Forum - View topicAnswerman - How Do Hikikomori Afford Their Expensive Hobbies?
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epicwizard
Posts: 420 Location: Ashburn, VA |
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I feel sorry for all those NEETS out there that suffer from having no friends.
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Zin5ki
 Posts: 6680 Location: London, UK |
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Given certain contributory factors that are mentioned in today's article, I grow curious as to what extent Japan's healthcare system provides for mental health. Are there notable services of such a nature, or are they mainly the preserve of private practitioners, as is sadly the case elsewhere?
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MajinAkuma
 Posts: 1199 |
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700,000 is big.
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Vaisaga
 Posts: 13224 |
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Always nice when some one else asks a question you were going to
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AJ (LordNikon)
 Posts: 503 Location: Kyoto |
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Please DO NOT confuse NEET with hikikimori. They are VERY different things. I know the term is improperly interchanged in the west, but they are not the same thing. NEETs often grow out being unemployed either through boredom, or decision that they actually need money, where as a hikikimori suffer from very severe anxiety and agoraphobia brought forth by societal pressures. If you are working and get laid off and it takes you six months to find a job, you are classified in Japan during that time to be a NEET. Those who are NEETs can and often times do have friends where as hikikimori do not or are limited to online friends. Most NEETs can take care of themselves, can actually leave the apartment and go to the store and even be out in public for more than five minutes in a time; hikikimori cannot. The hikikimori next door to my son, could not and required an attendant or would have starved to death. He needed constant attention and could not bathe, and if he was hungry he would bang on the walls to his attendant would arrive. On the flip side, my son was a NEET for two and a half years. He graduated college in Tokyo, decided to spend six months in America, and got lucky, winning a large jackpot in Vegas. He spent the next two years living off his winning. He spent all day watching TV, eating carry-out and gaming till the money went out, at which point he went out and got a job for a small construction company as a procurement clerk. Being half Japanese, half American and having spent the bulk of my life in Japan, I still struggle to grasp why this is such a hard concept for people in the west to grasp. Freeters/NEETs/Hikkiimori.... it's not rocket science.
Very little. As usual, we suffer from head int he sand. If it's behind close doors and not out in the open, it's not a problem. |
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Sakagami Tomoyo
 Posts: 940 Location: Melbourne, VIC, Australia |
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It's because of a couple of things. First, hikikomori is an entirely foreign concept to Westerners; the specific combination of societal pressures to make it possible just doesn't exist, so there aren't any, therefore it's not a part of their reality. Second, though 'NEET' originated in the UK, the term really doesn't see use in the West, because it's basically synonymous with the well-established term 'unemployed'. If someone is not in paid employment but is in some form of education or training, they'll generally be classified as 'student' or maybe 'apprentice', so 'unemployed' implies not in education or training anyway. Besides which, there's a fairly basic assumption that someone who never leaves the house doesn't do any work or study. Even if not all NEETs are hikikomori, all hikikomori would be NEETs. So when people hear about hikikomori (a uniquely Japanese thing) and NEET (a term mostly used in Japanese media), it is easy to conflate the two.
Okay, that goes way beyond social anxiety and depression, those are symptomatic of some really severe problems. |
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rinkwolf10
Posts: 750 |
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Not so big considering that Japan's population is estimated to be around 127.3 million. |
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FMPhoenixHawk
 Posts: 66 Location: Formerly MI, now IN. |
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How does one make a good living item/gold farming in MMORPGs? Is it literally all they do all day?
And if it's not too hard, how can I get involved in this money-making scheme? |
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Jose Cruz
 Posts: 1773 Location: South America |
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According to a Japanese psychiatrist who specializes on hikikomoris he says that the western equivalent would be junkies, usually living as paupers. I think that hikikomoris are a product of economic prosperity: a society that can support people without working. While, NEETs are about >15% of the US 20-29 year old male population. They usually spend their free time playing videogames. |
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Joe Mello
 Posts: 2256 Location: Online Terminal |
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I'm no expert but I'd wager the answer to that question begins with "Ha ha ha ha ha." |
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Fatt_One
Posts: 131 Location: Ohio USA |
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Welcome to the NHK actually covers this(back in 2006!). It is not a sustainable form of income. It is possible to make money that way but very few people manage any income that could be considered worthwhile. |
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AyanamiRei
 Posts: 87 |
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I thought some enterprises had flourished out of this problem, providing some sort of assistance (like illustrated in the great one-shot "TV makes you stupid"), gathering stages, etc.
Also, while the article describes them as exclusively living "on their own" I had read that a lot of them were still living with their parents (who often didn't dare to expose their problem) while reducing their interactions with them to a minimum (leaving their room at night to fetch food in the fridge, etc). Were the "Yokoso to NHK" novels translated in english or another western language? If anyone knows some movie build on the hikikkomori phenomenon or even video documentaries (I remember watching one on the french national assembly channel), I would also like to know them. |
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harminia
 Posts: 1997 Location: australia |
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Yes, but only one volume, and by TokyoPop. |
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Paiprince
 Posts: 593 |
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Not true when the term "basement dweller" exists and is used as an insult to people who don't have their life sorted out and confine themselves at home. Even Urban Dictionary has an entry of it. http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=basement+dweller |
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leafy sea dragon
 Posts: 7163 Location: Another Kingdom |
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This was something that had puzzled me for a while, actually, about where they get their money from. But it's not something that I had thought about much, honestly. I figured they were like American shut-ins, who would let themselves starve and let bills go unpaid to buy the newest and latest merchandise or gaming/streaming subscriptions.
If Japan is like other east Asian countries I've spent a good amount of time in, I would guess there isn't really that much psychiatric help, the idea being that if you have a behavioral problem, it's your job to fix it yourself.
Did this hikikomori have a job? How was he able to pay for the attendant? Having an attendant sounds like it'd cost a bunch.
The concept of NEETs, the concept of hikikomori, or how the two groups find money? NEETs exist in every country. The article mentioned that the term began in the UK, after all. Until the Great Recession, the young and unemployed had an image of being leeches who didn't contribute to society because they were lazy and selfish, though the perception has become far more sympathetic when unemployment rates soared in the United States and Canada, especially among recent college graduates, and the stereotype then became a young person victimized by an unsympathetic, risk-averse job market more concerned with poaching experienced people from competitors than expanding the workforce. For the hikikomori, the shut-in's image varies from country to country and also from environment to environment. Those people who live in cabins in the forest and are completely self-reliant, growing their own food and hunting their own meat, are seen as strong and admirable and have always been that way, for instance, but they are technically shut-ins too. As an American, it's the American image of a shut-in that I have the clearest perception of, and they are shunned because American culture encourages, if not expects, people to be social and extroverted. You are expected to enjoy the company of other people, party and eat with friends, and be perfectly comfortable talking to people you don't know. Introverts, on the other hand, are viewed as suspicious, if not downright evil. There's that now-cliché line of parents of serial killers, mass murderers, and domestic terrorists, for instance: "He was a quiet boy, always kept to himself."
It is most definitely something you can earn a living from. Not that good a living, and gold-farming is the most tedious thing in the world, but if you know what to do, you can earn enough to live off of it. Other players will hate you for it though, except for your customers, and you have to live in a place with a low financial standard of living. All you really need is the ability to play a popular MMO. There will always be plenty of people with more money than they have time who will wire you money for the equipment or in-game currency they really want. (Heck, I could see this actually happening for Pokémon, which isn't an MMO, if it weren't for hacking devices automating the work.) |
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