October 29, 2013

Are you an American? Do you consider yourself smart? Then you’ve probably recently read a shocking article or two about “those crazy Japanese” and their sex problems. So weird, right? You’re a moron.

These articles are simply a symptom of a larger issue. It’s the subtle xenophobia that we’ve become not only accustomed to, but accepting of. It’s far more insidious than traditional forms of racism, because rather than the person making racist comments being seen as an idiot, they’re clearly someone of some intellect because, after all, they read. With the significant amount of trash coming from what used to be fairly reputable sources, like the BBC or CNN, it’s fairly easy to fall into a trap of being ignorant. Call someone a Jap, Nip, or Slant-eye and you’re quickly labeled a racist, but “I read that…” is a perfectly alright preface to making a similarly ignorant and ridiculous claim.

Based on the particularly high amount of trash printed recently, It would be quite socially acceptable at a backyard party to say “I read an article that Japanese dudes prefer sex with robots to women” or something else equally preposterous. It’s the equivalent of a couple Japanese salarymen hanging out after work at an izakaya over beers saying “I read that they have to lift Americans out of their houses with cranes now”. It’s certainly true of some people, but probably shouldn’t be used as the benchmark for an entire nation.

So if that’s not true, then how are they coming up with all the statistics? By and large, they don’t. When they do, occasionally they will simply lie, like this Slate article that claims “a study showing that 30 percent of people under 30 have never dated.” The truth is quite a bit different, but who’s going to click through and find out? Also take a look at the sample size, 258 out of about 64 million Japanese men. Sounds fair. When they don’t out and out lie about statistics, they are very clearly cherry-picked, example:

A survey found that 45% of women aged 16-24 “were not interested in or despised sexual contact”.

I’d say there’s quite a difference between a 16-year-old and a 24-year-old’s attitude on sex, and quite a difference between “not interested in” and “despise”. So, why do they do it? Simple, clicks provide valuable ad-revenue that keeps these garbage heaps afloat, and you click on them. It’s much more interesting to make fantastic false assumptions and create fairy-tale worlds about places you don’t know any anything about than to use basic statistics to explain the more mundane truth. This reddit post debunks the majority of the ridiculousness, but for a simple one-and-done solution on why these posts are tripe, I’d also recommend this post by native Japanese blogger, Yuta Aoki. It’s a bit harder to get closer than the horse’s mouth.

So what’s to be done about this kind of garbage spreading like a plague? Sadly, probably not much. People will continue to click, and more people will probably have clicked on this article (despite it not bringing me any ad revenue) for having titled it this way. All I can do is to make one meager request. Ladies and gentlemen, think before you click.

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