Do you use SNS?

Starting tomorrow, we have a long holiday, "Golden Week." I have a 9-day holiday, la la la la la! I have a plan for camping in the Izu area, and I want to see this exhibition, "Taisho Chic." The Taisho and Taisho arts are charming, I really like it.

I am a member of the biggest Japanese SNS site, mixi. But I hardly use it because I don't like SNS. I could not feel comfortable because of its halfway closed character. When I want to talk to my friend, I will send mail in person. If I want to share something fun, I will do it on my blog. I have no interest in sharing and talking about me, myself, my daily life, or my concerns with "mixi friends" who I knew or who I don't know. So it's very difficult for me to write on SNS because I don't know who I am talking to or what I can write about.

Then recently, topics I saw on the Internet about SNS are getting worse. This article from IT media made me scared (web translated). The article said there is an increase in users who have the idea "It is rude that you don't leave any comments when you read your friend's diary." Such activity is called "YOMINIGE" (read and run away)....orz. I really can't understand why they can have such an idea. What is wrong about reading only? I feel people should rather appreciate their friends visiting their page and reading their diary. Of course, not only me, many people say, "it's ridiculous." However it is true that people (especially teenagers) try hard to leave comments and apologize later when they can't... Crazy. Have you ever heard such craziness? I feel this might be related to Japanese insularity, some inner conscience. Sometime I feel Japanese are like lukewarm water with our formal hospitality and nobody should stir it.

Today I read this news (web translated). An administrator of Gainax (the studio of "Neon Genesis Evangelion" ) resigned to take responsibility for the confusion caused by his writing on mixi. And this is another incident (web translated). A city political candidate visited people's diaries on mixi and left his name on their history pages during the election campaign. People thought it was a tactic to lead people to his mixi page. So a guy opened a community called "a candidate's footsteps" and they talked about it. In the commnunity, 20% of people said "it was okay unless it is against the law," but 51% said "it was uncomfortable even if he didn't break the law." 10% said "I hate it!" and nobody said "I would support him." Last week, a guy from the community went to the police and talked about the "possibility of a violation of the Public Offices Election Law." By the way, that candidate won the election but did not make any comment about that issue.
Now the selection campaign on the Internet is against the law, but the govenment will start to discuss. I would prefer an Internet campaign (of course I never can accept "mail") to loud noise from a public speech or campaign car.

Anyway, If you see this mark on food package in Japan, it means the food/drink is "Tokuho" (Tokutei Hokenyo Shokuhin). "Tokuho" means "Food for Specified Health Use," those foods/drinks are assigned by the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare. For example, "Cholescare" will work for your high cholesterol, "Pure Select Saralear Mayonnaise" by Ajinomoto has the same function. Suntory Black oolong tea will prevent fat deposits. Econa cooking oil has the same function, it's good to use when you cook fried food. Kao released Healthya drink series; the tea has high levels of tea catechin and will reduce your body fat. My friend tried it, and he said he felt his energy went up as if he took strong caffeine. These "Tokuho" items are a little bit more expensive than regular food/drinks but they are easy to take as substitutes for regular mayo, oil, and tea. After I finish the oil in the kitchen, I will use some "tokuho" oil.

Comments

[Mari]

Hi there
Thank you for comments, I really leave a comment to my blog, because I hardly leave comment to someones blog. Yominige is my style.

[Ryan A]

I'm not a big SNS user, but blogs and comments are an interesting thing. On one hand, if the blog has regular readers, and they post comments on every entry, it may seem forced. If someone reads an entry, but doesn't have a comment there should be a way for them to say "hey I read this, but I don't have any output on it".

I guess things like Digg or even delicious could handle this, but seems like overkill to me. If blogs had a small, one line input and button, for a reader to type in their email and click a button that says "Read It", then the writers would know who stopped by for sure, even though they didn't leave a full comment.

Anyway, I also enjoy the blog Mari-san. Always good things to find here.

Cheers, enjoy the vacation!

[Joseph]

I use http://www.asoboo.com everyday, but I also work there :)

I think every forum, community, and SNS online forms a culture which is shaped by both its members and moderators. I don't use mixi a lot, but with so many members it must be very difficult to impossible to encourage people to be nice and step in when there are problems. Myspace has a lot of problems like this as well, I believe.

I don't know what the best solution is, but I think these larger sites should be much more proactive in keeping the peace.

[Martin F]

Of course we can read and run away!! Yominige should be called Yomikenri, to have a right to read. Yomimushi would be good too.

Anyway, have a good nine GW days without using your pc...

[Esther]

Japanese flappers! Reminds me of clothes my grandmother wore. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flapper

The old post that you linked to here (the romantic and decadent one) made me feel nostalgic too. Especially that Kichijoji cafe...*sigh*

[Esther]

Japanese flappers! Reminds me of clothes my grandmother wore. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flapper

The old post that you linked to here (the romantic and decadent one) made me feel nostalgic too. Especially that Kichijoji cafe...*sigh*

[Marco Bresciani]

I agree with June: I love your blog and read it everyday! :-)

Also, speaking about Mixi... I love to "read only": since my Japanese is quite bad, I often need lot of time :-( to translate an entry in a blog... so I seldom reply... or I'll need another lot of time to write my answer.

But I love to be visited by people, even if they don't write me. :-)

[June]

Mari-san: I love your blog - it is one of the first items I read everyday. I saw this same 'Taisho Chic' exhibit when it was here in Chicago about 3 years ago! Very nice, interesting exhibit. I bought a box of notecards with pictures of the 'chic' kimonos.