My impression is that across the board, Japan (and to a similar extent, other East Asian and some Southeast Asian countries) have outsized presence in online creative spaces.
Part of that comes down to sheer numbers, but I feel there’s cultural differences that go into it too. Having lived in Japan I found that relative to the US, the average person is more likely to be decent at drawing/doodling or have interest in other forms of art.
I don’t have any special insight to why that’s true (if my experience is representative of reality — n=1 and all), but my hunch is that it might come down to an overall less self-defeating and more supportive attitude towards self-expression through art… in the US it’s common for people to completely dismiss the possibility that they could ever create anything of value, citing things like lack of talent. There’s also a consistent undercurrent of a disparaging attitude towards artists which also doesn’t help.
With those cultural differences, it’s easy to see why one group could end up with a higher percentage of creators than the other.
My experience is in the US they are no less talented, there is just a much wider abandonment of doing anything which isn't going to generate money, along with being disparaging towards anyone that does pursue things as an amateur.
i.e. being a "sports fan" is more socially acceptable than being someone that actually plays a sport enthusiastically but not at a high level.
Yeah, I didn't word it well but part of that is exactly what I was getting at in my post. In the US there's a weird crab-bucket mentality thing going on where we shoot ourselves and each other down when making an attempt to skill up. Maybe worse, if you ignore that and skill up anyway those same people will take it as a personal insult and act like you're trying to be "better" than them. "You're one of us, stay where you belong." It's a truly bizarre dynamic.
The money part is real too, though. It gets baked in early. I've had to try to shut out that nagging voice in the back of my head myself.
That's totally understandable, but one would expect that it's something that's eventually grown out of as one ascends the ranks, and yet there's no shortage of very financially successful people who are in little danger of becoming impoverished who continue to act that way.
Agreed, I make a lot of stuff in my free time (cosplay related) and a lot of my older friends from Holland really frown on that saying it's "immature" and "I should do something more important with my time like doing a work course instead of playing dress up" :( The same with my projects at the makerspace, several people have asked me "why do you bother if you're not selling anything". People are so focused on money it's ridiculous. I just love the experience of dreaming something up and seeing it materialize. It gives me agency.
At least most of my more recent friends love it. But it's a bit off-putting.
A lot of my older friends don't think watching mediocre streaming shows or football is a waste of time though, no, that's "enjoying the fruits of hard work". Whatever.
I think part of it is that, in the US (and probably in many other countries too), the roles of maker and consumer tend to be more clearly separated. In contrast, among Japanese users, that line feels much more blurred.
One thing I’ve noticed is that there are a lot of “avatar worlds” where people just go in and pick premade avatars, but these are almost nonexistent—or at least not widely used—by Japanese audiences. The main exception seems to be worlds specifically designed for trying on sample avatars, rather than adopting them as-is.
>...the roles of maker and consumer tend to be more clearly separated. In contrast, among Japanese users, that line feels much more blurred.
Seeing a Japanese singer I really enjoy listening to post clips of her Valorant gameplay with her own music playing in the background was quite jarring. I couldn't imagine something remotely similar happening with a pop-singer in the West. The closest analogue that comes to mind would be D&Diesel with Vin Diesel, where he played D&D (the nerd that he is) for a youtube video with the Critical Role cast.
I think there is a genuine difference in the respect/appreciation for the arts between the two countries. Americans seem far more proud of their ignorance of the arts and in their lack of respect for artists.
I wonder if it might also be related to Japan's stronger laws against slander/libel and lack of fair use. I've seen many cases of harassed Japanese creators being able to drag their abusers into court in ways that seem very alien here
I think this is in part projection of insecurity by low/middle classes, because rec sports are definitely a social status signal for upper classes. It's also "socially acceptable" to waste hours of time watching TV instead of hustling. Another data point as a counter is the popularity of video games. The only people saying they should just be for kids are aging boomers (in general)
I do agree though that there is a stronger social pressure to be enterprising. For young Americans I think the obsession is social media or youtube
well japan has comiket. unlike the Western equivalents like Comicon, etc. which has been mostly captured by corporates as a channel of advertisement, comiket remained a grassroots market, where ordinary, individual artists can get a booth to sale whatever creative work they have produced. this is almost unimaginable in the West.
surely that has an enormous impact on the vitality of the creator community.
I think you just don't see peoples' artistic side in the USA. People were always shocked if they happened to see my home music studio setup (which I tried hard to make sure they don't because then they want to hear my music, then we have to both do a social politeness dance when they hate it).
It's not ok/safe to share in the USA unless you are amazingly talented and conform to generic norms.
Maybe artists in Japan are more conformist so it's more safe to share, maybe they don't have to mirror popular standards so it's more safe to share.
It's also impossible to make it as an artist in the USA because of health costs. I could hardly justify jumping to working for myself and I had six figures of work a year lined up because insurance went up so much and coverage at the higher rate was way way worse. It really requires parents/spouse boot strap your career.
Take with a grain of salt, as it's been quite a while since I've been to Japan, and I've never been able to make it to a (non-VR) convention. But, IIUC:
There's certainly more respect (and legal backing) for privacy in Japan, which makes things like producing uncommon, off-color, or even transgressive art less risky. People can't just take pictures of you in public and post them online. You're not expected to become an artistic personality, either. Your art (and perhaps a pseudonymous personality) can stand on its own, even when you make public appearances at physical markets, without any of it leaking out into your non-subculture life.
You're also not expected to turn the effort into a massive commercial effort. Some doujinshi are only produced in tiny runs that are meant to be distributed to friends, and maybe a handful of interested customers. That means that the production standards are more forgiving, the investment is smaller, and the barriers to trying again if a particular effort doesn't go so well are lower.
"Share music but remain anonymous" is much more typical in Japan, I think. The whole Vocaloid music scene revolves around people using a handle and uploading videos. I can't think of many communities in the west that work that way, aside from maybe small EDM artists.
It's more common to know someone's name if they break out into more mainstream music, such as Kenshi Yonezu (he's done music for Ghibli, My Hero Academia and Square Enix...but some of his most famous work is under the name Hachi). There have been many others who have had that trajectory. Ayase (half of YOASOBI), Reol, Giga and Ryo (Supercell) come to mind.
I think there's also just more of a societal emphasis on craftsmanship and honing skill as its own end. The US has been smoking the capitalist crack pipe for so long everything is either about consuming or producing something of value for others to consume.
I think the gap comes from the collective/individual divide found elsewhere in Japan/US comparisons. It's just a bit less obvious w/r to art.
In Japan there is a presumed collective endeavor to creativity. That starts in school and continues into the professional world: mangaka will plagiarize from each other in the pursuit of a collective storytelling lamguage (a concept introduced to me by Even A Monkey Can Draw Manga, a great humorous short read on simple realities of the industry with practical advice). Someone who makes a bad drawing is given a lot of leeway to be "pulled back in line", for better or or worse. The professionals complain that everyone copies from everyone else overly much, and the pressure at the top level to continuously put out high level work is deadly intense, but it creates the high standard of uniformity.
But the US culture guarantees a lot of awkward standoffish scenarios because, if you make art, it's positioned relative to the worst framing of your ambition, and this typically means you are viewed as a speculator, someone who is plotting a way to cash in without doing something for others. It's far more acceptable to say that you are an art teacher than an artist because then it locates you within the structure of the firm and the state, which is the "hidden" collective tendency in US culture: be as individual as you want if it builds the nation in balance sheet terms, otherwise you are a failure. Thus the observation from earlier in the thread that a sports fan is more deserving of respect than an amateur athlete - the fan is a consumer, they are participating in the market.
If you walk into a computer/electronics store in Japan you're likely to see a bunch of Wacom (Japanese brand) gear out on display, and if you see that there'll be Photoshop open with the image of some anime girl that a previous shopper had drawn on the tablet.
I think you might be right. The Japanese seem to have a different attitude toward competence. It's just more expected that you get good at doing something. Cruise the bars of Japan and you're going to find a lot of girls who are pretty but not particularly intelligent, just like anywhere else in the world. But some of these approached me and tried to get me to give them English lessons. They wanted to learn English. I've been giggled at by the same kind of woman in the USA for even knowing more than one language.
Most other countries have full health coverage, it's really just the USA that has such a broken health system.
That doesn't mean we do more art. I am considered unusual because I sketch, badly. I think it's this "why would you do something you're bad at?" attitude in our western culture that kills it for us.
Maybe in the countryside and smaller towns, but in Tokyo at least people express themselves through fashion and style quite unabashedly, especially in the parts with the largest populations of younger people.
Part of that comes down to sheer numbers, but I feel there’s cultural differences that go into it too. Having lived in Japan I found that relative to the US, the average person is more likely to be decent at drawing/doodling or have interest in other forms of art.
I don’t have any special insight to why that’s true (if my experience is representative of reality — n=1 and all), but my hunch is that it might come down to an overall less self-defeating and more supportive attitude towards self-expression through art… in the US it’s common for people to completely dismiss the possibility that they could ever create anything of value, citing things like lack of talent. There’s also a consistent undercurrent of a disparaging attitude towards artists which also doesn’t help.
With those cultural differences, it’s easy to see why one group could end up with a higher percentage of creators than the other.