Forum - View topic

Answerman - Why Can't Idol Singers Have Lives Of Their Own?

You're missing the point: if fans ever do "get over themselves" and stop taking it so seriously, the idol industry is dead.

[...]


Sounds like progress to me.

I completely concur; you took the words right out of my mouth.

Doesn't fly in East Asia. Sure, it can go on the overboard, but at least expectations and promises are for the most part kept. It's a relationship among the idols and fans that Western outsiders are unwilling to understand.

This is why I don't like the idol industry. Having your fantasy is fine but forcing them to not have a love life to support that illusion is not appropriate. Just because they signed up to be idols shouldn't mean they have to put up with their illusions. Someone needs to tell the obsessive idol otaku to get over themselves and that idols are people not objects for your fantasies.

That being said, they may have made the solution to the problem of idols being human beings that have needs themselves, namely with virtual idols like Hatsune Miku. Miku doesn't have those needs, and thus they are not infringed by fans' illusions. You could say a similar thing about other fictional idols like those from Love Live or Idolmaster, though the ills of the idol industry might be projected onto VAs. People already obsess over those things, so there is a market for them, though whether that can fully replace them is an open question

OP here. One of the reasons I wanted to ask this question is that Kuribayashi is not a squeaky teen pop star. She is freaking 39 years old, and her recent style is much more in line with her age, such as the video (loads slowly, sorry) for "Signs", the ED of Total Eclipse. As Justin said, "her image wasn't a particularly cutesy one…", and it kind of floors me that fans or management would have the same expectations of middle-aged adults as they do of school idols.

Immediately after she posted it Masami Okui (a fellow singer she's worked with often and friend for the last decade or so with plenty to lose) tweeted the blog article and her support.
Kouki Yoshimune, who has been closely involved with her career on nearly every level for the last 15+ years, cheerleaded heavily until recently and is/was still arguably her boss, hasn't even acknowledged it.

Particularly given she herself says she wasn't able to announce it due to differences of opinion rather than personal fear I think the damage here is going to be much more between individuals in the business over the decision to announce it than the reaction of the fans, who are predominately supportive and would have to be amazingly deluded to be surprised aside from the somewhat bizarre circumstances. Then again that decision could have been driven by a fractured relationship already, nobody's exactly jumping up to explain the situation, which allows some concerning speculation and rumours. It's not really an ideal example of "Japanese idol culture".

@maximilianjesus
No, I don't think actors are objectified. Actors can flip out on and off camera, throw temper tantrums, be high-maintence, join weird religions, etc. without that severely affecting their careers, largely because the audience is paying for their performance, not their actual person.

(Please don't bring up Kannagi, because that's an isolated incident due to the nature of the character and story.)

if fans ever do "get over themselves" and stop taking it so seriously, the idol industry is dead.

And I have a friend who works as one. He wouldn't take what you just posted sitting down. Just saying.

We see them as singers, and compare them to our own young, attractive women that sing on television: the Taylor Swifts and Justin Biebers of the world.

And this is something I don't get either. Why would you do this to yourself? Can't you just be a singer and not an idol or are you "forced" to be one in Japan?
I constantly ask myself "why" when I watch idol shows, why would this character want be someone who's just there to be someone's fake girlfriend.
"I always dreamt of being an idol", not "I always dreamt of being a singer", why? Granted, most idol shows are there for idol fans and that's that but I constantly wonder what type of human being would subject themselves to this and be happy about it.
That's mostly why most characters in these type of shows just feel really fake to me, but that's also probably because they have to be, for the type of people they want to appeal. Everyone is just trying too hard, crying, screaming, over what? This type of life? Nah, just can't really accept it.

Yeah the girls get fame, but not much fortune out of it. They're not much different than farm animals kept and fed well for profit and winning awards at shows and sent to "retirement" when no good profit can be had from them. In short; a means to an end. An "idol farm".

@Tomoyo

Really? Comparing managers to drug dealers? Really typical for someone who has a reactionary and contrary view of something to resort to false analogies and other logical fallacies.

Aren't you all just as guilty to instantly buying that the industry is nothing more than a manufactured personality factory? That there is more to the side than just damn grim and shallow two-facedness. So much for partiality and empathy.

@animalia

Such as? They're pretty much on the same level.

Paiprince wrote:

@Tomoyo Really? Comparing managers to drug dealers? Really typical for someone who has a reactionary and contrary view of something to resort to false analogies and other logical fallacies.

I claim no credit or responsibility for making the analogy to begin with - that dubious honour goes to TrailOfDead. I was largely pointing out that "X profession has insult levelled at it - statement that member of X profession would take issue with that" is pretty meaningless and itself doesn't address any issues that exist with X profession.

That said, hyperbolic though it is, the analogy is at least somewhat apt. Both are preying on the weakness and/or naivete of others to profit from them in an ultimately unhealthy way. The actual meth dealer does more direct physical damage, whereas the idol manager's damage is less pronounced and more mental/psychological in nature - and less damaging of the paying customer but more damaging of the idol. (Possibly less overall - comparing physical harm to psychological harm is always a tricky thing. Psychological harm is certainly not trivial, either way.)

Paiprince wrote:

Aren't you all just as guilty to instantly buying that the industry is nothing more than a manufactured personality factory? That there is more to the side than just damn grim and shallow two-facedness. So much for partiality and empathy.

This is not a conclusion that I've instantly arrived at - I've been seeing and hearing stuff about the idol industry for nearly as many years as I've been an anime fan, and that's quite a few. And I'll accept that there are idols who have meaningful amounts of actual talent, as well as producers/managers/other people who actually care about some of the idols in question. But those seem to be the exceptions, not the norm. And I do have empathy - but more for the girls taken in by it all and made to (attempt to) live up to these unrealistic ideals of purity.

In any case, I'm yet to see or hear anything from the producer/manager point of view to suggest that the industry isn't (mostly) manufactured and shallow. If you can provide such a thing, please do.

Paiprince wrote:

@animalia Such as? They're pretty much on the same level.

Just so we're clear what's being said here, are you saying that an idol having a boyfriend is pretty much on the same level as a pop star sexually abusing children?