Tuesday, February 10, 2015

Star Power

Whether it's Kanye West at the Grammys, Miley Cyrus twerking on stage or Kim  Kardashian's ass - Americans love their stars.  We want to know every single thing about their lives and hang on every word they say, good or bad.

Things just aren't like that in Japan.  Sure, they have their share of mega-superstars, but the Japanese don't really care about their personal lives or what they may do and say in public, all they care about is them doing whatever it is that made them famous.

As a result, Japanese stars rarely have inflated egos similar to their American counterparts.  It goes a long way to explain how Japanese groups like Arashi (the 90's boy band from around the same era as the Backstreet Boys and N*Sync) are still together and recording albums even though they are all now in their 30's!

Now I am sure that the stars in Japan are just as stupid as those in America, the difference is that when they do something stupid, it doesn't flood social media or the news here like it does in the US; at least not to my knowledge.  Here in Japan, the news is filled with actual news.

I would go as far as to say that if John Lennon would have said the Beatles are bigger than Jesus in Japan, no one would have batted an eye.

OK, well maybe they would have wondered who this Jesus person is and where could they buy His album...

1 comment:

  1. "Sure, they have their share of mega-superstars, but the Japanese don't really care about their personal lives or what they may do and say in public"

    That's... not really true though. Maybe it's a different venue, but I'd actually argue the obsessive and possessive nature of some fans of Seiyuu and Idols, as well as the insane contracts that group has to sign, forbidding them from intimate relationships and having extremely scrutinized public moral lives is WAY MORE specific and crazy then anything the public gets to know about literally anyone in the U.S.

    ReplyDelete