Two-Tiered Japanese Blogs
Last November, I wrote in the essay “Koizora: Empathy and Anonymous Creation”:
The more net culture in Japan progresses, the more it becomes clearer that anonymity is its underlying principle.
A year later, this seems to still be true. Most Japanese blogs (and even social network services!) operate anonymously. Compared to American success stories such as Perez Hilton and Markos Moulitsas, amateur bloggers have not been likely to parlay site success into wider influence.
Japan’s most popular message board 2-Ch is so anonymous that most users do not even use fixed handles. The Japanese internet’s two greatest success stories — the famed protagonist of Densha Otoko and keitai novel author Mika — have never come forward to take credit for their writing in public. Maybe they are intentionally hiding, but regardless, the media accepts their anonymity as part of the phenomena.
While anonymity remains a good starting point for understanding Japanese net sociology, the rule ignores a vital exception. If anonymity were a prerequisite for all Japanese net participation, all blogs would be anonymous. Yet, there is a certain class of blogs in Japan claimed by named, traceable individuals: blogs from celebrities or otherwise already-established professionals.
So while the masses are quietly and discretely blogging and participating on the internet, top designers/creators write on honeyee.com and models/actors consolidate their fan base on ameblo.jp. These “professionals” use their real names and faces, under which they openly state ideas and opinions. Content-wise these are sometimes no different from everyday diary blogs: pictures of food, reports from events, discussion about recent work, etc. The major lesson seems to be, if you are an individual with authority and legitimacy established through traditional channels, you are free to use a name and face on the internet. Everyone else, too bad.
Most likely, non-famous Japanese individuals unconsciously fear some form of punishment for establishing a public identity through a non-legitimized blog or stating opinions without proper self-legitimacy. Of course, Western blogs also are an affront to the social order, but that is exactly why ambitious individuals embrace blogs — to jump around professional barriers and bottlenecks. In other words, the West’s excitement about blogs is that you can create a name for yourself by stating opinions publicly. In Japan, the excitement appears to be that you can state opinions without having a name attached.
The end result is that anonymity blunts the net’s possibility of changing the current social order. The two-tier system of blogs reinforces the fundamental principles of Japanese social organization. Only individuals at the top of the hierarchy are allowed to embrace a public identity, just as it was before Web 2.0.
In terms of taking power from the media, nothing has changed. Net users still perceive too much social punishment for name-linked net activity, so they elect to hide behind untraceable usernames. While diarists may not want a public audience, anonymity even marks popular, intelligent, and professional blogs written by promising young talent. Research has shown that Japanese blog readers exhibit a high level of trust in the medium, and yet there are few “amateur” bloggers willing to take public credit for their work. Stars, celebrities, older professors, and top-level members of top organizations, on the other hand, are blessed with a freedom of identity equal to the standards of the West. The lesson: if you want to be a famous blogger, first be famous.
Of course, the internet has given more voice to the Japanese public. Message boards like 2-Ch have allowed micromasses to better air their grievances. In the case of Mainichi Daily News’ WaiWai column controversy and other incidents, the anonymous “flame” mobs demonstrated a real power to impact corporate behavior. Sure, this is social change, but the mass anonymity only allows for a “negative” policing action — a check against the system’s excesses. But without identifiable individuals challenging and winning new roles within the system, there will be no change to the social structure. At best, 2-Ch can only chip away at the paint of society’s façade, but it won’t crack the structure.
Technology is only a catalyst: It can extend preexisting social principles into new directions, but not give birth to new philosophical values. The “liberating” social changes we expect from the internet in the West are preconditioned on Western values. The Japanese blogosphere will simply replicate Japanese social values online, not change them. So if public identity is two-tiered in wider Japanese society, we should expect blogs to follow.
This article originally appeared on the Diamond Agency blog clast.
October 15th, 2008 at 4:29 pm
[…] a quick thought in reaction to the latest clast post from Marxy, which deserves a much more thorough response that I don’t have the patience for right now […]
October 15th, 2008 at 5:55 pm
Hi David,
This is an interesting article. I think you’re somehow missing the essence of what’s interesting about Japanese blogs though… but I’d have to think about it more before formulating it in more concrete terms.
I do think, however, that there is a critical distinction between “anonymity” as in the case of e.g. 2ch, and the “anonymity” of bloggers who use a pseudonym. In the former case the anonymous masses all appear as one group because they can’t even be distinguished from each other (regardless of their “real” identities”), whereas in the latter case there is some kind of identifiable “identity” that is created through a narrative history.
To not distinguish between these two is to miss the subtlety of what identity means on the Japanese net in general, in my view.
The other thing that seems to me unclear in your article is this idea of “liberating social changes”. To many, Koizumi was a huge “liberating social change”, and certainly a break with the past. There are those who argue in fact that his victory was predicted (and certainly strongly supported) by Japanese bloggers and forum commentators, contrary to views expressed in mainstream media. Some are even predicting that this may happen again with Aso.
This to me seems like a strong connection between blogging and social change in Japan. There are other examples. The case of WaiWai, which you describe as a “negative policing action”, is actually in my view at least as powerful a demonstration of “net action” as any I have heard of in the west or elsewhere. A prominent “positive” example, as mentioned above, would be e.g. Koizumi in 2005, or potentially Aso if he does draw support from the web community. So both sides are there, in my view. I don’t see how this is so different from e.g. Obama drawing support from youth on the web in the U.S.
The point here though is that if what you are looking for is pre-conditioned on western expectations, then what you will find on the Japanese net is disappointing. The net may be simply replicating Japanese society in terms of the use of real names, but there is more to what is going on than just this one aspect, framed in this particular way.
October 15th, 2008 at 6:11 pm
Thanks for the comment.
There is a difference in the two anonymities you mention, although there is still the idea of discomfort with linking names with statements in both cases.
The other thing that seems to me unclear in your article is this idea of “liberating social changes”.
This was a vestigial part of an earlier draft, but basically my idea is that blogs in the West have allowed individuals to personally move forward in their careers, and in theory, “change” the system. This may be overselling someone like Perez Hilton, but the media structure has had to make way for a new partner/player in these bloggers. The Japanese media world does not have a threat of being replaced, just being pestered with complaints.
I don’t see how this is so different from e.g. Obama drawing support from youth on the web in the U.S.
Can Aso get youth to actually mobilize offline? That would mean showing faces and taking responsibility for their opinions and actions in front of a community. Sure there are some anonymous Obama contributors, but those actually canvassing neighborhoods have to embrace their politics as a public identity. Has this happened yet in Japan?
Yes, I am railing against a straw man in Western expectations, but I do think that the net has disappointed those who think that giving “tools” to Japanese users was all that they needed to “break” the system.
October 15th, 2008 at 6:38 pm
“Can Aso get youth to actually mobilize offline? That would mean showing faces and taking responsibility for their opinions and actions in front of a community. Sure there are some anonymous Obama contributors, but those actually canvassing neighborhoods have to embrace their politics as a public identity. Has this happened yet in Japan?”
Well, in some sense if they mobilize well *online*, then do they need to mobilize politically offline? The issue I have here is that you are setting the standard in foreign terms: will the people on the net come together publicly and fight for political change, so to speak. But I think different people “act” through different channels, and in Japan going out on the streets and doing this sort of (political) thing will get you branded as a left or right wing extremist. So people act in different ways, and my point is that much of the debate on 2ch and blogs may well determine elections in just as powerful ways as public protests determine them in other contexts. Anonymity is a condition on such action, but that does not mean that it is necessarily a constraint.
Also, I think in many ways the more interesting question is: do people congregate and “do things” in person around common interest groups in general, not just limited to political themes. For example, cats seem to be pretty popular, so do Japanese meet new people they never knew before through cat blogs? The secret to the Japanese blogosphere (IMHO) is that major changes are hidden behind seemingly (to the outsider) mundane topics. A bit like the cute cat theory.
October 16th, 2008 at 11:19 am
The secret to the Japanese blogosphere (IMHO) is that major changes are hidden behind seemingly (to the outsider) mundane topics.
But here is the rub: Japanese blogosphere may be interesting in its own right on its own terms, but its totally obscurity and mundaneness is what makes it totally ignorable and inconsequential for a majority of the Japanese population. The United States may be an extreme example, but the measure of success is penetration of blogs amongst a wide swath of the population. A part of becoming “mainstream” means having a face and a name (although maybe not for Mika and Densha Otoko, who are protected for commercial reasons.)
October 16th, 2008 at 9:50 pm
Interesting…. but:
Most likely, non-famous Japanese individuals unconsciously fear some form of punishment for establishing a public identity through a non-legitimized blog or stating opinions without proper self-legitimacy.
This doesn’t square with what I hear. Friends who blog anonymously don’t fear social punishment for being presumptuous — they fear weirdos tracking them down. This is also one of the only two reasons I have ever heard for not using an actual identifiable headshot on Mixi (the other reason being that using an identifiable headshot is lame and gauche, something only a total n00b would do).
I suppose one could argue that such hypothetical weirdos are one manifestation of “social punishment” but I don’t think this is the case. Fear of being publicly denounced as uppity is quite different from fear of being privately stalked.
Also, if there were a “social punishment” factor, wouldn’t you expect to already see that–just directed at pseudonyms? I can’t believe that Kikko revealing that her true name was Tanaka Kikuko would result in a sudden huge backlash from people who were secretly cherishing the hope that she was a daytime TV talent.
Really, given the evidence in the Japanese blogosphere that you can become famous and well-read even writing under a pseudonym, why would anyone who’s not an egoist or at least a freelancer care if their real name isn’t out there? (Interestingly, most of the freelancers I know do in fact blog under their real names, when their blog is related to their work and can serve as an advertisement for it.)
I would also like to be first to stake out a rickety argument that pen names and 芸名 are a Japanese tradition etc.
October 17th, 2008 at 4:00 am
You know I was on Mixi the other day and I was shocked to learn that some of my friends – whom I’ve known for years – now took on the appearance of:
A) Their dog
B) An anime character with an ironic pose
C) A group of 5 girls at a dinner table
But then, if all you use 2-chan, Mixi or your blog is to interact with people you know in “real life” then identity is a hinderence. All it does is invite complete strangers into the conversation.
You’re right, the internet is a platform for many talented Japanese writers to become well recognized by the masses and hence challenge the media status quo. But I think what you’re finding with Web 2.0 is that we’re becoming more and more facinated with the people we know personally.
>In terms of taking power from the media, nothing has changed.
In the dinner-theater restaurant of life the less we pay attention to Willy Loman and the more we pay to the people at the table the more the restaurant owner sweats.
October 17th, 2008 at 4:13 am
oh and
http://www.theonion.com/content/news/local_idiot_to_post_comment_on
October 20th, 2008 at 10:24 am
they fear weirdos tracking them down.
This is a good point. I would definitely say that “fear” is the main factor, although the low incidence (or at least equal incidence) of this kind of “stalker crime” compared to other more open national cultures makes it ultimately appear as a shared paranoia. I think fear of hierarchial slip-up blends in with that paranoia, so I don’t think the fear is purely: “I don’t care if my boss at work sees this. I only worry that some nutcase is going to stab me to death in my apartment stairwell.”
Also, if there were a “social punishment” factor, wouldn’t you expect to already see that–just directed at pseudonyms?
It’s a lot more easy and meaningful to demonize real people instead of some anonymous entity. The question is whether people want to own their criticisms for the possibility of greater success. For someone like Mika, I am guessing that their “real story” would basically destroy all of their past success since it shows that Koizora is just fiction.
By the way, this all makes me realize how much serious social punishment you see meted out on 2-Channel against kind of helpless nobody individuals whose faces or identity happen to appear somewhere. If anything, 2-Ch reinforces on the internet how dangerous it is to get “uppity” in any sort of way. There is a mob always ready to destroy you.