Post-3/11 Japan and the Radical Recontextualization of Value: Music, Social Media, and End-Around Strategies for Cultural Action Ian Condry

10/13/2011 5:45:32 PM ISSN ISSN 0918-7545

Number 20 November 2011 The Japan Sociological Society Japan The and End-Around Strategies Action for Cultural Cute Masquerade and the Pimping of Japan Development Anime of the Transnational The the Project: Pitfall Cool The Facing Japan Industry under the Condition of Post-Fordism Artists Designers in and Global Young Identity of The Politics Japaneseness? Fabricating Cities On the and Can save Japan? Possibilities Impossibilities Cool Post-Disaster Japan of a Cool Japanology SPECIAL ISSUE—COOL JAPAN Introduction Social Media, Music, and the Japan Radical Value: Post-3/11 Recontextualization of

International Journal of Japanese Sociology Number 20 November 2011 1 2 4 18 30 43 59 73 89 107 121 124

Summary Author by the ri – SPECIAL ISSUE—COOL JAPAN Introduction Fujita Ian Yuiko Condry and Social Media, Music, and the Japan Radical Value: Post-3/11 Recontextualization of and End-Around Strategies Action for Cultural Ian Condry Cute Masquerade and the Pimping of Japan Laura Miller Development of the Transnational The the Project: Pitfall Cool The Facing Japan Anime Industry under the Condition of Post-Fordism Mo Yoshitaka Number 20, November Number 2011 20, EDITOR’S NOTE Daisaburo Hashizume Contents Fabricating Japaneseness? The Identity Politics of Young Artists Designers in and Young Identity of The Politics Japaneseness? Fabricating Global Cities Fujita Yuiko On the and Can save Japan? Possibilities Impossibilities Cool Post-Disaster Japan of a Cool Japanology Abel E. Jonathan ARTICLE Relative Rank-order of Salient Identities of the Japanese Ryotaro Uemura ARTICLES AWARDED Article Division winner: Award 2003 JSS in “the the Periphery” and Discourse of “Japan,” West,” “the Representations of Lafcadio Hearn Studies Fukuma Yoshiaki Article Division winner: Award 2010 JSS Analysis of An Social Integration Social Integration in Post-Multiculturalism: in Britain Post-war Policy Adachi Satoshi Book Division Winner: Award 2010 JSS Sekinin Fuho No Koi Shakai: Imi Arasoi O (The Meguru To Meaning Sekinin of A Sociological Exploration): Liability in Japan: Tort BOOK REVIEWS Jun Tsunematsu Jun 001_ijjs_v20_i1_OC_8.01mm.indd 1 International Journal of Japanese Sociology 2011, Number 20

Contents

Number 20, November 2011

EDITOR’S NOTE Daisaburo Hashizume ...... 1

SPECIAL ISSUE—COOL JAPAN Introduction Ian Condry and Yuiko Fujita ...... 2 Post-3/11 Japan and the Radical Recontextualization of Value: Music, Social Media, and End-Around Strategies for Cultural Action Ian Condry ...... 4 Cute Masquerade and the Pimping of Japan Laura Miller ...... 18 The Pitfall Facing the Cool Japan Project: The Transnational Development of the Anime Industry under the Condition of Post-Fordism Yoshitaka Mo–ri ...... 30 Fabricating Japaneseness? The Identity Politics of Young Designers and Artists in Global Cities Yuiko Fujita ...... 43 Can Cool Japan save Post-Disaster Japan? On the Possibilities and Impossibilities of a Cool Japanology Jonathan E . Abel ...... 59

ARTICLE Relative Rank-order of Salient Identities of the Japanese Ryotaro Uemura ...... 73

101-102_ijjs_v20_i1_toc.indd 1 10/13/2011 5:47:50 PM International Journal of Japanese Sociology doi: 10.1111/j.1475-6781.2011.01143.x 2011, Number 20

Introduction

Does the idea of “Cool Japan” have a place and possibly transforming, enduring struc- in a post-3/11 world? The images of the tures of power and inequality. tsunami and the ensuing devastation have The next article by Laura Miller contrib- been etched in the minds of people around utes to an understanding of gendered the globe, and one wonders whether this sin- aspects of Cool Japan ideology as found in gular event will permanently transform the government-sponsored texts and imagery, image of Japan, both at home and abroad. In as well as in other international arenas. She the wake of the “triple disaster,” could it be demonstrates that Cool Japan reifies and that Japan will go from kakkoii (cool) to officially promotes male geek culture, by yabai (dangerous)? This special issue of the displacing to the margins female innova- International Journal of Japanese Sociology, tions and creativity in cultural production. co-edited by researchers from Japan and the This discussion shows that Cool Japan’s USA, draws together articles from both otaku (obsessive fan) ethos tends to erase, countries in an effort to imagine possible trivialize, or ignore women and girls who fail futures for analysis for these and other ques- to conform to a narrow model of cute femi- tions related to Japan’s global status. Taken ninity. Cool Japan ideology, as promoted by together, the articles show that Cool Japan government officials among others, thus was never a singular designation, nor was promotes enduring structures of gender it necessarily all that it seemed, and so stratification. the authors take different, though comple- The next two articles focus on the tran- mentary, approaches. Each offers a critical snational production system of media and perspective on various aspects of the cultural products, and problematize the way popular in Japan, whether music, animation, in which the Japanese government natural- manga, fashion, or art, to explore ways izes national borders. Yoshitaka Mo¯ ri draws of re-evaluating “cool” in light of recent attention to the transnational division of developments.ijjs_1143 2..3 labor in the production of “Japanese” The article by Ian Condry uses examples anime, examining how the anime industry from Japanese popular culture to examine developed since the mid-1960s to the the dynamic interplay between social con- present. The international connections in texts and cultural action. He argues that both production and consumption of Japa- music provides a model for cultural move- nese popular culture indicate that we need ments that do not attack power directly, but more nuanced understandings of globaliza- rather operate through a slippery, insidious, tion and of meanings of the popular. “end-around” strategy of change that gains Although anime is seen both as a cultural its force from recontextualizing social logics. product from Japan and as an export in the The elements of “cool” are less important recent Cool Japan promotion projects that than the lessons to be taken from looking at the Japanese government is now pursuing, how framing cultural production produces in fact, anime has been a very hybridized new kinds of value. Some features of music product in the transnational production foreshadow a few of the contemporary system, in particular relying on workers in developments in social media, and may South Korea and China. As these countries point to untapped potentials for subverting, develop their own animation industries,

© 2011 The Authors International Journal of Japanese Sociology © 2011 The Japan Sociological Society Introduction 3 there could be a further erosion in the has been tempered by a realization that already difficult position of Japanese popularity can lead to new kinds of distor- animators. tions as well. The goal of including more The research conducted by Yuiko Fujita types of cultural production in the study of looks at another side of Cool Japan, namely, Japan has still left out many people, includ- fashion, design, and contemporary art, ing young women and their creative provo- based on in-depth interviews with young cations, as Miller points out. Similarly, an professional artists and designers working in emphasis on anime as “Japanese” can in London, New York, and Paris. She explores effect erase the substantial contributions how these practitioners negotiate their cul- other Asian people have made, and con- tural identities in subtle ways. They often tinue to make, to animation production. resist the pressure to represent Japan, but Fujita shows that Japan’s visibility on the they have to do so strategically given the global stage can limit the freedom of Japa- constant expectation by those in the media nese artists, some of whom feel hemmed in and art worlds of the West, as well as those by stereotypical understandings of what the in Japan, which constantly remind the public nation represents. Abel and Condry draw that such artists are expected to be attention to the spaces around “cool” in an “Japanese.” effort to track broader social dynamics. Finally,Jonathon E.Abel’s essay discusses The authors collected here represent only the possibilities (and impossibilities) of a a small fraction of academic work world- “Cool Japanology.” He offers a reading of wide that is interested in re-evaluating Cool different dimensions of “cool” and cautions Japan. We, the editors, hope this collection against defining a field of study around Cool can make a small contribution to those Japan, a stance, he notes, that instantly turns broader efforts. We remain confident that a its object of study into something “uncool.” focus on global media and popular culture is As an alternative, he uses the example of a valuable direction for research, provided, the 2009 anime film Summer Wars to give of course, that we maintain a critical stance insight into thinking about otaku, hikiko- and keep a focus on the people most directly mori (shut-ins), and collective action. It is impacted by the kinds of analysis that here that he finds reason for optimism. unfolds. In that regard, the dynamics of Cool What these essays share is an urge to go Japan, regardless of the longevity of the beyond the common formulations of Cool term itself, should provide clues for the cul- Japan that have been in circulation since tural connections, dangerous distortions, 2002, when the journalist Douglas McGray and critical potential of popular culture in a coined the term “gross national cool.”At the way that can contribute to the rebuilding time, he argued that the global strength of and rethinking of Japan’s challenges in the the nation’s popular culture meant that aftermath of 3/11.At least, that is our desire. Japan was “reinventing superpower,” and Ian Condry some media watchers and government offi- Massachusetts Institute of Technology, cials took him at his word. Meanwhile, in Comparative Media Studies, academia, widening efforts to include more Room 14N-314, media and popular culture in the formal 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA study of Japan has been a welcome addition 02139, USA. Email: [email protected] to more traditional approaches to the country through literature and cinema. But Yuiko Fujita as the essays collected here make clear, the Meiji University, Research Building 153, excitement over Japanese popular culture’s 1-9-1 Eifuku Suginamiku, Tokyo 168-8555, ability to connect people around the world Japan. Email: [email protected]

Post-3/11 Japan and the Radical Recontextualization of Value: Music, Social Media, and End-Around Strategies for Cultural Action

IAN CONDRY

Abstract: The disasters of 3/11 provoked a global outpouring of emotion towards the suffering in Japan. In many ways, this singular event seemed to reﬁgure the meanings of community and technology by drawing attention to the fragility of human control in times of disaster. Although the long-term consequences remain uncertain, this radical recontextualization of value points to a way of thinking about broader processes of change, a contrast to cultural analysis that proceeds by directly critiquing structures of power on their own terms. If we look to processes whereby a new context can be the impetus that undermines seem- ingly entrenched interests, we might ﬁnd inspiration for alternative forms of critique and action. Music provides a model for cultural movements that do not attack power directly, but rather operate through this kind of slippery, insidious, “end-around” strategy of change that gains its force from recontextualizing social logics. These features of music foreshadow some of the contemporary developments in social media, and may point to untapped potentials for subverting,

and possibly transforming, enduring structures of power and inequality.ijjs_1144 4..17 Keywords: music, social media, cultural action

Introduction 2011). With natural disasters we encounter a radical recontextualization of our daily In a recent essay, the novelist Junot Diaz assumptions. We are brought face-to-face discusses the power of natural disasters, with our precarious positions in an unpre- especially in light of the Haiti earthquake of dictable world, and reminded of the impor- January 2010, in terms of their ability to tance of re-calibrating our understandings open our eyes. They give us a chance, he of the sources of our collective well-being. says,“to see the aspects of our world that we If we are to identify innovative ways of as a society seek to run from, that we hide bringing about social change, we might behind veils of denials” (Diaz, 2011). He beneﬁt by thinking of critique in terms of notes that natural disasters are always highlighting new contexts. We can see this “social disasters,” that is, disasters made pos- by considering the dynamics of music, and sible by “the often-invisible societal choices by extension social media. Music and social that implicate more than those being media are similar in the sense that they both drowned or buried in the rubble” (Diaz, draw our attention away from media as

© 2011 The Author International Journal of Japanese Sociology © 2011 The Japan Sociological Society Post-3/11 Japan and Radical Recontextualization 5 packaged or broadcast object, and towards virtual idol. Overall, I am interested in end- questions of performativity and the net- around strategies for social change, and I am worked interactions between artists, fans, inspired by the ways radical recontextual- and other participants in a community of ization can force us to reconsider the work- shared interests and activity. Music slides ings of value within competing cultural fluidly between categories, a kind floating logics. free radical that can attach to diverse projects: neoliberal copyright enforcement versus communitarian piracy networks, soundtracks with reactionary or progressive Japan’s Triple Disaster messages, local or global identity forma- tions, almost always imbued with markers of The people in Japan now face what is being race, class, and gender. In this respect, music called a “triple disaster” of earthquake, provides a fascinating perspective on “social tsunami, and nuclear crisis. The tsunami media” by showing us that the social in appears to have wreaked the most havoc, media is best viewed as an analytical devastating entire communities in parts of approach on what media does, rather than Japan’s northeast (Tôhoku) region, killing as the capabilities of particular online plat- around 25 000 people, and leaving hundreds forms. Facebook no more defines “social of thousands homeless. Like so many media” than the compact disk defines people, I was stunned watching the video “music.” Rather, Twitter, YouTube, Nico footage of a black wall of water, carrying Nico Dôga and the rest give us a new sense burning houses, tossing around cars and of media not as something we watch, but boats, and pushing forward a liquid ava- as something we do, a “doing” that gains lanche of debris that swallowed everything meaning from our embeddedness in specific in its path (Fig. 1). social networks. If we view this as a change I was reminded that our existence on the in context rather than a change in form, we human scale, where I spend most of my time might gain insight into new kinds of social thinking and living, is small and fragile when dynamics that can emerge when unusual compared to the planetary scale of shifting connections are made. In this essay, I want tectonic plates and vast oceans. Addition- to explore what “radical recontextualiza- ally, the crisis at the Fukushima nuclear tion” might suggest for alternative routes to reactors highlights frightening limits of change. human control in dealing with complexities Questions of context become especially of nuclear fission. At the same time, while significant in thinking about contemporary Japan following the 11 March 2011 earthquake. Nascent anti-nuclear power activism came to life in the context of Fukushima Daiichi’s ongoing crisis, and we might see in this a reminder that change can be nearer at hand than we might think. Radical shifts in our assumptions can alter what we value and how we act, sometimes through the linking of once-disparate spheres. In that spirit, I use an eclectic range of examples: disaster in Japan, new directions in Japanese hip-hop, the excesses of neoliberalism, and Figure 1. Footage of the 11 March 2011 the unlikely success of a crowd-sourced tsunami on YouTube

© 2011 The Author International Journal of Japanese Sociology © 2011 The Japan Sociological Society 6 Ian Condry newspapers in the USA focus on the nuclear crisis and the disaster relief efforts in the north (or lack thereof), friends and col- leagues who live in Tokyo reported that a different source of anxiety plagued them. Even more than fears of radioactivity, they found that the ongoing aftershocks, which in other times would be reported as major earthquakes, kept them constantly on edge. Something happens when our everyday frames of understanding are overrun by a radical shift in context. Figure 2. Radiation fears, NY Times,19March Of course, the impacts of large-scale 2011, article by Ken Belson events like “natural disasters” depend tre- mendously on a history of human decision- making, economic development, and other social factors. Consider the contrast now I am reminded again, of how things between the devastation from the 7.0 earth- might be different if we viewed ourselves quake in January 2010 in Haiti, with esti- living in a post-tsunami world, rather than mates of between 100 000 and 300 000 dead, a post-9/11 world. What if America’s “war or the quake in the Sichuan region of China on terror” were instead a “war on human (at least 68 000 dead from an 8.0 quake), suffering”? How different would the US including the unthinkable tragedy of thou- government’s policies around “security” and sands of schoolchildren (almost all from “global connectedness” be? one-child families) crushed in faulty school Natural disasters operate as focal points buildings. The massive tsunami caused by a in media spectacles, and the volatility of 9.2 earthquake in the Indian Ocean in emotional responses can ripple through the December 2004 is estimated to have caused social and economic fabric of our world in around 227 000 deaths, mostly in Indonesia. unexpected ways. Media activist and scholar In northeastern Japan, recent estimates of Stephen Duncombe argues that progres- casualties are much lower, thanks in part to sives could learn from the efﬁcacy of technological advances in earthquake- utopian media spectacles, even adopting resistant buildings and tsunami warning them as vehicles for progressive change systems. Economic and technological devel- through the portrayal of how people’s hopes opment may turn out to be a double-edged and dreams can be realized (Duncombe, sword, as we wait to see how the nuclear 2007). Social disasters are a different kind of crisis will unfold (Fig. 2). revelation, portraying instead the human In any event, these spectacles of human work that still needs to be done. suffering across our television and computer Many musicians worldwide responded to screens clearly cause an outpouring of the disaster with lyrics about the emotional emotion, a sense that the world is not as it weight of the tragedy and hopes for a should be, and this prompts a desire to do brighter ﬁgure. For example, consider these something. As a “singular event” that will lyrics from a rapper called Toshihiro in his shape Japan for years,if not decades,to come, collaboration with SIN (pronounced we have the opportunity to think about “shin”). They released this song “Rising how moments like this can be catalysts for Sun—Pray for Japan” for free online, later change. Since the devastating Indian Ocean selling it on iTunes and donating the money tsunami of 2004, I have often wondered, and to disaster relief.

SIN (Kaminari) “Rising with the challenges facing the world’s popu- lation today, whether with the microdynam- Sun—Pray for Japan,” ics of global poverty or with macro-storms, first verse such as climate change, on the horizon. In Japan, the failure of the government to deal (NCC) Toshihiro (NCC crew) with the scale and scope of the triple disas- What’s hypocrisy? ter reinforces the idea that political institu- What can you see? tions are lacking in ability, even if they have mother good intentions. Meanwhile, the global f*cking days of stomping, helpless order in recent decades has led to an inten- mixed with a sigh, sification of a process that the songwriter because we also are blessed Leonard Cohen identified years ago: “The poor stay poor, the rich get rich/That’s how how is my family it goes, and everybody knows.” Diaz’s essay doing? where are my friends? notes this widening inequality as well: the the crowds wandering, “World Bank reports that in 1960 the per stressed and alone capita GDP of the twenty richest countries feet running faster, pulse was eighteen times greater than that of the climbing higher twenty poorest. By 1995 that number had a back-and-forth of reached 37.” Even within wealthy countries emotion and information like the US and Japan, the divide between a wave of fear sneaking winners and losers is widening. We do not up unnoticed need more proof that globalization contin- when time and daily ues to be an engine of increasing inequality; life came to a stop the question is what to do about it. stolen dreams and hopes Why not a direct redistribution of wealth? darkness lit by an At MIT, Esther Duflo, Abhijit Banerjee and uncommon earth others have created the Poverty Action Lab, it’s time to ask our- which aims to assess empirically the effects selves, what matters?1 of different strategies for economic development among the very poor (povertyac- The video shows many of the striking tionlab.org). In their book Poor Economics, images of the disaster: burning houses float- their idea for a “radical rethinking of the ing in a black morass of tsunami water, the way to fight global poverty” is described in flooding of Sendai airport, the explosions at terms of the importance of empirical studies Fukushima Daiichi. As we hear in this song, of what works (Banerjee and Duflo, 2011), there is a sense that the context for thinking but could be read as well as a reminder of about hopes and dreams has changed, and the need to look closely and sensitively at the rapper feels an urge to re-evaluate what the desires and hopes of the poor them- really matters. It is this emphasis on value selves in the contexts in which they live. In and rearranged contexts that is suggestive other words, change comes by dealing with for thinking more broadly about cultural contexts as well as actions. In that spirit, I politics today. think we also need an Anti-Wealth Action Lab, which would work to take money from the ultra-rich to share with those less fortu- How many billionaires does it take? nate, or at least to do more to bring the Traditional politics through governments discussion of the needs of the poor into con- seem increasingly ill-equipped for dealing versation with the expansion of the super-

© 2011 The Author International Journal of Japanese Sociology © 2011 The Japan Sociological Society 8 Ian Condry rich. Forbes magazine reported in 2010 that public spaces. I am still amazed to walk into the world saw a growth in the number of music clubs in Boston and New York and billionaires, now 1011 of them, and that “last find the air not filled with smoke. I never year’s economic wasteland has been a bil- thought it would happen. For years, I had lionaire bonanza. Most of the richest people heard that the tobacco companies were too on the planet saw their fortunes soar in the wealthy and powerful, and that they could past year” (Miller and Kroll, 2010). In what- use their lobbyists to control lawmakers in ever forms in which we imagine contempo- such a way that public policy would side rary empire to take, surely this is one aspect with the industry on almost all issues. (This of it. These spectacular outrages of excess is something we hear about the US handgun accumulation continue, yet somehow the industry as well.) At the risk of oversimpli- old idea of direct redistribution of this fying a more complicated process, “second- wealth never gets off the ground. It would hand smoke” became a lightning rod that be “naïve,” as people say.2 The rich and pow- attracted attention and changed the equa- erful are simply too rich and powerful to tion of public smoking. What once was allow change, at least that is the common viewed as an individual right (to smoke and argument. kill myself if I want to) became transformed I wonder, though, to what extent might into an infringement on the rights of others this be learned helplessness? As I read (to live and work in safe environments). It David Harvey’s A Brief History of Neolib- seemed like overnight that the music clubs eralism, I get a clear sense of the interlock- where I often spend my time went from ing forces that give ideas of “freedom,” choking, smoke-filled boxes, to smoke-free especially the “free market,” such traction, spaces that now smell more like ammonia, but I am not sure that identifying these rotting beer, and sweat. This change is power structures is the best way to trans- spreading globally as well, albeit in fits and form them (Harvey, 2005).The cultural logic starts, and even in Japan, smokers are begins to seem all-encompassing and all- increasingly segregated into closed rooms at powerful. We might learn from a loose train stations and at work. reading of Karl Marx: he was right about What’s most interesting is that the change capitalism, but wrong about revolution. He came about without challenging the US accurately describes the exploitation that tobacco lobby on its own terms. Anti- arises from the concentration of power in smoking activists didn’t accumulate a the hands of those who control the means of massive war chest of money to pay lobbyists production, but he was wrong in predicting to prod lawmakers to change their minds that a clear understanding of this injustice about smoking directly. Rather, the idea of would lead to proletarian revolt. Arguably, “secondhand smoke” operated as a kind of the Marxist critique of global capital is now end-around play (i.e., not charging up the accepted as commonsense. Corporations middle of the defense, to use a football profit by extracting surplus value from the metaphor). If we want a change in the labor of workers. A statement like that dynamics of global and local inequalities, doesn’t lead to revolt; it is viewed as corpo- the underlying issues of social disasters, then rations’ responsibility to improve “share- we need more of these game-changing solu- holder value” (Harvey, 2005; Ho, 2009). tions that not only assemble the “factors in When critique becomes commonsense the equation,” but change the very nature of without initiating change, new forms of cri- the equation itself. tique are needed. Social media offers numerous opportuni- An intriguing example of change involves ties for similar kinds of end-around plays, policies and practices around smoking in enabling new kinds of organizing and com-

© 2011 The Author International Journal of Japanese Sociology © 2011 The Japan Sociological Society Post-3/11 Japan and Radical Recontextualization 9 munication. We have seen that remarkably structures of creative action only gives us a in the “Arab Spring,” especially in Egypt certain kind of tool, not the solution to our and Tunisia, albeit with long-term conse- problems. It remains to be seen what can be quences very much uncertain. Still, we see done with these tools. that change depends not only on understanding the structures of power, but also on determining what alternative structures of action can emerge. It may mean looking Transmedia Musicians in unlikely places, and it certainly means considering unintended consequences. (To and the Faltering Empire be honest, I had always assumed that of Copyright the USA would deal with its handgun problem—upwards of 50 000 deaths per Music and neoliberalism intersect around year—before its problem of smoky bars and questions of copyright. Much of the history restaurants. I also wish the anti-smoking of empire revolves around issues of control changes could have been less all-or-nothing; and profiteering, so too with copyright, and such radical shifts seem particularly unfor- music is analytically slippery in this context. giving once set in motion.) Music, it seems As many have noted, copyright rests uneas- to me, can provide clues to this by illustrat- ily on paradoxical goals of private rights and ing some of the potentials of social media public progress (Lessig, 2004; Vaidhy- for creating new sources of meaning by gen- anathan, 2004; McLeod, 2005). According erating new contexts for discussion, sharing, to the so-called copyright clause of the and exchange. US Constitution, the idea is “To promote An important analytical step then may be the Progress of Science and useful Arts, to consider competing formulations of value by securing for limited Times to Authors and action, and to see how they can be and Inventors the exclusive Right to their amplified, extended, and put to work. Along respective Writings and Discoveries” these lines, cultural anthropologist and (Article 1, Section 8, Clause 8). In this, copy- anti-globalization activist David Graeber right confers a limited monopoly to creators, encourages us “to look at social systems as and also encodes a theory of cultural action. structures of creative action, and value, as But is monopoly on property the best way how people measure the importance of to promote “Progress”? Even for those their own actions within such structures” who answer “yes,” the affordances of our (Graeber, 2001: 230). Through this logical digital present mean that eliminating online step, the terms of social change—system, sharing is really not an option. structure, value, and action—become avail- Music is “slippery” because it does not able for us to define in ways that need not choose sides. The recording industry made take as their starting point “neoliberalism” enormous profits in the 1990s with the peak or the “global system” as singular contexts of the compact disk, but music also led the for social life. “Value” as defined by the way in illustrating the enthusiasm for “free market” does a very poor job, in my (choose your characterization) Internet opinion, of explaining the motivations for piracy/unauthorized sharing, which took off raising a child, participating in amateur with Napster in 1999. After Napster was sports, becoming an academic, or starting shut down by a court injunction, I recall a out as an artist. Arguably, we move through record industry executive quoted in a news- divergent universes of value at all times. paper saying, “Napster seemed to good to Still, a caveat is in order. Graeber’s theoreti- be true, and it was.” Now, however, it looks cal reformulation of “value” in relation to like the CD was too good to be true for the

© 2011 The Author International Journal of Japanese Sociology © 2011 The Japan Sociological Society 10 Ian Condry recording industry.When CDs first came out When I began my doctoral research on in 1982, the price for an album was set Japanese rap musicians in 1994, many higher than the then-leading format cassette experts, such as music magazine writers and tapes. There was good reason. CDs were record company professionals, told me that expensive to produce and they offered hip-hop would never take off in Japan. Some advantages over tapes, including “random people find it odd that Japan has domestic, access,” a more durable media package, and local-language rap musicians, often, I think, higher-fidelity sound. But when the cost of because these skeptics view the (stereotypi- producing CDs dropped dramatically in the cal) culture of hip-hop, with its braggadocio, 1990s, the price to consumers went largely gun play, and drug use, as unsuited to the unchanged, and the cash flow within record context of Japan’s (stereotypical) culture of companies increased dramatically. I am not reticence, non-violence, and inhibition. The saying the record companies “got what they implicit assumption is that culture is a set of deserved,” but we should be careful in how patterns that we inhabit, rather than a kind we interpret the difficulties faced by record of “field of debate,” that is, a living system of companies today, especially if the 1990s are communication that is complexly linked to regarded as the norm. specific social and historical contexts. I For some copyleft activists,Napster and its found, however, that specific social contexts spawn were reason to cheer. Decentralized, for performance, especially nightclubs, democratic, and anti-capitalist, the varieties provide an explanation for cultural mixtures of peer-to-peer file-sharing demonstrate that some view as contradictory (Condry, some of the possibilities of crowdsourced 2006). In my fieldwork in Tokyo clubs and goodness. A “celestial jukebox,” it was once recording studios, for a year and a half start- called;now,the wisdom of the“cloud.”While ing in 1995, and with at least annual visits the tech companies who enable this continue since then, I found that Japan’s rap music to change, the demise of Napster, Kazaa, and scene developed through competition others has not led to the collapse of the between families of rap groups, who built social, that is to say human, networks that followings over time through specific club insist on sharing copyrighted materials, not events. These loose collectives gradually just music, but also TV, film, video games, defined divergent trends in local hip-hop, software,books,anime,manga,and of course such as party rap versus underground/ porn. The platforms change, but as long as hardcore styles, or regional variations there are creators desired by audiences, between Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya, Sapporo, media communication will continue. In this and Okinawa (to name a few). Some of regard, music, which in media studies often these artists broke into pop music stardom, seems relegated to the status of a lesser but more generally the scene developed cousin seated behind film and television,may under the radar of mainstream media. be better regarded as the predictive early The flow of hip-hop around the world is adopter, a bellwether of the future. If that is an example of “globalization from below” in the case,where might music be heading now? the sense of not being driven by major governments or corporations (at least at first). The paths of this globalization in Japan led through the nightclubs, where musicians, Japanese Hip-Hop and fans, writers, record company execs, and Contexts for Creative Action organizers came together to network, social- ize, and have fun. These “genba” or “actual Hip-hop in Japan is an example of what sites” constitute the contexts in which hip- many viewed as an unlikely emergence. hop is actualized through performance. In

Figure 3. Miss Monday from music video “Believe” (2010) Figure 4. Miss Monday/Hello Kitty cross-branding these spaces, Japanese rappers appeal to images of global American blackness desires objects, so music is purchased along through their clothing, lyrical styles, physi- with ﬁgurines and other character-related cality, sometimes even kinking their hair or merchandise. Whatever the reason, this tanning their skin, and this performativity of development has helped push record labels race is central to hip-hop (Fig. 3). What is and artists to consider the possibilities of instructive are the ways that performative non-traditional vehicles for music. contexts both enable and shape the kinds of We can see this trend in individual musi- cultural action taking place, giving value and cians as well. Miss Monday, a female rapper meaning to such performances by young whose career I have followed since 1995, Japanese artists, and naturalizing their pres- went from being a backup dancer in the ence over time by producing devoted fans as nineties to a solo artist in her own right in well. the 2000s, releasing eight albums and gradu- As the CD era gives way to a mobile, ally building a fan base that buys her music digital future, the power of record compa- across platforms. As CD sales declined in nies is on the wane, and musicians are the early 2000s, Monday scored hits with increasingly broadening their connections two songs for mobile phone ringtones. At across media platforms. In addition to a wid- one point, when she was between record ening reliance on live events, musicians are contracts, she and her manager worked with increasingly working with other media an independent design company called outlets, such as video game companies and, Floating Moon and cut a deal with San Rio in Japan, anime producers, in an effort to to release Miss Monday/Hello Kitty- build transmedia alliances as a response to branded towels to sell at concerts. The the decline in package (CD) sales.An online design? Miss Monday’s signature perm afro music consultancy called E-Talent Bank was drawn onto Hello Kitty (Fig. 4). We uses manga (comics) designed to be viewed should note that his recontextualization of on cell phones to portray in visual form the the Afro as Hello Kitty merchandise risks lyrics of musicians they want to promote. disguising (or even erasing) the meaning of When I lived in Japan in the fall of 2010, a an Afro as a political statement in the USA. boom in “anime songs” (or ani songu) was Again, we can see that new contexts involve highlighted by many record company ana- both gain and loss. lysts. Songs used in anime series as opening In other ways, Miss Monday has sought to or closing theme songs, or songs inspired by build connections away from music sales certain series, bucked the trends and sold alone. A song she released in the summer of well, the theory goes, because anime fans 2010 was written as the theme music for a are part of a collector culture that still Japanese professional basketball team, the

Hitachi Sun Rockers.As further evidence of Miku appeared in August 2007 as an a shift to new media styles, this was also the expansion module associated with music first song that she personally released on synthesizer software called Vocaloid, ini- YouTube. tially released in 2004. Vocaloid is different Media scholar Henry Jenkins has written than other music synth software in that you persuasively about “transmedia storytell- can type in words and melody to make ing” as a revolution in the ways stories are music with computer-sung lyrics. Yamaha told through media, across platforms, such makes Vocaloid, but a small Sapporo-based that each medium can do what it does best company called Crypton Future Media (Jenkins, 2006). For Jenkins, it is the “story” developed the Miku voice. Miku was the or the “world” that gives coherence across first in Crypton’s “character vocal series,” media platforms. I would argue that what we and the release was accompanied by the call “transmedia” might be better viewed as posting of a cartoon character image with further evidence of the centrality of the costume and some biographical details social in media. Our connections to other (Fig. 5).The site says that she is 16 years old, people are naturally “transmedia;” we don’t 158 cm tall (5′2″), and weighs 42 kg (92 lbs), think a person is different depending on and adds that her specialty is “idol pops and whether we talk via phone or email. In other dance-style pop music.” words, coherence may have more to do with Significantly, Crypton decided not to the social relationships we have, rather than control the use of this image, and instead with something internal to a story or world. encouraged Miku’s song creators to use the In fact, there need not even be a celebrity image for fan-made works. Over the past like Miss Monday herself at the center to several years, a huge number of fans have attract attention; some forms of popular made songs featuring Miku, and many of culture can emerge from the crowd itself. these are posted as music videos to the Japa- nese video-sharing site Nico Nico Dôga (a name that combines the Japanese word for “smile” with “moving pictures”). Nicodo, as Hatsune Miku: Virtual Idol as it is sometimes called, is similar to YouTube, Social Media except that it encourages users to add comments to the videos themselves so that the Case in point: Hatsune Miku, Japan’s most comments scroll by as you watch the video. successful virtual idol. She is 16-years-old, The most viewed Miku video has achieved she has blue hair, and she doesn’t exist. Or more than 8 million views, and the com- rather, her existence comes from the energy ments form a kind of cloud over the images of a community of people who created her themselves (Fig. 6). songs and her music. She demonstrates new As Miku’s popularity grew, some musi- possibilities for an unusual model of musical cians who created music using her voice production—the crowd-sourced idol—and began selling on iTunes. Crypton recently also the value of not monopolizing control worked out a profit-sharing scheme so that as a path to success. Others extol the virtues fan-made Miku songs that become hits can of free culture (Lessig, 2008),Wikipedia-like be streamed to karaoke establishments in collaboration (Shirky, 2008), and the free Japan.Various companies have been experi- software movement (Kelty, 2008), but Miku menting with their own virtual idols since seems to be a somewhat different breed, and Date Kyoko’s debut in 1996, but centralized worth some consideration in her own right. production and control was not successful; She may be the harbinger of an emerging crowd-sourced openness generated the first form of pop creativity. virtual idol star.

Figure 5. Miku’s physical details, Crypton’s site (accessed 31 March 2011)

Figure 6. Most-viewed Miku video, Nico Nico Dôga & comment cloud

It wasn’t long before major media compa- built on the Miku phenomenon, including a nies wanted in on the act. The Japanese series of games for the handheld Sony Play- video game powerhouse Sega created station Portable (PSP) and an arcade game games under the “Project Diva” title that as well. In the fall of 2010, the new Project

Figure 7. Miku “live” on stage and fans with glowsticks. See http://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=DTXO7KGHtjI (accessed 4 April 2011)

Diva consoles at one of the Sega arcades in nity are more central than the “message” or the Akihabara section of Tokyo were cor- the “means of transmission.” She is “trans- doned off with a rope to control the crowds, media,” certainly, but more importantly, she and there were also notebooks set out so is social without being real.3 Rather, we as fans could contribute their own illustrations social beings are eager to give our own of Miku for others to see. The games them- energy (both in creating and listening to selves are a variety of the rhythm genre Miku songs), and that energy is infectious where you push buttons in time with the and potentially empowering. Miku demon- music. In the arcade version of the game, strates that providing a means for participa- the pretense is that you help Miku dance the tion, sharing and community can be a way to correct moves (arms and legs) for her music channel that energy into unexpected forms videos. of creative action. The importance of Grae- One of the most remarkable elements of ber’s definition of “value” and “structures of the Miku phenomenon, however, is the live creative action” can be seen quite clearly in show that Sega created to promote the video this case because if we work from traditional games. The concerts featured a hologram- notions of what prompts creativity (autho- like image projected on-stage while a live rial control of copyright, for example) we band (piano, drums, guitar, bass) played cannot easily explain this phenomenon. behind “her.” A video of the performance Instead, we need Graeber’s idea that value shows a crowd of thousands, many waving should be defined by how people gauge the fluorescent glow sticks,going wild as she rises importance of their own actions. up out of the stage, and sings “The World is I would add, however, that there are wor- Mine,” which features lyrics of her scolding risome elements about the directions this any would-be paramours to pay close atten- Miku creativity takes. I worry about the tion to her needs and desires (Fig. 7). eroticized cartoon imagery for some of the The Miku phenomenon can be interpreted same reasons that Laura Miller, in this issue, in many ways, but what jumps out at me is criticizes the “male geek culture” often used how the energy of a large community of by government efforts to stand for “Cool people can gravitate towards something that Japan.” There is a risk that retrograde is just an idea.This is social media in the sense notions of femininity get reproduced and that the connections and actions of a commu- celebrated as if they stood for real women.

Nevertheless,once there is a context in which – Because it’s fun to have others see my a critical mass of people cares about Miku, works this alters the equation of creativity,opening • a space for crowd-sourced innovation to – Because I have a message or something to develop under a system of value that is not,at emphasize least at first, driven by neoliberal greed. • In some ways, however, Miku is simply – Because it’s a chance to increase my an outgrowth of fan practices that can be number of friends or fans seen in many other realms as well. Con- • sider the enormous fan convention Comic – As a kind of art activity, or as form of Market, which is held twice a year in expression Tokyo. The largest, during 3 days each year • in August, draws upwards of half a million – To make money by selling my works visitors who come to check out and pur- • chase the fan-made works, mostly comic – Other. books but also video games, illustration Source: (Shichijo, 2010: 23) books, posters, figurines etc., which are created by the upwards of 30 000 small Anyone who participates in some of groups that participate. the do-it-yourself fan communities (anime An ethnographic study of Comic Market music videos, fansubs, fan art etc.) may find by media scholar Nobushige Shichijo makes this obvious. These insights are important, an interesting finding regarding the motiva- however, in helping us understand that cre- tions of those who make things to sell. The ating a social context for creative action organizers of the Comic Market describe the can lead to the emergence of new forms of aim of the convention as providing a space value and practice. Miku illustrates another for free expression. Comic book publishers I example of an end-around strategy to trans- interviewed in Japan described the Comic formative success. Market as a place where people make money off copyrighted characters owned by others. Shichijo’s findings, however, contradict both Conclusion understandings of the engine of Comic Market. Instead, he found that participants For Japan, 3/11 will stand as a singular event identify their own motivation as primarily for years to come. Not unlike other disasters “It’s fun to make the works themselves” before, those of us at a distance awake with (50%) or, second,“It’s fun to have others see a new sensitivity to a vastness of human suf- my works” (27%). Only 8% said it was fering. The people in the disaster zones, and because they had a “message they wanted to those with family and friends there, face the convey” And far fewer said they do it for most immediate trauma and uncertainty, money. In other words, the value of partici- creating ripples of concern through our pation in a community (or circle of friends) social networks. Those of us further away that cares is what makes the fan-made works may be more likely to experience the disas- meaningful. Here are the responses to his ter as a kind of tragic spectacle, though one survey question: “Why do you make fan- with obvious human reality. Emotions grip made (dôjinshi) works?” us, and they leave a mark. It is natural that we want to help, “natural” because we • humans are social beings. But the disaster in – Because making works itself is fun Japan can also prompt feelings of helpless- • ness, with many Americans wondering if a

$10 text message to Red Cross is the best we regardless of the technological platform can do. How might we transform our new itself. Hatsune Miku illustrates that crowd- media potentials to better take advantage sourced creativity can generate a move- of these feelings of solidarity tinged with a ment, a celebrity in her own right, yet one sense of impotence? whose rights are not owned by any indi- A positive step might be towards viewing vidual or single corporate entity. Taken social media as a shift in context rather than together, I see these “end-around” strategies a transformation in content. Might this be a as providing a form of social critique that prompt to change our understanding of how works from radical recontextualization, we relate to the media around us? Televi- rather than direct attack. Music’s ability to sion and YouTube can convey the visual epi- spread globally, sometimes in support of sodes, spectacles of disaster and struggle, but imperialisms and sometimes at odds with what has altered is (hopefully, ideally) our imperialists’ best efforts, reminds us that ability to talk back, or to speak around, in categories of action are fluid and unstable, ways that lead to deeper, more meaningful and that change may be closer at hand than engagement. I see social media as a provo- we commonly assume. cation to participate in new ways, even despite the limitations of the technology as it stands now. I share some of the same skep- ticism about social media as others—the superficiality of “friending” and the false Notes satisfaction of “clicktivism”—but such cri- tiques focus on the limitations within the 1 For full song/video visit: . system as it stands, not the way it creates 2 Part of the problem, as anthropologist Karen Ho new contexts for action that end-around shows, is the cultural logic of (self-identified) strategies may be able to exploit. “smart,” and usually white, workers at invest- The shift around smoking in public points ment banks: they learn to celebrate “liquida- to a radical recontextualization as well. tion,” an idea and a practice that has led to Those who opposed Big Tobacco did not massive downsizing and rampant job insecurity, win by raising more money and hiring more as well as record corporate profits and soaring stock prices (Ho, 2009). The march towards influential lobbyists; the change came from a shareholder value dominates political discus- different direction. It is oversimplified, sion, inside and outside companies, and hence perhaps, but we might learn from how the the idea of changing that would be viewed as innovative idea of “secondhand smoke” naïve, and “out of touch.” reframed the logic of harm (killing myself vs 3 In a way, it explains something that I always killing others), while maintaining a central found mysterious about celebrities. Why can logic of “freedom” and “rights.”“Context” is some musicians who seem to lack talent nevertheless become such powerhouses of celebrity? not the only way to view this shift, but We always try to explain such idols’ success in somehow a changed context is related to terms of something special about them (even if it this subversion from the side. is just being “normal” or “typical,” the dream of Other examples around transmedia musi- the “singer next door”). In Japan, a common cians and a virtual idol give us a sense that explanation for the success of unremarkable discrimination and connectedness can be idols is that people can relate to someone enacted in diverse ways. For musicians like without talent, and that makes them more like- able (Aoyagi, 2005). But the Miku phenomenon Miss Monday and for others reaching fans shows that neither internal talent nor an through live performances and transmedia “approachable-ness” is necessary. An idol need connections (manga, anime, games, pro not have any personal magnetism at all, indeed, sports), music offers a way to connect, may not even need to exist.

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Ian Condry

MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY, Room 14N-314, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA. Email: [email protected] Received 20 May 2011; accepted 30 June 2011.