The kids aren't alright ;-(

[imomus]

"Que es mas macho, pineapple o knife?" The bizarre question appears in the song Smoke Rings on Laurie Anderson's Home of the Brave album. The surprise answer is that a pineapple is more macho than a knife. The quiz continues with a second question with an equally surprising answer: a schoolbus is more macho than a lightbulb.

Today I have a question in the same vein. Which is more elitist, art or marketing? On the face of it, it's a no-brainer. The art world is clearly more elitist than the marketing world, because the art world is a tightknit knot of collectors, investors, artists and commentators speaking an abstruse jargon replete with -isms. The marketing world, on the other hand, is a bunch of people with clipboards asking folks on the street what they want then trying to give it to them. Marketing is clearly oriented to the mass, the mainstream, the grass roots, the people, the salt of the earth.

Of course, that's bullshit. Marketing is a lot more top down, a lot more elitist (in its own way) than that. The marketer's client is the company, and the company is beholden to the shareholder. The marketer's task is not to find out what people really want and give it to them, but to whip up desire for the pre-existing products manufacturers have decided to offer. At its worst, marketing is totally elitist: it speaks without listening, it uses slick babytalk, it exploits people's desires, giving them other than what they want and less than they deserve.



But I'm not a total cynic about marketing. When I first heard that Marxy had got a job in marketing I thought there might be a good side -- clipboard in hand, standing on street corners, he'd now be listening to the Japanese consumers he'd previously tended to denigrate, trying to ascertain what they want and ensure that they get it. This would make him drop the "everything Japan has done since Shibuya-kei is wrong" line which made his old blog Neomarxisme such an infuriatingly mean read.

Alas, far from it. Marxy's main concern, as a blogger working in marketing, continues to be the attempt to show that the kids are not alright, and that the grassroots Japanese creativity reported in the Western media is in fact either an illusion or concocted by a small elite. The message seems to be "Don't bother listening for the sound of the grass growing -- it isn't. Not unless we -- the marketers, the brands, the corporations -- pour fertilizer on it, that is."



This mostly seems to involve withering scorn for all Japanese examples of what marketers call CGM -- consumer-generated media. On the current page at Meta No Tame ("staff blog" for Neojaponisme) we get refutations of the idea that Japanese is the world's number one blogging language (in fact, Marxy tells us, 40% of Japanese-language blog sites are generated by spambots), and the information that a trend for barcoded gravestones doesn't come from consumers but from the manufacturer who invented them. We get the announcement that Marxy is talking at a conference at UCLA on the subject of "whether Japanese fashion styles are “bottom-up” or “top-down” and how fashion magazines play a part in setting trends". We get a review of a book about the Harajuku fashion scene, Style Deficit Disorder, which debunks the book's introduction, with its emphasis on grassroots creativity:

"The Harajuku of SDD’s introductory chapter is quite literally the most amazing place on earth: masses of youth successfully fighting to create their own trends at a “grass-roots” level in the face of an increasingly-irrelevant global fashion market pushing industry-decided clothing on a rigid seasonal basis". This won't do: Marxy isn't buying this picture of "grass-roots democracy, consumer-driven markets, an almost anarcho-syndicalist model of opinion leadership, Japanese influence on global culture, a sense of fashion liberty, Japanese cultural independence, and a freedom from dogmatic ideologies".



So keen is he to puncture and debunk too-kind, too-optimistic Western views of Japanese grassroots creativity that Marxy doesn't seem to notice internal contradictions in his arguments: Harajuku is not all it's cracked up to be, he tells us, because "brands and magazines play a massive role in setting Harajuku trends". In a withering piece about Nakameguro, though, Marxy says that Nakameguro isn't all it's cracked up to be for precisely the opposite reason: this time it's because "almost none of the major retailers in Japan have decided to put a store there". The kids aren't alright if top-down brands influence their trendy neighbourhood, but also aren't alright if those same top-down brands spurn their trendy neighbourhoods. The kids, it seems, just can't win -- and all because those starry-eyed foreigners keep saying they're great!



Actually -- and this brings us back to the marketing versus art theme, and the elitism question -- foreign commentators aren't saying that Japanese kids are uniformly great. That certainly would be projection, and wish-fulfillment. Rather, those of us interested in Japanese creativity have a different concern. Marketing people tend to disregard anything which is too niche, too marginal. Their concern is with getting products out of their niches and into the mainstream. For talent-spotters, though, one swallow makes a summer.



In the last seven days of Click Opera alone, I've endorsed the work of dozens of Japanese creators (Yurie Ido, Akio Suzuki, Atsuhiko Sudo, Kasuga Nakamatsu, Yoko Ono, Aoki Takamasa, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Tujiko Noriko, Jun Togawa, Hanayo, Koji Ueno, Keiichi Ohta, Haruomi Hosono, Misora Hibari, Miharu Koshi, Otomo Yoshihide). What I haven't done is make any claim that these people are "the kids" or represent a democratic movement, a grassroots creativity. They're mostly professional artists and performers. Even if I were blogging about Japanese street fashion, I'd probably focus on Shoichi Aoki just as much as the kids he puts in FRUiTS.



I therefore agree, broadly, with Marxy's emphasis on the top-down; I'm an elitist too. The difference comes in our chosen fields of operation and preoccupation: I'm an artist championing artists, whereas he's a marketing spook giving props to... well, marketing spooks. But there is hope that he'll come over to the good kind of elitism, the artist kind that champions creativity rather than the marketing kind that denigrates the kids: the man has a new album out.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

You write: "The message seems to be 'Don't bother listening for the sound of the grass growing -- it isn't. Not unless we -- the marketers, the brands, the corporations -- pour fertilizer on it, that is.'"

Do you believe that Marxy celebrates the role that media organizations and marketers play in Japan? Reading his blogs over the years, it seems to me that he argues precisely the opposite. He has pointed out the barriers to entry that prevent artists and creators that you both like from getting access to a wider audience.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Are those two formulations opposites?

Marxy doesn't "celebrate" the role of powerful Japanese gatekeepers, but he certainly emphasizes it, and even exaggerates it. It's an obsessive focus: a portrait of a top-down power system which prevents the grass roots from growing. It seems to me that that's pretty much how I describe it above.

What may be confusing is my use of "we" rather than "they", but I do think Marxy now qualifies as part of this top-down system rather than an outsider fighting it. And I think what appears at first as a dark, dystopian scenario ("we can't break into that top-down system") might actually be a rather comforting one to someone working inside the system ("we control everything, we can make or break products, artists").

Marxy has said many times that he's Galbraithian in the sense that he sees markets as producer-led, not consumer-led. He's very much not a Nader-style "consumer advocate", and he's not trying to revive consumer-power in Japan. That's not his basic worldview.

[(Anonymous)]

I do think Marxy now qualifies as part of this top-down system rather than an outsider fighting it.

I find it kind of creepy that you talk about me like some far-away historical personage. I AM HERE READING AND COMMENTING ON YOUR BLOG. I know that depersonalizing me makes the criticism easier for you, but I think you are massively overstepping your knowledge about my actual life and daily activities as much as you want to be the one who actually "outs me" as having sinister motives.

Marxy

[imomus.livejournal.com]

You may be "here and commenting", but you never seem to answer direct points and questions. You don't even answer the Galbraith producer-oriented markets point I make above.

I still want to know:

What term do you prefer for what you do than "marketing"?

Any comments on the Nakameguro / Harajuku inconsistency?

I'd appreciate serious answers, not jokes and snidey remarks, or attempts to portray these perfectly serious and sensible points as "personal attacks".

I must say it's very disappointing that none of your commenters on Meta No Tame managed to avoid making it all a personality conflict -- despite you framing it as a quest for one of the "10,000 ways Momus could have avoided making this personal", that's precisely what they all proceeded to do! Kind of ironic, that.

But I think you now want to portray the whole thing as "personal" so that you don't have to answer any of the points. And actually, that's what I'd call intellectual dishonesty, not the points I've made here. I certainly hope you didn't act that way with questioners at the UCLA conference.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Okay, I retract that point about your comments thread (http://meta.neojaponisme.com/2008/03/31/sometimes-i-wish-i-got-off-as-easily-as-vampire-weekend/#comments), because some more substantive conversation has got going since I last looked at it. And in fact you even answer some points about what kind of marketer you think you are, which answers one of my questions here.

[(Anonymous)]

I think you now want to portray the whole thing as "personal" so that you don't have to answer any of the points.

I am having a very hard time following your emotional changeabouts.

ANSWERS TO YOUR QUESTIONS:

What term do you prefer for what you do than "marketing"?

Doesn't "marketing" seem relatively proactive to you - as if, I am involved in promoting the sale of products? As of this minute, I work mostly as a general analyst on the Japanese market. I collect and organize information. Can this information be used in marketing? Yes, but I am not marketing products myself with this information. I am not part of some corporate cabal working to influence the kids. I am trying to provide accurate information about Japanese consumption patterns and media usage, and sometimes, the media is very much influencing consumption.

Any comments on the Nakameguro / Harajuku inconsistency?

My point was not that Nakameguro needed big retailers, but that no major companies ever moved in - thus questioning the neighborhood's "rising" status. You may know this - I didn't invent it - that's this is the standard pattern for developing hipster neighborhoods. Are you familiar with the Lower East Side in New York? First, there were cool little shops, then some media stories, then some expensive and exclusive restaurants, and then larger and larger developments from large-scale retailers. Nobody thinks that huge retailers are good for the actual neighborhood, but it confirms that everyone thought the neighborhood is "hot." Nakameguro's cool stores all faded out - which you've admitted - AND no one big came in to even ruin it. I am just wondering what about Nakameguro still warrants a "rising" status.

I may sound equally crazy for suggesting this, but if you want to have a debate about these actual issues, why don't you ask for a clarification in the comment section on Neojaponisme? Here's an example:

Marxy,
Don't you feel like there's a discrepancy in your views of commercialization in Harajuku and in Nakameguro? I would be interested in knowing how you'd explain that.

Best,
Momus

My request in return:

This would make him drop the "everything Japan has done since Shibuya-kei is wrong" line which made his old blog Neomarxisme such an infuriatingly mean read

Please tell me your favorite keitai novel, favorite O-nii-kei brand, favorite Koda Kumi song, and favorite Tokyo Girls Collection model. (Okay, if you like Tsubasa from Popteen, I can count that too.) Otherwise, your brave endorsement of Japanese creators like Jun Togawa, Hanayo, Haruomi Hosono, and Misora Hibari is not really giving you much cred with the kidz.

M.A.R.X.Y.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Okay, so "market research" rather than "marketing"? Although my understanding is that market research is a subdivision of marketing. Anyway, glad that one's cleared up!

On the Nakameguro point, yes, of course I'm familiar with the LES (it happens to be where we first met, dear, if you remember those halcyon days on Clinton Street)! But I think we may be using different definitions of "rising". My experience of the hipster gentrification barometer is that low-level development (the kind seen in Nakameguro) is seen as "good", but after a certain point (the arrival of Starbucks, for instance) development is seen as the hood going to the dogs. The arrival of American Apparel in the LES might signal that kind of reverse for such barometricians, or the departure from Nakameguro of the Organic Cafe.

As is so often the case, we're not disagreeing that the NYT was ludicrously off-base with its piece about Nakameguro as a "rising" area. I just wanted to point out that you seemed to be using a marketer's barometer in Nakameguro (big brands good) and a hipster's barometer in Harajuku (big brands bad). You seemed to want to use whatever tool made the kids look bad, in other words, when you could easily have done it the other way around, and championed Nakameguro for being unspoiled and Harajuku for being developed.

As for your quiz, thanks for caring, but being an elitist I'm not really interested in mass market phenomena. I failed to thrill to your Paris Hilton sightings in LA, and I don't have a favourite Tokyo Girls Collection model or Koda Kumi song -- I don't even watch TV when I'm in Japan. But you'd be surprised by how many kids still love Togawa Jun.

[(Anonymous)]

What I've taken from Marxy's writing is his view that the involvement of organized crime and the collusion of major media groups serves to suppress both criticism and consumer choice. He clearly thinks this is negative so surely he does argue on the side of the consumer.

You perhaps present the more dystopian scenario by assuming that anyone working in marketing must be part of a system. But this is confusing since you also argue that Marxy exaggerates power of gatekeepers in Japan so it's unclear why everyone in marketing should be regarded with suspicion.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Certainly organised crime and media collusion are parts of Marxy's picture. But you're reading between the lines to think that this automatically makes him a consumer advocate. Any time Marxy talks about Japanese consumers, it's usually to debunk claims (usually foreign claims) that they're doing something interesting or creative.

He didn't report that Japanese had become the major language of blogging, but he did report when Technorati said they'd made a mistake and overestimated the figure by 40%. He has a well-demonstrated interest in showing the Japanese consumer base as cowed and compliant and un-creative. He does this to offset exaggerated claims of Japanese creativity on the part of the foreign press, and to some extent it's a valuable corrective. But it's not so big a leap to see it as a version of something most of us deplore about marketing: the under-estimation of the consumer.

You perhaps present the more dystopian scenario by assuming that anyone working in marketing must be part of a system. But this is confusing since you also argue that Marxy exaggerates power of gatekeepers in Japan so it's unclear why everyone in marketing should be regarded with suspicion.

Marketers are a part of the system, although the best of them shift allegiance from producers (and Marxy's Galbraithian views show he's fairly elitist in his orientation to producers) to consumers. Good marketing pays attention, bad marketing thinks the "consumer base" is a tabula rasa. However, this very belief makes them overestimate their own top-down power, and makes them think they can sell anything to anyone. Is that really so confusing?

[(Anonymous)]

Reading this and some of your other comments above, I think you have misunderstood the thrust of what Marxy is saying.

Forgive me if I'm guilty in turn of misunderstanding you, but it seems you believe that Marxy mainly aims to tell us how uncreative young Japanese are. I think that would annoy me as much as it clearly infuriates you. However, I read him instead as telling us that creativity is alive and well in Japan but is often suffocated by an industry which permits few dissenting voices.

He doesn't argue that nothing creative can come through such a system, rather he takes issue with the view often expressed in the foreign press that the creativity in evidence shows how vibrant grass roots trends are in Japan. The reason he does that is because he can see the fingerprints of advertising agencies, promoters and the leading talent agencies all over supposedly spontaneous youth movements. He would prefer that they didn't have this power because he would rather see creativity given greater freedom and, yes, more unfettered access to the market.

Take the blogging issue which you mention. Marxy didn't report the technorati data but he did participate in online discussions calling into question the veracity of the claim that Japanese had become the world's major blogging language. I saw his comments as more exasperation about how the overseas media misrepresents Japan. He didn't assume that the claim was wrong because he believes Japanese people aren't creative enough to produce blogs in such numbers, he thought it was wrong because he searches Japanese sites and realized that many were simply spam or dead. He also believes that the media lobby marginalizes independent commentators and has restricted some of the incentives which have encouraged blogging elsewhere - namely advertising revenue. Which, incidentally, neither you nor he have any time for on your own sites.

Since you believe that Marxy has "a well-demonstrated interest in showing the Japanese consumer base as cowed and compliant and un-creative" then it suddenly becomes clear to me why you would assume he must be engaged in "bad marketing". However, I think your reading of him is completely wrong. That's not his interest at all. When he writes above about being engaged in market research, I can also understand why he went into that line of work because it is an extension of what he has done on his blogs. Anyone who deals with overseas clients in any field quickly realizes that giving them accurate information about Japan is only one part of the job. Disabusing them of some of the notions they have erroneously formed about the country is even more important and both these themes run through what Marxy writes.

I haven't met either of you and have no interest in whether you both like or dislike each other personally. You have, however, been clearer here about where your distaste lies and it seems to be based on description of Marxy's worldview which is one that he doesn't hold and would probably reject.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Well, thanks for a considered and balanced outline, whoever you are!

he thought it was wrong because he searches Japanese sites and realized that many were simply spam or dead.

This suggests Marxy anticipated the Technorati spambot discovery -- can you point to these online discussions and comments?

My understanding is that Marxy has argued for several years that Japan has been behind other advanced nations in its internet usage, and that when it was reported that Japanese blogs had overtaken all other nations', he tried various counter-attacks, including saying that the content on these blogs was stereotypical and mealy-mouthed. That even if Japanese blogs were ahead in quantity, in other words, they were behind in quality. For instance, here he is on Mutantfrog (http://www.mutantfrog.com/2007/12/07/wp-on-japanese-blogs-total-mischaracterisation-some-crucial-details-left-out/) in December saying that most Japanese blogs only have four readers and that the majority of Japanese blogs are "trees falling in the forest" which shouldn't be paid attention to (this is in the context of a Washington Post article saying that Japanese blog "to fit in" rather than to stand out).

Marxy at that point was accepting the Technorati figures, but wanted to cast the Washington Post as mischaracterizing Japanese blogs, and also to disparage, it seems, the blogs about food and cherry blossom and cats which were being written about as "typical Japanese blogs". Here, I think, we catch him in the same kind of act I caught him in with the Harajuku / Nakameguro example. When he can't attack Japanese CGM (consumer generated media) on one set of grounds (quantity, for instance), he attacks it on another (quality). He then later shifts the attack back to quantity if given the opportunity.

I don't say malice drives this -- I think rather it's a desire to be a bigger Japan expert than the Japan experts in print in the Western media, and to have unique insights into Japan to sell through specialist sites like mekas.jp (http://www.mekas.jp) (which charges several thousand euros for access to media data, and therefore needs to be "ahead" of freely-available commentary).

[(Anonymous)]

I'll dig out his earlier comments and post them when I can go through the web and work out where those ones were.

But look at what you've just said above:

"Marxy...wanted...also to disparage, it seems, the blogs about food and cherry blossom and cats"

Reading the comments in your link, that's not what he is saying at all. Rather he is disparaging the WP contention that such blogs represent the heartbeat of the Japanese web, pointing out that the heavy traffic is to be found viewing scandal sites and anonymous forums while the numerous personal diaries attract few readers. The WP used their sheer volume to describe the Japanese web as "conformist" and that's what he took issue with. I don't have an opinion on the issue. Indeed, I found the WP article interesting when I first read it but the various criticisms I read later made me wary of its conclusions - I don't know the subject enough to

If you start from the position that Marxy is trying to undermine Japanese popular culture then you might read between the lines in the way that you do. I don't see that motive at all in his writing so all I see is another example of him taking the foreign press to task.

I think it is very unfair to say that the reason he does attack such articles is because he wants people to pay for his own opinions. He has probably written about such topics more extensively and publicly than any other English blogger. I'm sure you'd like people to buy your CDs but it would be mean spirited to say that your honest criticisms of other musicians are simply a means to get people to pay for your music. More so since you also often offer some of your MP3s as freely as Marxy does his own opinions.