Hikikomori: Why are so many Japanese men refusing to leave their rooms?

You kick someone out of the house it's entirely possible that they'll behave in an analogous manner on the street or in a council flat. Do you have any data?

What I mean by this is that any normal activity: going outside, talking to people (especially women), having full time employment, hell even masturbating to 3D porn (instead of hentai) is looked down upon. Stating that you do any of these is met with instant ridicule accompanied by a picture of George Costanza from Seinfeld and an implied quote, e.g. :

>2013 >going outside >talking to women

Posters on 4chan wear their neet achievements like a badge of honor. How long they haven't left their room for, how many cum/piss bottles they have filled up (with pictures for proof) or the latest anime they have marathoned.

Many just don't see the need to reenter society. Their dietary needs are pretty basic. Entertainment is provided by video games and the sheer volume of anime being churned out by the studios these days, a lot of which consists of cute underage girls (or sisters) doing cute/sexually suggestive things. Sexual urges are fulfilled by the copious amounts of hentai available on the web.

Many have chosen "waifu"s (or "husbando"s depending on your orientation), which serve as their significant others. These waifu's usually come from their favorite anime. They may just hold that waifu very dearly or they may adorn their walls with pictures of her or buy figurines of her. Some have dakki pillows of that characters which are full length body pillows with their character printed on it. The more deluxe versions have removable layers for the various layers of undergarments ( http://img1.ak.crunchyroll.com/i/spire3/f73e8f13ea9e2762db0a... ). Some even have "holes". You should see the dedication of these guys on valentines day; candle-lit dinners covered with rose petals. It would put most normal-fags to shame (however I still don't get how a Thinkpad screen can eat chocolate cake). For in depth explanation of the waifu phenomenon see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_YtwPPsBKGQ .

But it is not just an affinity for 2D women. It's a hatred of 3D / IRL women too. Most view 3D women as lying, manipulative whores who are not to be trusted. Contrast this to their imaginary waifu's who will always love them and never betray. This is probably due their difficulties they have experience with women due to their personalities. There is even word for this is 3DPD: 3D Pig Disgusting.

Yes, I know "mai waifu" and "3DPD" started off as a joke, but it has gone way past that point. What started of as self-degrading humour has become deeply ingrained in the collective psyche of 4chann.

There is also the question of money. In Japan, most hikki stay with their parents, I assume mainly due to high rental costs there. But most of the 4chan posters who are neets (most aren't and do actually hold sucessful full-time jobs, but the number who are is disproportionately high), get government funding and/or free housing. The funding usually comes in the disability benefits (for autism-spectrum/mood disorders, real or perceived) which they call "autism bux" or unemployment benefits. Also housing is pretty cheap in the west esp. in N. America and the Nordic countries, allowing them to live independently. I think this is one of the main differences between Western neets and hikki's.

There is a lot of negativity there as you can imagine. What is scary is how easily this negative emotion is channeled. What was /b/, the general/most active board on 4chan, is now /pol/, the politics board. And with that jump comes feeding of far-right views like antisemitism and strong anti-black racism from that hate. But for some strange reason, they consider Koreans (East Aryans) and other asians (but not Indians) part of the master race. This is possibly due to their love of k-pop and anime.

We all remember donglegate with Adria Richards. That was originally picked up by /pol/ who worked the crowed and then passed it on to /b/ for execution. While HN saw it as political correctness gone mad, /pol/ saw it differently. Not only was she a liberal feminist, but she was a half n1gger k1ke-kess too!

There are many "why aren'y you a neet?" or "neet masterrace" threads, extolling the virtues of the neet lifestyles, ridiculing those who work, boasting about how much "autism bux" they get and swapping tips on how to get more. The thrify money-saving tips are pretty good too.

Again with the rise of /pol/ these threads have taken an anti-semetic twist. Right now there is a thread called "ITT: Why Jews make you NEET" http://boards.4chan.org/pol/res/16647507 , but it probably will die quickly. Most of the posts are jokes, but I am uncertain as to what extent they consider their views as jokes vs reality.

4channers also understand the economic and social forces that put them in this neet situation. This is expressed in "People who should die: Baby Boomers" threads, mocking the employment advice baby boomers gave "I paid my way through college by serving tables. I just walked up to the manager and he gave me a job." There are also threads of Penn Gillette binning resumes with sub 4.0 GPA's for McDonald's jobs, but that meme is far too complicated and contrived to explain.

Some neets just don't want to go back to society in it's current state. You see many threads comparing the degeneracy of a modern woman (e.g. a white woman race-mixing with a black man or just being promiscuous) versus a poster from Nazi Germany depicting nuclear aryan family. Again, this is an joke taken to the extreme, but it hides their possible views about today's society. They feel that with more traditional gender roles not only would women be more approachable and their chance be better, the idea of a relationship would be more attractive as opposed to "lol empowered womyn", i.e. sluts. They also hark back to the days of racial hegemony.

Another difference with Japanese hikkis, is that they become that way far earlier than their western counterparts. Many western neets lost their jobs in the economic downturn and just failed to re-enter employment as opposed to dropping out highschool. Many were coders who you can catch on the Daily Programming Threads (DPT) on /g/; some are pretty talented and are working on quite interesting projects. They even had a visual novel of SICP in the works at some point.

This post was intended to a far shorter reply, but I think it turned into a braindump about 4chan. But I'm trying to get across how 4chan enables people in the west to live the neet lifestyle. Posters even acknowledge this, "if it wasn't for 4chan I would still have a job/girlfriend/friends, instead I'm fapping to Touhou porn." It just sucks people in with it's "it's ok to be a neet" attitude.

If you're curious take a look. /b/ has devolved into some sort of infantile cesspit. /pol/ seems to be where "the happening" is at. I generally think it's best to browse 4chan while you still have a full time job. Otherwise you'll end up spending too much time there, slowly warping your mind. Before you know it you'll be fapping to futanari porn of you favorite anime telling people how jews control the world.

>inb4 jidf

his extremely elderly mother (we're talking older than dirt here; I wouldn't be surprised if she was older than 80).

I found your choice of terms interesting :)

Most people in their 80s that I know seem to be doing fine, are physically and intellectually active, and I wouldn't describe them as "older than dirt" - unless you're talking about somewhat young dirt, here ;).

May I ask how old you are? I am genuinely curious, as I can picture myself thinking of an 80 year-old as "extremely old" when I was in my early twenties, but not nowadays (I'm 35)