Cultural Creeping?

[chinangel]

this is just something i've noticed slowly emerging in my 28 years of life. Japanese culture seems to be gaining a lot of strength and momentum in our culture. I was in a shop in my tiny town and noticed that it was selling books of 'Cinderella' but it was done entirely with manga-style artwork, very shojou.

Then there are our cartoons, i've noticed a growing number of them are aping the anime style, with an american twist, as Anime is far more popular (as far as I am aware) than conventional american animation.

But it's not just media, i've seen some girls a bit younger than me dressing in outfits i'd expect to see in a japanese fashion magazine, similar hairstyles, make up, words and even gestures.

I saw a picture of some of my old friends from my beauty school posing together and doing the 'V' with their fingers and big grins on their faces, another trend i've seen growing.

Whilst i'm not really offended or startled by this, I'm curious if anyone else has seen this cropping up anywhere?

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

Yes, I did notice that. About 12 years ago. You're kind of late to the party, bro

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

Sorry, too distracted watching Australian culture erode under the media onslaught of US culture to notice.

 

[Atmos Duality]

Sorry, too distracted watching Australian culture erode under the media onslaught of US culture to notice.

Wait wait...We have culture in the US?
And here I thought it was just reality TV shows, political punditry and Facebook.

 

[DoPo]

Sorry, too distracted watching Australian culture erode under the media onslaught of US culture to notice.

Yup. I recently expressed my thoughts about one particular instance

a day for consumers to rob us

You mean merchants there, I think. But I agree. For all the talk that it's been commercialised... I really don't know others' experience with that but I've seen it in action. Directly in action. And I didn't like it. Here is my story:

About 15 years ago, the only way I knew of Valentine's day was due to movies from the USA. I didn't even know which date it fell on or anything else than what movies showed, i.e., people stressing out about being single or trying to pick a date and stuff. We don't celebrate that in my country. Or we didn't use to. See probably 10 years ago (or around there) shops started offering Valentine's day stuff. It was small - maybe some cards, here and there you'd see flowers or some gifts going on sale. It was a bit weird, as it felt like injecting foreign culture. But it was also small. And then each year, things started to grow. Now the vast majority of stores offer Valentine's day themed promotions and stuff. And fuck chocolates or flowers - you are told that to prove your love you have to buy what each store offers. That includes mobile phones, for example, or whatever else happens to be sold there. It's even in ads on the TV "Hey, you know that foreign holiday? Yeah, you MUST honour it and you MUST buy this thing for your partner or you don't love them as much". That's really frustrating to see - a date that went from being just somebody else's thing is now being advertised as the time to BUY LOTS O' STUFF to prove something that never needed that proof until a while ago.

But that's not the only issue I have with Valentine's day - it's not only the foreign holiday thing it has going on, no. See, we actually HAD that holiday already. Less than a month after St. Valentine's, even - it's not exactly the same but there is a "mother's/women's day" which covers pretty mucht he same aspects as it. Only St. Valentine's gives a bit of leeway to people so both sexes are expected to treat the other (how often that happens, I don't know) on the women's day it's women that get treated to something nice. But there is also love and that other stuff overlapping between the two. So it is not only somebody else's, it is also redundant - you can't make a case of "but it's a nice thing to celebrate" because we already did that.

And final problem with Valentine's day - it's on 14th of February. For people who normally celebrate it then it doesn't mean much but look at it from my perspective - this date is already occupied by another holiday. It feels...wrong to suddenly say "nope, you have to honour that other holiday even if you already kind of do and even if you already do something else at the same time". Oh, and what holiday it is? I'd say it's way better than St. Valentine's but maybe it's just me.

Spoiler: Meet St. Trifon

The legend goes that St. Trifon did some stuff and yadda yadda yadda now wine. Yeah, it's a wine celebration day. Erm...it the highest official sense, that is, it's more like "wine and all other alcohol celebration day", actually. You probably guessed what's the tradition there - in order to celebrate the holiday, you go and drink wine and other alcohol (if you fancy that). Beats a card and a box of chocolates, if you ask me.

So, no, I don't really celebrate Valentine's day and I'm not a big fan of it either. But just so we're clear - I'm not a big fan of it unless it's in its native territory - I don't care there.

 

[Albino Boo]

Sorry, too distracted watching Australian culture erode under the media onslaught of US culture to notice.

Australian culture! That is the very definition of an oxymoron. What's the difference between yogurt and Australia, yogurt has culture. Mind you you can't beat us at cricket anymore, you may have a point.

 

[Quaxar]

Carl Barks invented manga.

Also, considering Japanese culture is dying over there it's probably good that it will be preserved in a grotesquely westernised joke version. Just like the mighty Chinese panda that's now munching on Dutch bamboo in a British zoo built by Polish contractors.

 

[BeeGeenie]

Sorry, too distracted watching Australian culture erode under the media onslaught of US culture to notice.

Wait wait...We have culture in the US?
And here I thought it was just reality TV shows, political punditry and Facebook.

Yep, 'Murican culture is still technically culture. Even if I wouldn't wish it on anyone.

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

Sorry, too distracted watching Australian culture erode under the media onslaught of US culture to notice.

Australian culture! That is the very definition of an oxymoron. What's the difference between yogurt and Australia, yogurt has culture.

Oh, I was going to guess 'England can beat yogurt in rugby' or 'English people don't flee to yogurt for jobs'...

And of course we have culture, we have Geoffrey fucking Rush, the man positively shits culture and pisses class.

Mind you you can't beat us at cricket anymore, you may have a point.

Naw, Australian cricket has fallen because of 2 major, related issues - when the national squad was strong they stopped investing so much in player development and the national selectors are a bunch of fuckwits giving mutual handjobs to players past their prime... the English went through this in the early 80s and it took them 20 years to recover. The West Indies fell apart in the late 80s/early 90s and still haven't gotten their shit back together. Besides, how fucking boring was it when Australia was winning everything?

I don't even really follow the cricket but it's almost impossible to avoid the politics of it here.

 

[AVeryClassyCat]

I more see of this as a spread of a particular subset of Japanese culture that has little to do with the entirety of their customs, conventions, and beliefs. Anime/manga isn't the entirety of Japanese media, and the fashion trends mostly come from a small part of youth fashion culture and inspirations from anime/manga. Culture as international business doesn't transfer in the same way that culture as a product of human connection does. What we get ultimately is what will sell here, and that is also shaped by our cultural viewpoints. For example: If America didn't value "innocence" and youth in girls and women, some parts of anime culture just wouldn't do nearly as well here, nor would media produced for international sale be catered to that.

It's also worth noting that Western and Japanese animation have a sort of tangled history.

 

[sextus the crazy]

Sorry, too distracted watching Australian culture erode under the media onslaught of US culture to notice.

pretty much. Rverything is murrica.

I saw a picture of some of my old friends from my beauty school posing together and doing the 'V' with their fingers and big grins on their faces, another trend i've seen growing.

yeah, haven't seen that shit before.

Spoiler: oh, wait.

 

[Dimitriov]

Yes, I did notice that. About 12 years ago. You're kind of late to the party, bro

Pretty much this. The only surprising thing is that someone could be surprised by this in the year 2013.

I would be curious to know where the OP lives that this is just filtering into there now.


I don't mean to be offensive, but at this point it's kind of like saying with a straight face that the internet seems to be really popular these days.

 

[Ryotknife]

considering the direction in which the american culture is going...honestly i wouldnt mind if another culture overrode ours.

 

[Twilight_guy]

It's called Globalization. Its a major field of study in various disciplines. Go do some research on it, it's interesting stuff.

 

[chinangel]

Yes, I did notice that. About 12 years ago. You're kind of late to the party, bro

Pretty much this. The only surprising thing is that someone could be surprised by this in the year 2013.

I would be curious to know where the OP lives that this is just filtering into there now.


I don't mean to be offensive, but at this point it's kind of like saying with a straight face that the internet seems to be really popular these days.

It's not a very big town, fairly conservative too and resistent to change. I wanna get out of here but that's something in the making. Besides i am merely trying to find something to talk about as well

 

[Angie7F]

I would agree that it is just globalization.
Before the internet, it was mainly western sulture that got exported, and those who liked it will go along with the western trend.
Now that the flow goes both ways, I think people are less restridted geographically with culture, and are free to take part of whatever fits their taste.

And I would disagree that Japanese culture is dying.
If anything, the uniqueness of it to the Americans are starting to wear off, but the culture itself is not going anywhere.

 

[thetoddo]

While the manga art style is becoming more prevelent in american cartoons of late, many of the classic cartoons I grew up with as a child of the 80s were japanese imports redubbed (and in some cases completely rewritten as was the case with Sailor Moon and the three different cartoons that became Robotech) for American audiences.

 

[The Funslinger]

Sorry, too distracted watching Australian culture erode under the media onslaught of US culture to notice.

Wait wait...We have culture in the US?
And here I thought it was just reality TV shows, political punditry and Facebook.

Hey, nobody said it was good culture

 

[wolf thing]

Carl Barks invented manga.

Also, considering Japanese culture is dying over there it's probably good that it will be preserved in a grotesquely westernised joke version. Just like the mighty Chinese panda that's now munching on Dutch bamboo in a British zoo built by Polish contractors.

I think you you'll find that there are pandas in a Scottish zoo, and we are trying to ween it off bamboo and feed them a chippy form the local chip shop.

 

[Candidus]

Spoiler: oh, wait.

Sore totemo kawaii Churchirru, ne? Sugooooii~ <3<3

Oh dear. Pardon me.

Erm. Is it still plausible if I say that I haven't noticed?
I suppose not...