The Morality of Idolatry

[randompasserby]

*shrugs
It's from a blog. Its content are meant to be shared with people and judging from her posing in it she doesn't seem to mind much.
I for one am glad for whatever little glimpses we can have of her just enjoying her non-idol life, same way I feel about Eri.

If it was a photo taken unknowingly by strangers following her around then we can start drawing lines but right now all we have to go on, while far from baseless, are just assumptions on 2ch more stalker-ish tendencies... much ado about nothing imho

[Celedam]

^ So everything is fair game, as long as it's posted online? Doesn't matter where or by whom, just the physical act of posting it makes it okay?

You really don't understand what you're saying.

He said your language was cheap and heavy handed, no you personally. While it's a insult to your argument it's certainly not an insult to you. We can all stay rational here.

Bringing out the swears tends to make people listen to your arguments less and all (And you were making some good points)

If we're going to play "Who Said the Naughty Word First?", then maybe you need to look up the meaning of "gmafb". Hiding it in stupid Internet slang doesn't make it any less vulgar.

Besides, I know he wasn't just talking about my language. There is history here.

[randompasserby]

^ So everything is fair game, as long as it's posted online? Doesn't matter where or by whom, just the physical act of posting it makes it okay?

Yeahhh... not sure where you're getting that from.
What I said was that it was a group photo taken by her friends, posted on her friends blog. There's no stalking involved in there.
As for wotas getting their hands on that pic and spreading it to multiple boards/forums, the assumption of stalkerish behavior or any ill will is purely from your part.

heh but by all means please go ahead and educate me. Watching someone make himself look like a condescending ass is always entertaining

[Bakajo Nono]

I'm not saying there's zero creep factor, but I know plenty of people who think idol fans are creepy regardless. From their perspective we're just strippers looking down our noses at call girls with this kind of finger-pointing.

Yeah, see here it is. I can appreciate not wanting to disrespect someone's privacy, but why get up in arms about "private" but very G-rated pictures being circulated and not about what some might see as the exploitation of young girls? Because under an industry it's a product available for consumption? Does that really legitimate it?

I don't mean this as an insult to anyone. It's just something I think about a lot since kind of becoming less involved in the fandom.

[Zunu]

That's just uncalled for.

Well gee, I don't appreciate being called "cheap" and "heavy-handed" when I'm talking about something I feel strongly about. I'm funny that way.

Stop trolling, nobody was calling you anything. I don't need to personally insult you simply disagree with you. On the other hand, you've done that on a number of occasions, not just with me, but with others as well. It comes off sometimes as if you think you're at war with people's whose opinions don't jibe with yours. YMMV, but what we talk about here is not really serious business, bro. I can't always help myself, but as I've said before, I try my best not to get overly worked up about discussions that take place on the internet with people I've never met and likely never will.

If we're going to play "Who Said the Naughty Word First?", then maybe you need to look up the meaning of "gmafb". Hiding it in stupid Internet slang doesn't make it any less vulgar.

Besides, I know he wasn't just talking about my language. There is history here.

I was responding to that specific post, not to your entire ouevre, or past email exchanges or whatever it is you're referring to. And gmafb, or "GIVE ME A FUCKING BREAK," spelled out so as to quash this pretense that I was attempting to "hide" my meaning, is just an interjection, not an insult cast at the other party.

Compiling a list about me? I hope you have better things to do with your time. At least "she's hot" is something of an alibi for those hopeless wota who are still collecting Yuuka pics. And um, obviously I believe situational ethics to be morally proper. Knowing that, which you do, for you to spit the term out like an insult is a bit like being a tree noisly falling in a deserted forest. I suppose though, if you are a moral absolutist then it doesn't matter what the circumstances are; you have to "rage, rage against the dying of the light" regardless.

In regards to that, what I think you may be missing, possibly not, but maybe, is that (at least from my perspective) the damage, such that it is, is already done, and past our ability to mitigate in a way that does good to Yuuka. It serves naught for me to fly into a condemnation of wota misdeeds, because I'm not changing anything from the comfort of my office chair. It's just, as my gf unpleasantly likes to say, a form of "mental masturbation" at that point. So even if I were to concede your point totally, so what? What have I accomplished? Until I'm prepared to actually DO something about it other than exchange words, that is.

So if the end goal is to actually take action, but the beefing about it is stage one in the long-range plan, then fine, it's perfectly laudable to get all het up about it. We all do that, talk ourselves into finally approaching the neighbor about their poop-everwhere dog, or approaching our co-worker about bathing more often. (Or vice-versa.) But I already know, no matter what I say in this conversation, I'm not about to do anything that would have even the slightest effect on wota in Japan. That doesn't mean I have no opinion at all. Sure, AS I ALREADY SAID, it is somewhat creepy. But for me personally, it would just be spitting in the wind to get on a soapbox about it and brook no challenge to my position.

[TotallyUncool]

I'm not saying there's zero creep factor, but I know plenty of people who think idol fans are creepy regardless. From their perspective we're just strippers looking down our noses at call girls with this kind of finger-pointing.

Yeah, see here it is. I can appreciate not wanting to disrespect someone's privacy, but why get up in arms about "private" but very G-rated pictures being circulated and not about what some might see as the exploitation of young girls? Because under an industry it's a product available for consumption? Does that really legitimate it?

I don't mean this as an insult to anyone. It's just something I think about a lot since kind of becoming less involved in the fandom.

It's something that's always been in the back of my mind, I think. Just looking at it as a consumer (i.e., fan/wota), one of the things that has bothered me for a long, long time is the way that by turning idols into objects of adoration, the idol-fan relationship gets in the way of any kind of real I-thou relationship (which is, I think, at the core of our existence), and tends to diminish the human dimensions of both idols and fans.
I know -- there are plenty of people here who are excellent counterexamples, which is something I see and respect, but the truth is that I've never really trusted even the nonidol performer-fan relationship in that regard -- I think it always has at least the tendency to get in the way of both respect for others and self-respect.
And when the idols are young girls, and a big chunk of the target audience consists of older men (I know I'm walking on very thin ice just saying that, but I also know -- and respect -- myself well enough speak honestly), "I" and "thou" are all too likely to go out the window and not be seen again, just as much as they did in the relationship between Humbert Humbert and Dolores Haze in the book, not the f-wording remake of the movie, which I haven't even bothered to watch.
So I'd have to say that even when you're dealing with fandom in a less-than-ethical industry, respect has to be the bottom line: respect for the idols (as people), respect for oneself, and (the hardest of all ) respect for other fans.

[Starra]

To be honest, I have a problem with stalker pics that are taken of the girls walking around in public. But something like this? It honestly doesn't matter. It's not like the wota took them themselves. They just managed to find them and shared them.

Because really, it wouldn't be that hard. If you knew the name of the school Yuuka went to, you could search for girls who went to that school, and probably come across her classmates and, thus, pictures of her.

[koregaboku]

I don't really mind either, they were in theory posted in a public space. Unless they were behind privacy measures (like making Facebook only viewable to "friends"), because then a line was crossed.

But what about tumblr where things get re-blogged/posted a gajillion times? The person may not have been aiming for fame (and a gajillion followers) but what if that happens? Then was there a line crossed? Just throwing my two cents in...

Also Starra, I agree with the pics of girls in public. Like when they're on the train. Not that I'm completely innocent of not taking pictures on the train/bus of weirdos and then messaging them to my friends...

[Bakajo Nono]

I'm not saying there's zero creep factor, but I know plenty of people who think idol fans are creepy regardless. From their perspective we're just strippers looking down our noses at call girls with this kind of finger-pointing.

Yeah, see here it is. I can appreciate not wanting to disrespect someone's privacy, but why get up in arms about "private" but very G-rated pictures being circulated and not about what some might see as the exploitation of young girls? Because under an industry it's a product available for consumption? Does that really legitimate it?

I don't mean this as an insult to anyone. It's just something I think about a lot since kind of becoming less involved in the fandom.

It's something that's always been in the back of my mind, I think. Just looking at it as a consumer (i.e., fan/wota), one of the things that has bothered me for a long, long time is the way that by turning idols into objects of adoration, the idol-fan relationship gets in the way of any kind of real I-thou relationship (which is, I think, at the core of our existence), and tends to diminish the human dimensions of both idols and fans.
I know -- there are plenty of people here who are excellent counterexamples, which is something I see and respect, but the truth is that I've never really trusted even the nonidol performer-fan relationship in that regard -- I think it always has at least the tendency to get in the way of both respect for others and self-respect.
And when the idols are young girls, and a big chunk of the target audience consists of older men (I know I'm walking on very thin ice just saying that, but I also know -- and respect -- myself well enough speak honestly), "I" and "thou" are all too likely to go out the window and not be seen again, just as much as they did in the relationship between Humbert Humbert and Dolores Haze in the book, not the f-wording remake of the movie, which I haven't even bothered to watch.
So I'd have to say that even when you're dealing with fandom in a less-than-ethical industry, respect has to be the bottom line: respect for the idols (as people), respect for oneself, and (the hardest of all ) respect for other fans.

I get that--but what if the industry itself blatantly, contractually disrespects the people involved itself? Is it okay to respect idols as people but still help perpetuate an industry that takes a way a chunk of these girls' autonomy (keeping them from engaging in sexual relationships, limiting their behaviors and exposure, etc), while on the other hand sexualizing them? When it comes to the girls who become idols at an older age, I find it less of an ethical conundrum, but when 12 year-old girls join the industry, with what I'm assuming is more of an interest in fame, performing, or some affinity to this girl group they're fans of, and are then disciplined into sexual objects... I don't know.

It's just a cognitive dissonance for me. Girls singing for girls, about love and romance, etc. while being presented for a largely male audience and being unable to actually engage in the love they sing about.

[TotallyUncool]

N-K: I was getting all serious, then you posted those chibi-Musume.

I get that--but what if the industry itself blatantly, contractually disrespects the people involved itself? Is it okay to respect idols as people but still help perpetuate an industry that takes a way a chunk of these girls' autonomy (keeping them from engaging in sexual relationships, limiting their behaviors and exposure, etc), while on the other hand sexualizing them? When it comes to the girls who become idols at an older age, I find it less of an ethical conundrum, but when 12 year-old girls join the industry, with what I'm assuming is more of an interest in fame, performing, or some affinity to this girl group they're fans of, and are then disciplined into sexual objects... I don't know.

It's just a cognitive dissonance for me. Girls singing for girls, about love and romance, etc. while being presented for a largely male audience and being unable to actually engage in the love they sing about.

I agree -- I think that my ethical expectations of the entertainment industry in general are about as low as they can get, but I do have serious reservations about supporting it when it sinks past a certain point. When I first heard about the "no boyfriends" rule (not too long after I joined the old JPM, I think), I wasn't even sure that I could continue to listen to Morning Musume, because I found the idea so repellent and inhuman. How could I enjoy such happy-sounding music, knowing that the people performing it were required to deprive themselves of love in order to cater to the infantile demands of an emotionally-stunted group of fans? I'm sorry if that offends anyone, but I'm being honest; that's the way I saw it then, and that's the way i see it now.

I rationalized it yes, I know I'm much too good at that sort of thing by telling myself that it must just be for show, and of course their management lets them sneak out the back window and have real lives, including boyfriends. I still don't know if that's true, but it's what I've been telling myself all along, mostly so I can stick around here, and listen to idol music when I'm in the mood without feeling like I'm contributing to institutionalized child abuse.

On a related note, I've had some very uneasy reservations about Runtime (ZONE's management) for years -- at first they seemed to be almost heartwarming: a nice little family-oriented performing-arts school in an out-of-the-way city that just happened to produce (and manage) some major talent. But there were always a few not-quite-right things around the edges: rumors of sexual harassment, the unexplained reasons for the breakup of the group, former members dropping completely out of sight, comeback attempts stopped in their tracks -- and somewhere along the line, the heartwarming performing-arts school itself disappeared. But then ZONE (or at least part of the group) reunited, and everything seemed OK.

But only for a while. For the last three weeks, the remaining die-hard ZONE fans have watched Runtime trash the remnants of ZONE in a rather ugly, stupid, and somewhat vicious way, and it seems very possible that Runtime itself is headed for self-destruction. And now I find myself wondering when the rot first set in at Runtime -- or even if there was something seriously wrong with it from the beginning.

And that was a place that I once thought had much cleaner hands than H!P/UFA, so i don't know....