Interesting tidbits about the idols. As a journalist I interviewed quite a few idols over the years. I asked many why they wanted to become idols. Usually the answer was 'to become famous.' When I asked them why they wanted to become famous their faces would generally display a mixture of disbelief, confusion, and emptiness. There was no why. Moreover, they assumed everyone wanted to be famous. But then again, I also have a friend who knows exactly why she is doing what she is doing…
I think 'to become famous' is a prevalent ambition amongst people of a certain age in many countries around the world (maybe, to different extents, all countries?) -- but persisting when conditions are well-known to be medieval may be restricted to countries where persistence is valued higher than other virtues..?
When I grew up in the Netherlands in the 1960s and 1970s nobody around me, or even on TV, expressed an ambition 'to become famous'. Expressed ambitions were far more concrete and rooted in the everyday world around us. That this desire has become so omnipresent is very much a product of the modern visual and consumerist age and mass media started in the early to mid-1900s. It was first big in the U.S. and has now spread seemingly everywhere.
To me is a very European concept, rooting ambition in social responsibility.
Many Europeans have a condescending attitude towards the U.S., because the flaws in its society are so stark and obvious they think all Americans should go around with their heads permanently bowed in shame, and are annoyed that they don't. But this is sandwiched with a cognitive dissidence, because their own European societies lap up American products -- Hollywood movies are the most popular in the world, there were lines around the block when Krispy Kreme Donuts opened in Paris, etc.
There is a rapper named Takeshi 6ix9ine who generates vast amounts of abuse, for his crappy music, dumb publicity stunts, and complete lack of shame or taste. But until a few years ago 6ix9ine was a Mexican kid called Dani Hernandez who worked at a bodega in New York bagging groceries. And in a rare lucid moment he explained in an interview that he used to think he was *literally* invisible sometimes, because people just flat-out ignored him, in every area of his life. He'd carefully put someone's food in a bag and they wouldn't even acknowledge his existence, let alone thank him; he would do favors for friends then they would betray him, etc.
So Dani hears someone in the neighborhood is making rap music, and he somehow scams his way into the studio, and demands to get on the mic. And he was terrible. But he understood the new mechanisms of American fame, and went outrageous -- dyed his hair, covered himself in 69 tattoos, raced to get as much online clout as possible. And he also knew no rapper in America will get anywhere without a co-sign from a street gang, so he hooked up with the 8-Trey Bloods.
And it worked. He went stratospheric -- for a while. Then he got extorted by his own protectors, the Bloods, and ended up testifying in open court against them. And now he's in a weird after-life with a bounty on his head and fame ebbing away. Here's what Europeans see: at best a tragedy, or they think it beneath them to even know the details. But to me everything in this story is a feature of America, not a bug. In fact, it's a wonderful American tale, equal to something from the Greeks.
Because 6ix9ine let no idea of shame stop him from getting to where he wanted to be, through sheer willpower, and that is admirable even if you think the details are declassé -- and of course there's the great American corollary to success at all costs, which is: you have the God-given right to torpedo your life in any way you see fit, at any time.
And that's another feature, not a bug, and that's what I think the European mindset can't understand.
Rooting ambition in social responsibility is not so much a concept tied to a particular geographic area, but a universal human one. Occasionally, societies throw this concept on the trash heap. With the right leadership it can be recovered.
This happened during the late 1800s when the United States grew into a powerful industrial power. The 'Gilded Age' came with massive corruption. Powerful titans of industry had politicians in their pockets and ambition rooted in social responsibility appeared to have been lost. This in turn influenced all of society. Sounds kind of familiar, doesn't it…
Theodore Roosevelt, the 26th President of the United States, restored the concept by successfully fighting corruption. However, his offensive on corruption and campaign for honesty also unintendedly resulted in honest people being defamed.
In a famous speech held on April 14, 1906 Roosevelt called people who fabricated such stories 'muckrakers'. A 'muckraker' he explained was an individual devoid of character.
He ended his speech by saying that "the foundation stone of national life is, and ever must be, the high individual character of the average citizen." With this one sentence he effectively tied individual character to responsible citizenship and the health of the nation.
This took root. As it happens, just before American leadership started to inform the world. In a manner, President John F. Kennedy echoed the sentiment when he famously said, "ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country" during his Inaugural Address of January 20, 1961.
But the importance of character and responsible citizenship, and thereby ambition rooted in social responsibility, now seems to have been so much forgotten that it feels like an alien concept.
It truly is a universal human one. We just occasionally forget it.
There is an impressive photograph of Roosevelt giving this speech standing seemingly alone in a crowd that surrounds him. You can see it at https://www.loc.gov/resource/ppmsca.35800/
"Rooting ambition in social responsibility is a universal human concept" - only if the soil is fertile. I'd imagine the majority of Americans actually at the levers of commerce would react to Roosevelt's or Kennedy's words with a covert rude gesture.
Social responsibility is something to think about once you've made the first million. Or five. Or hundred. Again, I consider this a feature not a bug. One is trying to provide value, yes, but for one's customers. If it benefits society -- awesome, all the more customers then.
One might also try to explain the greater good idea to citizens of a very large Asian nation if you want to hear them laugh, but ironically that's the hangover from being a society where one was supposed to be working for the good of mankind.
I really enjoyed this installment, as I'm sure you expected I would! I've read Idol, Burning in translation, but I'm coincidentally right in the middle of a Kirino phase, so you bet I dropped everything I was doing to go and throw that short story collection into my Amazon cart.
It's interesting to think about what an idol's "why" might be. I bought an idol-themed edition of a feminist magazine called エトセトラ that came out a couple years ago (the first and only idol-adjacent publication to contain an interview with Judith Butler, I imagine), and small sample size aside, their survey of current and former idols included answers as varied as "because I liked performing" and "because I wanted to wear cute clothes." Some of them obviously wanted attention and praise. I think young women are uniquely primed for consumption both in and out of the spotlight, and it manifests in odd microcosms like that photoshoot — still expected to perform desirability even while visibly injured, maybe all the more attractive to the viewer for being in that state.
The story is in the 奴隷小説 collection, the title of which I forgot to drop in the article :)
Obviously there are kids who don't care at all about the idol world, but instinctively it feels like in a society where persistence and endurance without cost-benefit analysis of whether the rewards are worth the effort is seen as a virtue...then idols -- people who have been rewarded (in the eyes of female fans/wannabes) for this rigid endurance -- might be people to look up to.
Even if the "rewards" are toxic fame and outrageous working schedules.
In other words: "All my daily drudgery will be rewarded someday, like those idols' was"
Thanks again for the shout-out, Daniel!
Interesting tidbits about the idols. As a journalist I interviewed quite a few idols over the years. I asked many why they wanted to become idols. Usually the answer was 'to become famous.' When I asked them why they wanted to become famous their faces would generally display a mixture of disbelief, confusion, and emptiness. There was no why. Moreover, they assumed everyone wanted to be famous. But then again, I also have a friend who knows exactly why she is doing what she is doing…
I think 'to become famous' is a prevalent ambition amongst people of a certain age in many countries around the world (maybe, to different extents, all countries?) -- but persisting when conditions are well-known to be medieval may be restricted to countries where persistence is valued higher than other virtues..?
When I grew up in the Netherlands in the 1960s and 1970s nobody around me, or even on TV, expressed an ambition 'to become famous'. Expressed ambitions were far more concrete and rooted in the everyday world around us. That this desire has become so omnipresent is very much a product of the modern visual and consumerist age and mass media started in the early to mid-1900s. It was first big in the U.S. and has now spread seemingly everywhere.
To me is a very European concept, rooting ambition in social responsibility.
Many Europeans have a condescending attitude towards the U.S., because the flaws in its society are so stark and obvious they think all Americans should go around with their heads permanently bowed in shame, and are annoyed that they don't. But this is sandwiched with a cognitive dissidence, because their own European societies lap up American products -- Hollywood movies are the most popular in the world, there were lines around the block when Krispy Kreme Donuts opened in Paris, etc.
There is a rapper named Takeshi 6ix9ine who generates vast amounts of abuse, for his crappy music, dumb publicity stunts, and complete lack of shame or taste. But until a few years ago 6ix9ine was a Mexican kid called Dani Hernandez who worked at a bodega in New York bagging groceries. And in a rare lucid moment he explained in an interview that he used to think he was *literally* invisible sometimes, because people just flat-out ignored him, in every area of his life. He'd carefully put someone's food in a bag and they wouldn't even acknowledge his existence, let alone thank him; he would do favors for friends then they would betray him, etc.
So Dani hears someone in the neighborhood is making rap music, and he somehow scams his way into the studio, and demands to get on the mic. And he was terrible. But he understood the new mechanisms of American fame, and went outrageous -- dyed his hair, covered himself in 69 tattoos, raced to get as much online clout as possible. And he also knew no rapper in America will get anywhere without a co-sign from a street gang, so he hooked up with the 8-Trey Bloods.
And it worked. He went stratospheric -- for a while. Then he got extorted by his own protectors, the Bloods, and ended up testifying in open court against them. And now he's in a weird after-life with a bounty on his head and fame ebbing away. Here's what Europeans see: at best a tragedy, or they think it beneath them to even know the details. But to me everything in this story is a feature of America, not a bug. In fact, it's a wonderful American tale, equal to something from the Greeks.
Because 6ix9ine let no idea of shame stop him from getting to where he wanted to be, through sheer willpower, and that is admirable even if you think the details are declassé -- and of course there's the great American corollary to success at all costs, which is: you have the God-given right to torpedo your life in any way you see fit, at any time.
And that's another feature, not a bug, and that's what I think the European mindset can't understand.
Rooting ambition in social responsibility is not so much a concept tied to a particular geographic area, but a universal human one. Occasionally, societies throw this concept on the trash heap. With the right leadership it can be recovered.
This happened during the late 1800s when the United States grew into a powerful industrial power. The 'Gilded Age' came with massive corruption. Powerful titans of industry had politicians in their pockets and ambition rooted in social responsibility appeared to have been lost. This in turn influenced all of society. Sounds kind of familiar, doesn't it…
Theodore Roosevelt, the 26th President of the United States, restored the concept by successfully fighting corruption. However, his offensive on corruption and campaign for honesty also unintendedly resulted in honest people being defamed.
In a famous speech held on April 14, 1906 Roosevelt called people who fabricated such stories 'muckrakers'. A 'muckraker' he explained was an individual devoid of character.
He ended his speech by saying that "the foundation stone of national life is, and ever must be, the high individual character of the average citizen." With this one sentence he effectively tied individual character to responsible citizenship and the health of the nation.
This took root. As it happens, just before American leadership started to inform the world. In a manner, President John F. Kennedy echoed the sentiment when he famously said, "ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country" during his Inaugural Address of January 20, 1961.
But the importance of character and responsible citizenship, and thereby ambition rooted in social responsibility, now seems to have been so much forgotten that it feels like an alien concept.
It truly is a universal human one. We just occasionally forget it.
If you have not yet had the chance to read Roosevelt's 'muckrake' speech, you can read it in full here: http://voicesofdemocracy.umd.edu/theodore-roosevelt-the-man-with-the-muck-rake-speech-text/
There is an impressive photograph of Roosevelt giving this speech standing seemingly alone in a crowd that surrounds him. You can see it at https://www.loc.gov/resource/ppmsca.35800/
"Rooting ambition in social responsibility is a universal human concept" - only if the soil is fertile. I'd imagine the majority of Americans actually at the levers of commerce would react to Roosevelt's or Kennedy's words with a covert rude gesture.
Social responsibility is something to think about once you've made the first million. Or five. Or hundred. Again, I consider this a feature not a bug. One is trying to provide value, yes, but for one's customers. If it benefits society -- awesome, all the more customers then.
One might also try to explain the greater good idea to citizens of a very large Asian nation if you want to hear them laugh, but ironically that's the hangover from being a society where one was supposed to be working for the good of mankind.
I really enjoyed this installment, as I'm sure you expected I would! I've read Idol, Burning in translation, but I'm coincidentally right in the middle of a Kirino phase, so you bet I dropped everything I was doing to go and throw that short story collection into my Amazon cart.
It's interesting to think about what an idol's "why" might be. I bought an idol-themed edition of a feminist magazine called エトセトラ that came out a couple years ago (the first and only idol-adjacent publication to contain an interview with Judith Butler, I imagine), and small sample size aside, their survey of current and former idols included answers as varied as "because I liked performing" and "because I wanted to wear cute clothes." Some of them obviously wanted attention and praise. I think young women are uniquely primed for consumption both in and out of the spotlight, and it manifests in odd microcosms like that photoshoot — still expected to perform desirability even while visibly injured, maybe all the more attractive to the viewer for being in that state.
The story is in the 奴隷小説 collection, the title of which I forgot to drop in the article :)
Obviously there are kids who don't care at all about the idol world, but instinctively it feels like in a society where persistence and endurance without cost-benefit analysis of whether the rewards are worth the effort is seen as a virtue...then idols -- people who have been rewarded (in the eyes of female fans/wannabes) for this rigid endurance -- might be people to look up to.
Even if the "rewards" are toxic fame and outrageous working schedules.
In other words: "All my daily drudgery will be rewarded someday, like those idols' was"