You Are What You Buy: Postmodern Consumption and Fandom of Japanese Popular Culture

Abstract

Abstract In recent years, Japanese popular culture has received much attention both inside and outside the academy. Its success overseas has contributed to theories of transnational cultural flow, 'soft power' and 'Gross National Cool'. At the same time, public opinion of fans, both in Japan and overseas, remains low. This article attempts to rescue fandom from its current association with social ostracism, placing it instead in a logical structure of a historical consumer culture in Japan and in the West. Fandom can be considered a rational consumer strategy, rather than a deviant psychological attribute, when considered within the hyper-developed context of a media-saturated, late-capitalist consumer society. Fandom, when viewed from this perspective, can be distinguished from pathological behaviour and focuses on pleasure, the pursuit of social capital, and individualised identity building, especially in a society where traditional corporate groups such as the family or the workplace no longer offer the same attraction. Acknowledgements This article is based on a public lecture sponsored by the Japan Foundation, entitled 'Border Crossings: Intersections between Japanese Popular Culture and Fandom', 23 July 2009, the University of Melbourne. The author is grateful for the comments of the two anonymous reviewers and for Anika Ervin-Ward's expert research assistance. Notes 2Nye, Soft Power, 169. 1See Tobin, Re-made in Japan, and Raz, Riding the Black Ship, for research on the effects of 'Westernisation' of Japanese popular culture. For a discussion of the Japanisation of Western popular culture, see Iwabuchi, 'Marketing "Japan"'. 8Iyer, 'Land of the Rising Fan'. 3McGray, 'Japan's Gross National Cool', 47. 4Yano, 'Wink on Pink', 682–683. 5Foreign critics are not alone in their criticism of Japanese fandom. For examples of the Japanese mass media's cool to negative reaction to otaku culture since 1989, see Driscoll's article 'Debt and Denunciation in Post-Bubble Japan', especially 171–172; and McLelland's '(A)cute Confusion', especially sections 11–12. Another example of the Japanese wider mass media condemnation of fan behaviour is recounted in Stevens, 'I Quit My Job'. 6Katayama, 'Love in 2-D'. 7Cohen, 'Japanese Obsessions'. 9For an in-depth history of Japanese consumerism from 1600 to the present, see Francks, The Japanese Consumer. 10Giddens, Modernity and Self-Identity, 14. 11Ibid., 52. 12See Bourdieu, 'The Field of Cultural Production'. 13Ibid., 51. 14Bourdieu, Distinction, 101. 15Ibid., 466. 16Ibid., 7. 17Tobin, 'Introduction: Domesticating the West', 8. 18Hearn, Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan, 8–9. 19Tanizaki, 'Aguri', 71–72. 20Yoshimi, 'Made in Japan', 152. 24Ibid., 34. 21Ibid., 159. 22Giddens, Modernity and Self-Identity, 14. 23Sandvoss, Fans, 3. 25Iyer, 'Land of the Rising Fan'. 27Klein, No Logo, 29. 26Augé, Non-places, 77–78. 28Ibid. 29For a more detailed description of fan behaviour at concerts and 'crossing' the lines, see Stevens, 'Buying Intimacy', 60–62, 67. 30Stevens, 'Saved by the Love Song', 100. 31Kelly, 'Introduction: Locating the Fans', 10. 32Stevens, 'I Quit My Job', 146–148. 33McCombs, 'A Look at Agenda-setting', 546. 34Ibid. 35Ibid., 549. 36'"How shall I live?" has to be answered in day-to-day decisions about how to behave, what to wear and what to eat…': Giddens, Modernity and Self-Identity, 14. 37Abercrombie and Longhurst, Audiences, 121. 38Ibid., 132. 39Ibid., 138. 40Stevens, 'Buying Intimacy', 74. 41See MacLachlan and Thang, 'Importing Japanese Fan Practices'. 42See Thorn, 'Women and Girls Getting Out of Hand', 170–171. 43Giddens, Modernity and Self-Identity, 80. 44Ibid., 84. 45Ang, Living Room Wars, 41. 46Couldry, The Place of Media Power, 10. 47Ibid., 6. 48Abercrombie and Longhurst, Audiences, 141. 49Mitchell and Papavassiliou, 'Marketing Causes', 319. 50Ibid., 320. 51Lee and Lee, 'The Effect of Information Overload', 177. 52Kelly, 'Introduction: Locating the Fans', 7–12. 53Ibid., 8–9. 54Yano, 'Wink on Pink', 684. 55Katayama, 'Love in 2-D'. 56Ibid. 57Cohen, 'Japanese Obsessions' (emphasis added). 58Kelly, 'Introduction: Locating the Fans', 10. 59This has been argued by Susan Napier in her public lecture 'Transnational Power Play'.