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New Japanese Pop Idol Shocks Fans With News - She’s Not Real

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Re: New Japanese Pop Idol Shocks Fans With News - She’s Not Real

#31

Post by DanielBMarkham »

Now automate the entire thing.

20 years from now. You are befriended on Facebook++ by a person who looks somewhat like all the previous girlfriends you have had. Initiating a 3-D video chat, she seems very friendly and has a lot of the same interests as you do. Every now and then -- so infrequently that you do not notice -- she mentions a particular brand or commercial product, always providing a link. Other than that, she's just a great friend. Always there to provide advice, always willing to cheer you up, always enjoying your jokes and stories. Heck, maybe she's even willing to help you out with your startup, providing introductions to her friends and helping you with your marketing. Maybe she helps locate your next big client. Great stuff, eh?

Except she doesn't exist.

Re: New Japanese Pop Idol Shocks Fans With News - She’s Not Real

#32

Post by phaedon »

patio11 wrote: post #6

This is only a little bit weirder on the continuum of what we already do for pop starlets, both in Japan and the United States. Japan has been manufacturing them -- that is totally the right word, too -- for about 30 years. Disney cottoned onto it a bit later. These days producers already have the key personality traits, demographic fit, sound, and marketing campaign for the new brand already planned out prior to lau…

"If Disney could produce popstars in a laboratory they would." I think The Onion has a great video bit about this exact premise.

http://www.theonion.com/video/disney-lab-unveils-its-latest-...

Re: New Japanese Pop Idol Shocks Fans With News - She’s Not Real

#34

Post by pyre »

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #31

Now automate the entire thing. 20 years from now. You are befriended on Facebook++ by a person who looks somewhat like all the previous girlfriends you have had. Initiating a 3-D video chat, she seems very friendly and has a lot of the same interests as you do. Every now and then -- so infrequently that you do not notice -- she mentions a particular brand or commercial product, always providing a link. Other than tha…

It's already happening to some extent with real people. There was an article that passed through here a while back that had interviews with ex-419 scammers. One of them was making a living by pretending to be the online girlfriend of some guy. He talked about it in much the same way. He would give him advive, cheer him up, etc. He was essentially 'farming' the guy for money. But this means that he had to deliver real value to the guy to keep stringing him along.

Re: New Japanese Pop Idol Shocks Fans With News - She’s Not Real

#35

Post by evilduck »

StavrosK wrote: post #30
mechanical_fish wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Read Count Zero and you will learn all about Joseph Cornell. Not facts , mind you, but you will learn what Cornell's work feels like. The Cornell exhibition I went to see is, alas, closed now: http://www.amazon.com/Joseph-Cornell-Lynda-Roscoe-Hartigan/d... ...and all the boxes are back in the hands of various collectors. But modern art museums have them in smaller numbers. I saw a few of them at the Art Institute of…

That comment tells me nothing about what the boxes are, though :(

http://www.josephcornellbox.com/boxes.htm

Re: New Japanese Pop Idol Shocks Fans With News - She’s Not Real

#37

Post by teaspoon »

ralfd wrote: post #26
bane wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That manufacturing also appears to carry a considerable investment (or possible payoff). One initially wonders why, when manufactured pop stars spectacularly flame out, that they are simply told to go low profile for a while then come back and act like nothing happened...until you think of them as a multi-million dollar entertainment machine their managers no doubt poured tons of money into in the form of singing les…

Is there in Korea (Asia) a counter culture to pop? The western youth is regularly driven like a pendulum to alternative and uncommercialised styles like Hippies, punk, grunge, electro. The stereotypical hipster who only likes obscure music and independent art by starving but true artists.

Yes.

Re: New Japanese Pop Idol Shocks Fans With News - She’s Not Real

#38

Post by ahi »

astine wrote: post #28
thyrsus wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doubt you can libel a fiction, so I think the tabloids would get even more creative. Ambush photographers would be replaced by cheaper digital choreographers.

But then you'd be violating copyright. Also it'd be stupid; It's not like people won't realize that the pop-stars aren't real.

The pop-stars aren't real now, they just happen to be played by flesh and blood actors.

Re: New Japanese Pop Idol Shocks Fans With News - She’s Not Real

#39

Post by roc »

bane wrote: post #23
patio11 wrote: post #6

This is only a little bit weirder on the continuum of what we already do for pop starlets, both in Japan and the United States. Japan has been manufacturing them -- that is totally the right word, too -- for about 30 years. Disney cottoned onto it a bit later. These days producers already have the key personality traits, demographic fit, sound, and marketing campaign for the new brand already planned out prior to lau…

That manufacturing also appears to carry a considerable investment (or possible payoff). One initially wonders why, when manufactured pop stars spectacularly flame out, that they are simply told to go low profile for a while then come back and act like nothing happened...until you think of them as a multi-million dollar entertainment machine their managers no doubt poured tons of money into in the form of singing les…

> "until you think of them as a multi-million dollar entertainment machine their managers no doubt poured tons of money into"

I would bet the ad spends and branding costs would dwarf the money spent directly on grooming the performer.

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