Ironically, my interest in the 48 empire has been waning (not intentionally) during this time period.
Sasshi landing center can only have happened in this very specific situation:
1. Only in Jpop: the J-ent industry places so much more premium on failure. Whereas people did find Sunhwa's white paper schtick on IY funny, others lost respect for her because they didn't want to celebrate stupidity in a culture that prized achievement so highly. Kpop idols are continually lauded for their talents, whereas an idiot gimmick implies a lack of it. Meanwhile, in Jpop, the truly smart entertainers use their cleverness to come up with the most outrageously wrong answers to academic questions, which is why Test Specials, in which right answers are a surefire way to lose screentime, are pretty much legendary. (Many an idol's amazing engrish in test specials has been their breakout moment) It is not simply how much you're willing to humiliate yourself, which was attributed to Sunny as competence, (in which case Yuko would be the oshi of choice)
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3. Only in AKB48 pt. 2: Yuko joked that with Sasshi as center, they would be seen as not a group of idols, but as a group of comedians. This joke was actually pretty true to begin with, even before Sasshi's ascent. In the same way that SMEnt acts tend to have the advantage because they are trained and chosen to be variety savvy, and so more easily gain TV gigs, AKB aggressively went after TV screentime with how ruthlessly they learned to be the most entertaining fools a show could ask for. The core frontgirls that took AKB to the top all have ridiculously strong personalities, honed by gleefully throwing away their dignities on their own shows that inflicted additional humiliation on them. Producer Akimoto scolded Yuko for initially not being more of a chaotic "destructive" character, and Yuko herself didn't like having a bland goody-goody "honors student" image. The girls that went the furthest in their shenanigans were the ones that gained name recognition out of the horde in the fight for popularity. Due to the size of the roster,
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I do remember some 'lol their poor english' corners on Korean variety/talk shows w idols as well but they didn't put their hearts into it in quite the same way. They were more successful with stuff like Invincible Youth - Hyomin and Sunhwas as clueless goofs on the countryside - although both, especially Hyomin, have moved on to more sophisticated images for various reasons (although I was briefly almost interested in the improv sit com of Sunhwa and Kanghee as dumbo newlyweds). Of course that's comedy and it's not so easy to think of examples where as you say they are more real failures, not talented, don't really do the work by the rule book. As we talked about earlier the AKB girls seem pretty good at roleplaying village idiots as well when it's called for to gain some recognition (re: faked wrong, funny answers on tests). But the focus on lacking, loveable losers is definitely unique. The more e xtreme forms of humiliation they go through in JP variety is probably part of that
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the most aggravating part about that, I think, were the claims that it was about culture, or that if you don't know the fandom you couldn't make statements about the incident. that was ugly stuff that still pisses me off. Well, wait a second. Those are two separate claims: (1) It is about the culture. (2) If you don't know the fandom you have no right to make statements about the incident.
The second is indeed quite ugly, though it's also understandable: A group that feels that it has been marginalized and continually misunderstood and misrepresented in Western discourse says, "Well, now, this is our territory and WE get to control the discussion." Controlling the discussion then becomes the point: "Ha ha ha, we win and you're out."
But that doesn't mean that someone might not be right that, owing to my lack of knowledge, I don't know what's going on and that my fitting an incident into the stories and interpretations I'm used to gives a false or shallow understanding of the event. But, if any knowledge is to be produced, the person
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Comments 4
Sasshi landing center can only have happened in this very specific situation:
1. Only in Jpop: the J-ent industry places so much more premium on failure. Whereas people did find Sunhwa's white paper schtick on IY funny, others lost respect for her because they didn't want to celebrate stupidity in a culture that prized achievement so highly. Kpop idols are continually lauded for their talents, whereas an idiot gimmick implies a lack of it. Meanwhile, in Jpop, the truly smart entertainers use their cleverness to come up with the most outrageously wrong answers to academic questions, which is why Test Specials, in which right answers are a surefire way to lose screentime, are pretty much legendary. (Many an idol's amazing engrish in test specials has been their breakout moment) It is not simply how much you're willing to humiliate yourself, which was attributed to Sunny as competence, (in which case Yuko would be the oshi of choice) ( ... )
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Well, wait a second. Those are two separate claims: (1) It is about the culture. (2) If you don't know the fandom you have no right to make statements about the incident.
The second is indeed quite ugly, though it's also understandable: A group that feels that it has been marginalized and continually misunderstood and misrepresented in Western discourse says, "Well, now, this is our territory and WE get to control the discussion." Controlling the discussion then becomes the point: "Ha ha ha, we win and you're out."
But that doesn't mean that someone might not be right that, owing to my lack of knowledge, I don't know what's going on and that my fitting an incident into the stories and interpretations I'm used to gives a false or shallow understanding of the event. But, if any knowledge is to be produced, the person ( ... )
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