Comments on: Japan's high-detail coffee, booze, food, and fashion simulacra

By: OoerictoO

OoerictoO — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 17:59:00 +0000

often, items that carry a higher price tag are of higher quality. this is true in the US and any market influenced from high fashion. thus the loop wheeler sweats, and deer skin leather, and heavy quality zippers. they spend, by choice, more for clothes, per capita in japan.

By: pambamboo

pambamboo — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 03:32:00 +0000

Oh right on! Too bad so very few will listen to your thoughtful and compassionate response to internet bullying………because foaming-at-the-mouth reacting is……..more fun or something?

Also: responding to a troll with better argument makes me feel good (calm too) whereas reacting in kind or more so makes me feel a little bit sick.

Thanx for the reminder!

By: pambamboo

pambamboo — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 03:19:00 +0000

My thoughts exactly. Maybe it’s ‘Inception’-like synchronicity!

By: dicebourbon

dicebourbon — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 20:57:00 +0000

This may be only tangentially related, but I’m reminded of Philip K. Dick’s The Man in the High Castle, where the market for authentic American antiques among the Japanese conquerors is flooded with very well-done knock-offs.

By: James Ledley

James Ledley — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 16:27:00 +0000

It’s chicken and egg. Their cultural appropriation of U.S. military and media occupation.

By: Kevin Brady

Kevin Brady — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 15:58:00 +0000

did William Gibson anticipate this, or observe it? Or did the Japanese all read Zero History?

By: Ericka Abraham

Ericka Abraham — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 07:02:00 +0000

Something isn’t better because it takes six or fifteen times the amount of time to make it as the original. I’d venture to say that’s worse, actually. Give me my damn espresso.

Oh, also. If you go to the site for one of the Japanese brands, The Real McCoy’s, you will see that they are charging approximately 60 dollars for three wooden hangers. Three wooden hangers.

By: originalritz

originalritz — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 00:49:00 +0000

In the late 1970s during what is now known as the “lawsuit era” of guitar making, Japanese manufacturers were making copycat Fender and Gibson replica guitars that many thought were better than the genuine article. Companies like Tokai and Ibanez made fantastic instruments that are sought after today, complete with their shameless ripoff headstock and logo designs.
Also the stuff that Fender Japan is making these days many people in the West love. Unfortunately in the US and Canada we’re restricted to the made in USA, Mexico, Korea, and China stuff, and the Japanese get to choose from a whole host of interesting stuff that we need to pay a premium for to get imported.

By: Alpacaman

Alpacaman — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 23:41:00 +0000

Mmm. Yes, that’s a good example

By: digi_owl

digi_owl — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 23:32:00 +0000

Like say how high street fashion seems able to neuter even punk and make it a brand name product range?

By: Alpacaman

Alpacaman — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 23:22:00 +0000

That is a given in any field, be it creative/technical/whatever. I’m more worried about intent, which is where the original clothes and imitations differ. Imitations carry the intent of taking elements of a culture and rendering them independent of the culture itself – creating a statement which requires no reality behind it.

By: CliffordS

CliffordS — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 22:13:00 +0000

No one does American heritage better than the Japanese.

By: guest

guest — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 18:19:00 +0000

“he stops making espressos at an early hour each day, claiming that the spike on the power grid after that time precludes drawing the voltage required for optimal pressure”

in portland, many smug bowels begin to churn as they realize they are totally outgunned…

By: Josh Jasper

Josh Jasper — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 18:04:00 +0000

But how else will we discover and exploit new and untapped areas of meaningless elitism? It’s not like we can find value in ourselves in this world such that everyone else will agree on it.

By: Petzl

Petzl — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 17:57:00 +0000

US$3000.00 for a jacket? 0_O

By: Petzl

Petzl — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 17:19:00 +0000

I know you are but what am I

By: adamrice

adamrice — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 17:05:00 +0000

I read this article back-to-back with that article on Alan Parsons and audiophiles that y'all linked to yesterday. The two seem much of a piece: people intent on reproducing something with a degree of meticulousness and fidelity that the originators never imagined or cared about. It's like insisting on using double-precision floating point variables to do integer math. You can't add fidelity that wasn't there in the first place.

By: digi_owl

digi_owl — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 16:46:00 +0000

More like gold plated optical audio cables…

By: digi_owl

digi_owl — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 16:45:00 +0000

The Japanese male have no issue walking down the street with a bag or backpack, and so have less need for carrying thing in their clothing.

By: digi_owl

digi_owl — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 16:44:00 +0000

Gibson and Doctorow both work by picking up elements of today and cranking their presence up to 11.

By: digi_owl

digi_owl — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 16:42:00 +0000

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus

By: digi_owl

digi_owl — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 16:40:00 +0000

Welcome to the world of fashion, where nothing is truly original.

By: digi_owl

digi_owl — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 16:37:00 +0000

”(though interestingly you need to activate more areas of the brain in reading and writing Japanese than any other language)”

huh?

By: Josh Jasper

Josh Jasper — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 15:25:00 +0000

You can’t counter an example of intolerant bigotry with more intolerant bigotry. You know that, right?

By: syncrotic

syncrotic — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 15:07:00 +0000

From the article: “returning home with increasingly more international tastes.”

Grammar fail, WSJ.

By: bardfinn

bardfinn — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 14:58:00 +0000

Some would argue that by sucking any soul out of it, they’ve made it consistent with Western culture.

By: bardfinn

bardfinn — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 14:54:00 +0000

Two years ago, I was stalked and harassed on the Internet by someone living in another country.

He found a picture of my family that I posted under a CC share-alike non-commercial attribution license. He grabbed it, posted the copy on a forum, and invited people to photoshop it to embarrass me, my kids, and my wife.

He posted it without attribution, and without a license copy.

Someone made me aware of this happening. The forum members had overwhelmingly voiced their opinion that he ought not be allowed to use the picture.

I posted, reminding him to attribute and provide a copy of the license. Then I defended his right to use my photo under CC and under fair use! Many of the forum members, including two attorneys, verbally abused me personally for defending this guy (a notorious troll).

Creative Commons is a legal contract, with consideration and performance. Fair Use is a legal doctrine protecting people’s rights. They exist even if the re-use or fair use are offensive or unpopular with the general public or the content owner.

By showing up and defending the troll’s legal right to use of my property, under fair use and/or the CC license I provided it under, I neutered the troll’s goal — to get notoriety and attention by transgressing a societal norm. His cadre of wannabe-bad-boys dropped away from him, depriving him of his cheering squad.
The answer to a troll, or a bad argument, isn’t special treatment or censorship (though I repeat myself) — it’s a better argument.

By: Josh Jasper

Josh Jasper — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 14:08:00 +0000

I think you mean that the other way around…

By: Josh Jasper

Josh Jasper — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 14:07:00 +0000

And a decreasing number of people who can afford all of this.

By: Daneel

Daneel — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 13:57:00 +0000

>> Dunno about y’all
This is why you fail. Is the Japanese fashion industry meant to only cater for you?