sibling, renting a parent, used underwear from vending machines, maid cafés, maid cafés where the maids are all cross-dressing males, cafés where the attractive male waiters make out with each other for the viewing pleasure of the…

That's not true. Cafes that cater to lonely straight men or misogynistic businessmen exist worldwide.

Just one example: All the different "café con piernas" cafes in Chile, which are very similar to Japanese maid cafes.

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