blog.aka.me - Filed under 'social'

January 17, 2007

Viewed 962 times

| mobile | social |

My Blog is so book!

[Bethemedia] And kids (and Media Types from London) are telling me my blog is totally Book. WHAT? Here's the great new thing. Because 'Book' comes up before the word 'Cool' on T9, effectively kids are now re-associating the 'Signified' - our perfect Platonic notion of 'Cool' - with a signifier that shares no traditional meaning derived from existing language, but jumps to another (almost) randomly associated signifier - simply because of T9 associating them through structural similarities.[via]

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December 10, 2006

Viewed 804 times

| Japan | social | Video |

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Hikikomori

Italian photographer Francesco Jodice worked together with film director Kal Karman on a well-edited video documentary about a little-known Japanese social phenomenon: hikikomori which Wikipedia describes as reclusive adolescents or young adults who have chosen to withdraw from social life, often seeking extreme degrees of isolation and confinement due to various personal and social factors in their lives.

Nothing too new here, but it's pretty rare to find videos in English about the subject. I would recommend Jodice to put the video on YouTube though. (via wmmna)

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January 15, 2006

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Kawaii - Cute references

Looking to learn and understand a bit more about cuteness (in general) or kawaii (in Japan), here is a list of some of the best articles found on the internet (Updated 2009-11-10 - cleaned up dead links too):

Biology/evolutionary-related theories:
- Introduction (.pdf) to Evolutionary Psychology
- Early Aesthetic Choices (.pdf) Infant Preferences for Attractive Premature Infant Faces
- The Cute Machine
- Survival of The Prettiest: The Science of Beauty
- Cuteness Will Rule

Socio-cultural/Consumerism side:
- Cuties in Japan by Sharon Kinsella (best source)
- Addicted to Cute --NEW
- Cute formalism
- A Biological Homage to Mickey Mouse
- Fifteen theses on the cute
- New York Times: The Cuteness Factor
- Business Week Online: In Japan, Cute Conquers All
- Wired: Cute Inc.
- King of Poku: Takashi Murakami
- Time.com Asia: She's a Material Girl
- Time.com Asia: From We to Me
- Time.com Asia: Export Machine
- Japanese teenagers
- Japanese street Chic
- Enjo kosai: teen prostitution, a reflection of society's ills
- Kawaii food photos
- "Enjo-Kosai" Sex, Schoolgirls and Consumerism in Japan
- imomus - What is Cute?
- London Review of Books - Cute

If you have other links, please post them in the comments.

Related books:
- Women, Media and Consumption in Japan
by Lise Skov (Editor), Brian Moeran (Editor) and Sharon Kinsella, "Cuties in Japan"
- Adult Manga: Culture and Power in Contemporary Japanese Society (Consumasian Book Series)
by Sharon Kinsella
- Japan Pop!: Inside the World of Japanese Popular Culture
by Timothy J. Craig (Editor)
- Permitted and Prohibited Desires: Mothers, Comics, and Censorship in Japan
by Anne Allison
- Contemporary Japan and Popular Culture
by John Whittier Treat (Editor)
- The Worlds of Japanese Popular Culture : Gender, Shifting Boundaries and Global Cultures
by Dolores Martinez (Editor)
- Japan Edge: The Insider's Guide to Japanese Pop Subculture
by Satoru Fujii (Editor)
- The Encyclopedia of Japanese Pop Culture
by Mark Schilling
- Takashi Murakami: The Meaning of the Nonsense of the Meaning
by Dana Amanda/Friis-Hansen Cruz (Author)
- Women on the Verge: Japanese Women, Western Dreams (Asia-Pacific)
by Karen Kelsky
- So Crazy Japanese Toys!
by Jimbo Matison, Rodney Alan Greenblat (Photographer)
- Fruits
by Shoichi Aoki (Author)
- Understanding Japanese Society (Nissan Institute/Routledge Japanese Studies)
by Joy Hendry
- Nightwork: Sexuality, Pleasure, and Corporate Masculinity in a Tokyo Hostess Club
by Anne Allison
- Gambling With Virtue: Japanese Women and the Search for Self in a Changing Nation
by Nancy Ross Rosenberger
- The Image Factory: Fads and Fashions in Japan
by Donald Richie, Roy Garner (Photographer)
- The Material Child: Coming of Age in Japan and America
by Merry White
- Japanese Mirror: Heroes and Villains of Japanese Culture
by Ian Buruma
- Japan-Think, Ameri-Think: An Irreverent Guide to Understanding the Cultural Difference Between Us
by Robert J. Collins, Jane Walmsley
- Hello Kitty : The Remarkable Story of Sanrio and the Billion Dollar Feline Phenomenon
by Ken Belson (Author), Brian Bremner (Author)

First published 2003-09-30

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September 12, 2005

Viewed 742 times

| Games | Japan | social |

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SuperStar PuriKura

Superstar is a massively multiplayer real-world game that takes place in Tokyo starting Sept. 12, 2005. The game uses Japanese Puri Kura sticker-clubs as a starting point for a playful experiment in social networks, automated
phonecam image analysis, and urban visual culture. The goal of the game is to see and to be seen, using swarms of microscopic images woven into the complex fabric of Tokyo streetlife.
The game is intended to run in conjunction with Ubicomp 2005.

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April 7, 2005

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Evening Standard Headlines

[a photoset on Flickr] An attempt to show how the Evening Standard's Headline writers attempt to stamp out positive thought within the London area...

Definitely one of the reason why I wouldn't have been able to live in London any longer after completing my BA in 2002. That, and the daily "signal failures" on uncountable parts of the train/subway network... guh!!
Enter Tokyo, where I can't read Japanese and trains run on time! B-L-I-S-S !!

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February 15, 2005

Viewed 857 times

| Games | mobile | social |

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Friendster meets Location meets Virtual Graffiti meets MoBlogging meets a Business Model?

[mobile-weblog.com] Who said LBS was dead already? Well, obviously not the legendary VC's Draper
Fisher Jurvetson and Nokia who've just pumped in $9.4 million into Wavemarket.
Wavemarket's flagship product is Crunkie, which is an interesting app I've been meaning to post about for a while. It's a kind of Friendster meets Location meets Virtual Graffiti meets MoBlogging meets a Business Model.

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January 11, 2005

Viewed 502 times

| design | social |

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Lithographs for Tsunami Relief

[Maeda Studio] Until February 1, 2005, we are selling 100* large-format, unframed lithographs (728mm x 1030mm) to support relief efforts in Asia. All proceeds will go to Oxfam.

I had already given to Oxfam 2 weeks ago, but this was an opportunity that I couldn't miss. I just bought 4 of those. Hurry up while it lasts.

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December 13, 2004

Viewed 638 times

| anime | social |

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Donate to fansubs

Not to studios who underpay their animators, release very pricey DVDs of their anime series month after they were broadcasted on TV for free and go after anime portals that cater, alone, for the ever expanding non-Japanese anime fan community that they, themselves, don't seem to support.

What is wrong!
Fansub groups do an amazing work, often going the extra mile to provide you with extra background historical information or reference to obscure words used in certain series and are fantastic broadcasters of Japanese anime around the world.
Threatening to sue the groups or the portals doesn't seem to be the right attitude to adopt when money seems so hard to come.
Why don't they actually hire the fansub groups to provide them with translations and give more material to portals to share with the fans and provide cheap individual releases through systems similar to iTunes and become well respected all over the planet?!

I have been following some series for months (Stand Alone Complex, Samurai Champloo, Samurai 7, Otogizoushi, Paranoia Agent) thanks to those fansub groups and donated to them (I have just finished donating $100 dollars to a few of them). I will not buy DVDs released by the studios as long as they keep that antagonist attitude.

So, I will repeat my inducement tactic of last June by providing you with links to some portals RSS feeds to stay updated on each new fansub release.
Have fun, enjoy anime, and donate.

Animesuki
Baka Updates
SuprNova.org: Anime
Box Torrents
know others??

Donate to:
www.anime-kraze.org (Samurai Champloo)
Bram Cohen (Author of BitTorrent)
Lunar Anime (Samurai 7)

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October 28, 2004

Viewed 510 times

| Creativity | social |

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Map of Creativity

[NGf] Given the enormous number of innovative projects, many of which are unknown outside a narrow circle of researchers, the NGf has developed a tool to make educational innovation visible. The Map of Creativity contains hundreds of projects recommended to us by educators around the world. If you know of an innovative project to support creativity, learning, or play, you can follow the simple instructions to put it on the Map. To help other users, consider rating some of the projects you discover on the Map. The Map is only as good as you make it!

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August 11, 2004

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Smoking manners

Who'd have thought that Japan Tobacco would one day launch a series of notices highlighting typical situations where a smoker bugs the hell out of me.
I find them quite witty. But the paranoids among us could definitely judge them as pure attacks on the drama queens that some non-smokers are.
I took pics of a few others here, here and here.
Nick's got a few there too.

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