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Nasubi - The Ultimate Survivor
Skip writes: "Although it was broadcast in 1998, I don't think many people outside of Japan have heard of Nasubi. In this reality program a young comedian was locked naked and alone in a tiny apartment with a stack of magazines ,postcards and pens. He then had to survive solely living off prizes he won in competitions (hence the magazines and postcards). It took him over a year to reach his goal of a million Yen worth of prizes. He received no help from the producers and went long stretches (sometimes 2 weeks!) without eating. Compared to this Survivor is like Club Med."
Even better: Throw a hundred random innocent black people into the legal system and see how many come out and how many end up in jail. Give a bonus if the guy actually gets the death penalty.
Yeah, for the Dreamcast--I'm serious. It's called like Electric Boy Nasubi or something.
I suppose it's a comfortable illusion to think so. Do you honestly believe that TV-producers (or indeed any other lot) would not do something like this for money?
On a more serious note, don't forget that a show like this does have the functionality of a soap in many respects: It shows another human being with whom you can identify yourself (by the grace of the reality level of the show), who has a lot more to worry about than you!
People like these kinds of things, because they let them live in their self-inflicted illusion that they are just like everybody else, only just a little bit better. This function -- social comparison -- is the most important function of a soap. I'd say that this show fits the description
You might argue that this show does not fit the description because the hardships of the poor guy a was over the top compared to your own hardship (thus making comparison difficult), but don't forget that live generally it a tad more stressful in Japan than it is in Europe (and certainly compared to the US).
Don't forget: the Romans used gladiator fights to entertain the people for exactly the same reasons: social comparison. Which was fitting at the time given the bad circumstances under which people lived. Now that's a harsh reality-show for you! :)
So where are you supposed to be getting a hundred innocent black people from?
Or white people for that matter?
> ...seen everything
no you haven't - there were however, 50 staff members which had to censor various bits. eech. every day for a year...
All the time people are trying to get onto Denpa Shonen so they can do weird things. Some of the segments on now are:
1) Two women travelling around the world while only relying on the advice of fortune tellers.
2) A wannabe Japanese comedian is locked in a room and has to learn Swahili so he can give a stand-up performance in Kenya. He only gets food when he can answer a question given by one of the two Kenyan people that come in three times a day.
3) A girl wants to be a gymnast and has to exercise and practice on a high-bar to get food (although I don't think they're making the food part so strict now).
Japanese shows are famous for making people do weird and sometimes horrible ordeals. But, the people on these shows know about it almost all of the time. You can compare this with talk shows in the US where there are surprise paternity tests, shows where someone expresses love for someone else, etc.
Anywhere in the world people do dumb and outrageous things to get on television and sometimes they harm themselves. But, that's their own fault not anyone else's.
One sad thing that did happen (and not mentioned in the article) is about 4 months ago some comedian on a show in Osaka was trying to carry a wet fish across some REALLY cold place in Hokkaidou and ended up getting frostbite on his fingers. They had to be cut off. But, that is one of the only bad examples I've ever seen of something going wrong on a television show.
japan is at the forefront of cultural and media evolution. they are the most creative people when it comes to socially engineering viral content. if you like japanese pop culture and nasubi you should take a look at its darkside sometimes: http://www.stileproject.com extremely educational.
After finishing, Nasubi was asked what he most wanted. He said kimchi and yakiniku (Korean spicy cabbage and Korean BBQ). So the producers flew him to Korea, gave him a big urn of kimchi, a huge yakiniku meal and..... A chance to do it all over again, but this time in Korea where he doesn't speak the language. The lunatic accepted.
Some of the funny things about that show I remember was the time he finally won some clothes. He won a pair of shorts and he was so happy at first but then he realized that he just liked dancing around naked too much to wear them, so they ended up on the wall. Speaking of dancing, the producers always added a huge eggplant (which is ``Nasubi'' in Japanese) instead of the more western fig leaf, always cracked me up.
The ``exposure'' has done him good as he is now one of the official 12 famous TV people on Jp TV shows.
Oooo. I bow to your seniority ;)
Excuse me, exactly who are we ?
>>> ...
...(see hari-kari, the ritual
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You mean that old baseball announcer with the big glasses?
Actually, the original idea is British. It was just implemented first by a Swedish production company.
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All Glory To The Hypnotoad!
A million yen is abit less than $10,000, if you're not up on your exchange rates.
$10K for over a year's work doesn't seem like such a good trade to me.
As do I. O Holy One, please have mercy on his soul. Or some such.
Interesting definition of pornography, by the way. Get bitten by a goatse.cx troll again?
It's already happening thanks to zero-tolerance laws..
Your Working Boy,
- Otis (GAIM: OtisWild)
Living off the internet for a year? Big freaking deal; there's almost nothing you can't buy online these days. Even comparing such a mundane 'stunt' to this japanese challenge is totally insulting.
"Look at me, guys, I can like for a whole year just from Stop & Shop and Sears! Wheeeee!"
'Survivor' is a rebranding of the original swedish 'Robinson' (named after Robinson Crusoe). Now we have to be sorry about that one too, as well as ugly mobile phones and ABBA :)
/Janne
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
Is it just me, or have 'reality' shows gone off the deep end lately? 'Robinson' (or 'survivor' as the american version is called) had at least some kind of idea behind it (semi-recreate being stranded on an island). It is ironic that the latest crop of 'reality' shows are based on premises that would immediately be rejected by a B-grade sci-fi producer as being far too outlandish...
/Janne
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
Except the producers never told him what was going on until the very end.
Well, he wrote a lot of postcards, and the prizes are delivered by mail, so he only had to go to the front door.
As for the photo shoot thing, generally he only won small things - food, clothes, a vacuum cleaner IIRC, etc.
He has a Playstation with ONE really BAD game.
It was a train simulator, similar to Microsoft's Train Simulator.. weak.
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Insert Witty Sig Here
He didn't win any clothes, nor did he ever win any bread. Rice and womens underwear apparently are more common prizes in Japan.
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Insert Witty Sig Here
Er, isn't that from "Devil's Advocate"?
Not so far as I am aware
And besides that, isn't it originally a Baudelaire quote, from Les Fleurs Du Mal...?
You may be right, but it's not where I heard it (IIRC, Verbal Kint says it in The Usual Suspects)
Besides I still like it as my sig line
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
of starvation.
I never win prizes when I enter competitions. Anyway, did they let him out to claim his prizes, and if he was naked, how did that go down with the competition organisers. A lot of them want a photo shoot with the winner of the competition....!!
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
"I don't know about anyone else, but I'm taking some Eric Roberts home in a doggy bag!"
--Mr Garrison
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"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
How about forcing them to view 'Orca - The killer whale' instead?
:-)
:-)
We used to have regular movie-nights, watching a movie from a huge pile of movies we'd gotten, in a forced sequence, never skipping any movies, regardless of how bad it was.
One night we watched Orca, and one of my friends didn't show up. We thought it would be a good punishment to strap him into a chair and use the loop-forever feature on my vcr
But since it would most likely kill him, we didn't do it
______________________________
rooooar
My (former) Japanese gf told me about this show one day, and YES even though I've seen the Japanese gameshow where people have to crawl through octopus tanks, and the one where they race babies, and even the one that involved several rounds of (get ready) plastic miniature building, I can't believe that she was essentially accurate on the details.
The one comforting thing about this, if there is one, is that the US hasn't quite reached this point yet; all of the so-called reality shows here are utter trash, completely pre-fab outdoors versions of the Price is Right. When we start taking it as seriously as poor Mr. Eggplant, well, then I really will move to Canada.
On an aside, the only reality show I ever watched and enjoyed wasn't a gameshow at all - it was Lionheart Television's "Castaway", supposedly the inspiration for "Survivor" (though if there's a connection other than the island I can't see it). No game show, no winners, no losers, just a big bunch of people trying to forge a community of some sort on a remote island. Good stuff, and yes, no tribal councils.
We either need a 50% reduction in the population of this planet or we need about 4 more planets to grow onto. This dumb shit we think of to fill the boring time while piled up six deep amongst each other all the time is just sucking up useful time.
[Saint Stephen]
So he just hung out around the apartment eating sticky rice and wearing women's undies....
(Post truncated due to an attack mof hysteria....)
I would think that the "please wait 6-10 weeks for delivery of prize" would be a barrier here in the states, as well as the fact that we don't really give away food and household items as magazine prizes.
I can see the headline from the american version right now..... "Chuck Smith, the American who decided to live off magazine contests, died of starvation today. His body was discovered in front of the 45" home theatre he won last week. He is survived by his wife and two children, now on their third cruise to the Bahamas. Alan Smithee, producer of the show remarked, "It's really amazing, here's this guy who has won over $200,000 in magazine contests over the last 9 months, but he can't order a pizza." The show plans to auction off the 7 cars, 2 motorcycles, and the 274 Brittany Spears cd's won while Mr. Smith was still alive. "We would have auctioned off the kitchen appliances he won too, but he tried to eat those." said Smithee.
Please define us.
0x or or snor perron?!
Yes, I read it, and agree it was intersting. It was also sick, irrelevant to /., and most accurately described as pornography. More to the point, it was yet another indication that Michael's posts are to me something that I'm going to enjoy slashdot better without.
In fact, slashdot as a whole seems to have entered a death spiral down the toilet over the last few months. As you can tell from my slashdot ID #, I've been here quite a while, but I'm seriously considering abandoning it altogether as it's not the site it used to be.
Not bad :) You should try selling it on e-bay!
It's not a hoax. My friend was an exchange student in Japan while it was on, he told me about it after he came back. So yeah, it's true, disturbingly...
This is nothing but a self promoting hoax. What shocks me are the posts really believing that this occurred. Japan is not a 3rd world country run by some wack dictator.
Unable to read configuration file '/bigassraid/htdig//conf/14229.conf'
Geocrawler error message.
Hmm. That's what I do all day anyway.
only this time, he doesnt have the luxury of an "artificial" convenient life
You have a man whose only clothes are womans underwear(That he won).
He lives in an empty room with no human contact.
He has millons of people watching but doesn't know it.
He has to write around 6000 postcards a month just to TRY to stay alive.
He has a Playstation with ONE really BAD game.
He has a TV but cannot get a signal.
He has a VCR and two videos, An Aerobics video and a cycling video.
Sorry but this is about as close to hell on earth as you could come, coupled with the fact that he had to eat dog food at one point then at another they moved him but forgot to move his rice, I'm surprised this guy is still alive.
I wouldn't be surpised if the next we hear about him will be a news article about a deranged gunman killing thousends of people on a subway yelling out "I FEAR NO HELL NOW!"
I have to agree wholeheartedly with the previous poster regarding the fact that Japan is certainly one of the leaders of creative media and culture.
This is not a new phenomenon - look at the Godzilla movies! More recently, several fads such as Mighty Morphing Power Rangers and Pokemon were exported from Japan.
--- There's no place like 127.0.0.1
Propaganda "news" programs whitewashing or glorifying hate crimes?
Fox News.
p.s. I went to their website to researd this post, and their disclaimer says "This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed."
Abuse of copyright much?
I don't need large brains to have a good time.
is whether this guy actually got anything for playing.
I got stripped naked, locked in a room for a year with no toilet paper, nothing but rice and dogfood to eat, with millions of people watching me and all I got was this stupid comedy video.
That the show's producers didn't make him wear a mask (surgically attached perhaps) during the show to prevent him being recruited by another television program.
The difference probably lies in the quantity of mind-altering substances involved.
I'd rather you do it wrong, than for me to have to do it at all.
How exectly is hockey a blood sport?
It was that idiot dot com guy. He lived in his house for a year and only ordered stuff off the internet to survive.
"Awooooo... scary huh kids?" Said Count Floyd.
Or would anyone like to willingly try to survive such a way without a fat reward afterwards? 'Publicity' does not count -- being seen naked and hungry amongst piles of papers on TV is a doubtful addition to a resume, imho.
The really sad part of the whole story is that the show had enough audience to last for a year.
Computers make very fast, very accurate mistakes
Ya.. this poor guy lives like that for a year and the Producers get rich. Bet he didn't even have rights to his own diary! Wouldn't the tv company publishing his personal diary be a copyright infringement?
I would love to see that contract that he signed that they could do all that stuff to him and get away with just flying him to Korea for some BBQ as his reward.
we would have smelled a big ass lawsuit coming.
:P
PETA? ACLU? (Yes I meant PETA first).. and who else wants to get the big settlemen? Of course Johnie Cochran...
It would be nice for this story to be backed up by facts. I was under the impression that nasubi was aware of what was going to happen to him (or at least aware that he was going be "up-shit-creek-without-a-paddle" for a very long time), and he voulunteered. So do not take this seriously. As much as the writer of the article wants you to believe, NTV (and Japan as a whole) is not *that* cruel.
Nasubi enjoyed what he did. He enjoyed the attention he got after it as well. He could of chosen to back out at any time, and he didn't.
Japan has some bad tv shows. It has shows that people risk injury to win prizes. But, it is all closely monitored. The producers know what's going on. They know they'll be screwed if something bad happens to anyone. People like the attention. They are getting what they want. That is the real problem here, people doing stupid things to be famous for a day.
Better to stay silent, and let people think you're an idiot than to open your mouth and remove all doubt
The Norwegian BigBrother just ended, and I have to say my feelings towards this show is quite good. I set my mind not to judge the show before I had seen it for myself, unlike so many "intellectual" people who cry out all the time about super-comercial TV-shows.
.no version comapres to the international versions, but one thing was for sure: this was not a bad entertainment program! Sure, there eventually ended up being comflicts in the bunker, but what was very interesting to see, was all the different sides to the problems. It was almost an educating show. It was also an exiting phsycological part, as how people behave under these forms of stress.
Norway actually had the highest amount of people watching BigBrother relative to the nations population anythime. (some speculated this was due to strong restictions of porn...dunno about that...)
I do not know how the
Naturally, there where bad sides to it as well, but BigBrother.no was a fully aceptable TV show, that didn't hurt anybody, nor destroyes the moral of the viewers. The people claiming this are either very old-fashion, or religious, and have no contact with the larger young masses. The behaviour of the people in the house was much as that of a normal norwegian at that age. They where also smart, and had many interesting discussions.
Now, as BB may have been acceptable, there is a limit. I think this limit comes right after BB. How much further can you have it go? Temtations Island? A show where people have to commit crimes to survive? Any show that goes TOWARDS the accepted behaviour of a society, and encurrages those, should not be shown. THAT is where the limit goes if you ask me. BB did not do this, and if "Temtations Island" does, we'll see (the show is comming here right over summer).
Also, many of those who complain may forget that the average working citizen wants to be entertained. They just want structure in their lives, and thus is happy whit his work, TV show, and beer. Every thing on TV cannot be intellectually stimulating...
Mvh
- Knut S.
the romans watched gladiators fight to the death for sport. how far away from that are we really?
Not far at all. The arenas are covered in ice and the gladiators are called "hockey players", but it is still entirely a blood sport.
Tarsnap: Online backups for the truly paranoid
How exectly is hockey a blood sport?
Have you ever seen a professional game of hockey? Most of the spectators are entirely uninterested by the game until fights start breaking out.
Tarsnap: Online backups for the truly paranoid
Nasubi was obviously fairly suited for such an ordeal, but how about someone from a western country? Someone overweight? Would our western psyche be able to handle the stress? Because one thing that I am certain of, is that people will watch it, many people even. It's more extreme than "Operation Robinson" even though it lacks the "I don't have a life or interesting friends so I will watch morons on TV instead" genre headed by shows like Big Brother.
The second question, would the amount of competitions in the wester hemisphere be enough? Would it even be easier? Would they do a complete internet based version? Only prizes won online would be ok? When I think of it, maybe they should choose a girl for the next show ^_^
I also have a clip called "Guess Whats In Your Hat?" Two Japanese men would wear a wicket basket on their heads. The bottom of the basket was cut out. The game show host would put various living thing in their hat, and the contestants would have to guess what they were.
Of course it was impossible to guess. The winner was the one who didn't freak out on hearing he had several very large black scorpions crawling around his scalp.
In the words of Fark.com "What the hell is wrong with the Japanese?"
Last night I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got in my pajamas I'll never know.
"In America you reward knowledge! In Japan, we punish ignorance!"
Last night I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got in my pajamas I'll never know.
This insightful comment on the inferiority of American media and culture was brought to you by 'penthouseplayah'.
That is all.
Nice things are nicer than nasty ones.
would you want your child watching ninja scroll?, that simple point proves it could never be childrens entertainment.... forget elaborating.
I'm still certain that the whole thing was at least half fake.
The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer.
--Henry Kissinger
Don't get me started on the gun laws - you can instantly become a felon for bringing your legally owned and responsibly carried weapon onto federal property (post office), school zones...
And exactly what is bad about that?
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"I'm surfin the dead zone
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"I'm surfin the dead zone
In the twilight, unknown"
And we have "american gladiators", although their weapons are a bit lame compared to the original stuff... ;)
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"I'm surfin the dead zone
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"I'm surfin the dead zone
In the twilight, unknown"
Why do you feel the need to carry a gun at the post office or any other public place?
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"I'm surfin the dead zone
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"I'm surfin the dead zone
In the twilight, unknown"
Larry Niven was right about the death penalty eventually being applied for traffic infractions... He just failed to see that the public's hunger for bloodier and bloodier entertainment would outpace research into safe universal transplants.
--Fesh
--Fesh
Kill -9 'em all, let root@localhost sort 'em out.
Maybe this categorizes as entertainment, but which statement are we giving toards our children. Which value is there in showing them total disrespect for the human individual? This Japanese Nasubi guy is a little extreme (It's even on /.), but even the "Big Brother" shows running everywhere around Europe are as bad as this Japanese show when small children laugh with other people's misery.
I'm sorry, but the society "out there" is as wicked as the one populated by Nerds.
StarTrek.org Free Webmail
That's coming to NBC this fall as "Lost".
So where are these magazines that have the boring prizes...
Why not animatronic RealDolls being tortured, raped, or murdered?
Hidden camera sex scavenger hunts?
Propaganda "news" programs whitewashing or glorifying hate crimes?
Plenty of other possibilities to make a buck pandering to those who can't get enough misery and degradation. The site mentioned that programs involving human suffering are extremely popular in Japan. I bet US producers are not far behind on this.
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You nah, me nah. Screw you guys, I'm going home.
________
What, me worry?
What, me worry?
What, me worry?
Nasubi was only one segment on a show Denpa Shonen which included many survivor type themes.
Denpa Shonen is famous for sending of Hitchhikers on cross continent treks, forcing them to earn money for food on their own. They even sent two guys from the tip of South America to Alaska, which took well over a year.
The hitchhikers are always follwed by a cameraman and go through some amazingly harsh ordeals to get where they're going. Best of all, no tribal council.
I believe that Nasubi predated "DotComGuy."
Ian
No only was I a freshman in college, but I was an alcoholic AND a Windoze user. The alcoholism and near starvation wasn't too bad, but using Windoze nearly broke me.
Everytime you look at porn a devil gets their horns.
What you mean by centuries of occupation of the peninsula?? Korea was invaded by Japan at the end of the 19th century, when btw, the japanese burned the korean queen alive. Prior to that both countries had almost no contact, and Korea was know as the "Hermit Kingdom" for having contact with no other countries apart from China. Japanese don't like koreans because the koreans are always remembering them of the atrocities and mass rape commited by Japan over the 40 years of occupation of Korea.
United States did firebomb civilians, imprision the japs in concentration camp style camps and all that other good shit.
Inexcusable things happened on both sides, and yes, a lot of thing were way over the top - it seems that the japanese liked more "in person" action than the americans, who liked staying distant - i.e. firebombs, nukes.
Lives lost are lives lost - murder of civilians at nanking was just as bad as murdering japanese civilians with fire bombs in tokyo.
The slashdot 2 minute between postings limit: /.'ers since Spring 2001.
Pissing off hyper caffeineated
1q2w3e4r5t6y7u8i9o0pqawsedrftgthyjukilo;p'azsxdcf
Easy: the thought was surrender was bad/not the honourable thing to do. They tourtured US pows with that mindset although the americans didn't share it
Bring back the old version of slashdot.
"When he won a video deck to go with his TV, he was able to watch his two videos--an exercise video and a cycling tape. He saw a woman for the first time in 10 months. In November, he won two rolls of toilet paper, a huge moment in his life!"
Anyone care to guess what use he put this toilet paper to?
Anywho, the jist is, that you are in your cell 23 hours a day, no book, paper, nothing. Just you and the air conditioner turning on and off.
I was there for a brief period doing some consulting work in the midst of the construction project and I saw the rooms. There is one window 10 feet above your head, other than that, nothing.
I say give the normal people a month in there and see how they come out.
If we don't make light of everything, we are just stumbling in the dark - Blank
no, he is just making a point about how unfair and descriminatory the US legal system is.
stuff
After two weeks without food, another human being starts to look quite tasty indeed. "We drew lots, honest!"
My blog
Well he would be cold so I guess magazines could have kept him war..
oooohhhh, righhht..
I thought it was pretty interesting. Did you actually read the linked article?
-- juju
1,000,000.00 JPY = 8,272.667 USD, I used this cash converter.
Also, please use this cahced version of the Nasubi site!
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
call center reps you would have to dodge after a year of giving away your info like that. The real horror is just beginning....
+++ UGUCAUCGUAUUUCU
They should've locked the guy in the room with the magazines, the postcards, and nothing to write with.
...okay, if this were you, would you not be severely ticked? Taken prisoner for commercial purposes, and exploited for over a year? I'm sorry, but i'd have had to kill someone sometime in there....
I saw this quote on the internet not long ago:
Sticks and stones may break my bones,
but if you wanna hurt me, make me watch Jenny Jones
...seen everything
The guy didn't know. He wanted to be a comedian, and he was desperate. If I recall the story, he went to an "interview" hosted by some television producers, and out of many applicants, he was chosen. They stuck him in the appartment, told him to strip, locked him in, told him the rules and never said anything else.
All a coder really wants, are fast cars, fast women and fast algorithms.
you don't want to move to Canada for the television since most of what we have is piped up from the U.S. The actual Canadian content really sucks too. I suggest looking for those gems on tv and ignoring the rest. Television producers need money too and they'll get rid of the shows we love to hate. Also, I can also proudly say I've never even seen a realyity show.
All a coder really wants, are fast cars, fast women and fast algorithms.
I disagree on your comment that 'cartoons are for kids.'
:p )
_ __
Cartoons originated as an adult form of entertainment. By 'adult' I dont mean a pornographic form, I mean it in the true sense of the word that denotes maturity.
Looney Tunes used to be played before movies in theatres during WWII along with newsreels. After TV became more common, cartoons became the babysitter of countless children around the world. Why? The themes and subtle political messages are lost on youths and all that is gained is a collection of images that is mildly entertaining.
Cartoons then became more kid-oriented in the late 1960's and then exploded in the 70's. I.E. Scooby doo, smurfs, School House Rock!, etc.
Oh whatever.. I am sure this will be replied to by one of the many fine individuals that plague this site.(anti-semite trolls, anti-social trolls, anti-troll trolls
Have fun people, dont be so cynical- Tom Burnett has the monopoly on cynicism anyway!
-Mike
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...recall the guy who was to live exclusively off of internet purchases for a year or something? (Some slashdot story covered the end of it.) In the end support for the stunt failed and the guy was NEVER paid what he was promised?! So while *he* survived, his supporters and sponsors didn't.
Unexpected irony there, ne?
DotCom Guy, yet another fucked company.
heathen!
you cannot call my moral crusade moral! it's so high, you can't get around it! so low, you can't get UNDER IT! so WIDE, you can't get aROUND it, and all THAT!
mmmmhmmm!
naked japanese men on tv relying on magazine clippings for survival!? will SOMEBODY think of the CHILDREN!?
Is it worth $7.75 to see Halle Berry's breasts? I say its worth about $3.50 for as much as you see them, my gay friends were less charitable. And ya gotta admit the opening "bullet time" sequence is something you're not likely to see on a Japanese gameshow.
Swordfish also has the rather redeming quality of not being Evolution.
--Jimmy has fancy plans; and pants to match.
Oh crap. I was surfing the interenet, purely for research, and it looks like Mexico got there first. Appearently there's a bar in Tijauana....
Yes, I know Bad_CRC wan't the family values flamebaiter. But honestly, there is more than enough hyperbole to go around. When you see a woman forced to copulate with a bull (which probably killed her) as a public event, then, and only then, may one finally sound the alarm that the Canadians will soon be sacking our cities.
--Jimmy has fancy plans; and pants to match.
You, my Yankee friend, are a dumbass. So you hit 140 on an IQ test once -- big friggin deal. I usually test between 140 and 170, but who cares? If you can't express yourself in (at least) your own native language, it doesn't matter. You clearly can't even paste together a reasonable line of argument using other people's warmed over ideas; just shut your pompous-ass mouth.
From my freshman semester at college HOW exactly?
I don't know about your freshman year, but I can tell you how it's different from mine: when the dirty, unshaven guy in women's underwear was rolling around the tires he won from a magazine contest, and singing songs to his rice in my freshman year dorm, none of us had a video camera around.
Normaly I'd let this slide. But why is someone who's using a racial slur and a media entrenched view of a foreign culture complaining about moral lackings?
I don't think I should have to point out that sexual themes in Japanese media are in high demand in the United States. Nor should I have to point out that violence, bigotry, and a lust for judgemental puritanism more than compensates for this nations so called moral stance on sexual issues.
In reguards to the Japanese conduct in the second world war I need only point out that the victors write the history books. While the Japanese did conduct horrible bio-warfare experiments in unit 731 the United States kept knowledge of unit 731 secret for more then 40 years after the war so it's research could be used in US biowarfare technology. The Japanese tortured and killed American POWs while we stuffed the nozels of our flamethrowers into their concrete bunkers and burned them out. And while Japanese troops burned tortured and raped the city of Nanking to the ground the United States skipped the "raped" step and simply burned and tortured the citizens of Hiroshima and Nagisaki with nuclear weapons and powerfull blasts of radiation that are still causing painfull deaths to rare cancers today.
Beware, the moral highground is a tretcherous slope and footing can be very unstable.
This has been another useless post from....
Killfile(TGK)
No trees were killed in the creation of this post. However, many electrons were inconvenienced.
I wouldn't say that the Japanese have no value of the individual. Rather, the Japanese value traits in the individual that we find alien. Tranquility, docility, conformity. Many portions of Japanese culture focus on the individual to an overwhelming extent. Dating back to the Tokugawa period we have traditional Samuri combat and Kendo. Kendo is primarily a one on one sword fighting art, concentrating on a single opponent and the individual contest of skill. In more modern times Sumo wrestling pits the skills of two enormous individuals against each other.
Japanese conduct in WWII, while inexcuseable, is explainable. Bushido, or the warrior way, dictated that the greatest service a warrior could render his country was his death (kind of a loosing strategy there if you ask me). Surrender was unaccecptable, this is easily proven by looking at the surrender rates of Japanese vs American troops in the war. The Japanese surrendered something like 1 out of 20 casualties (killed or captured for this statistic). The US surrendered more like 12 in 20.
Here's where it gets weird. The Bushido considered the sword the soul of the samuri. Japanese troops c. 1940 had this weird idea that they were 14th century samuri. Thus, surrender (and the giving up of the sword/gun/whatever) was the loss of the soul. The POW was less then a person. Many in Japan would consider death, even an insanely painfull one preferable to capture (see hari-kari, the ritual suicide of the shamed samuri).
This goes a long way to explaining (not excusing) the conduct of the Japanese toward Allied POWs. Now we'll move on to Korea.
Don't tell the Japanese this, it still gets many of them rather pissed off, but the Koreans are ethnicly very close to the Japanese. This is because of Japanese interaction, possession of, occupation of the Korean peninsula over the centuries. Now, for some reason I've never quite understood, the Japanese have developed some great and personal hatred of the Koreans. Perhaps this has to do with the idea of the "Purity of the Japanese Race" (a popular notion c. 1931) or maybe it's just blind nationalism. Who knows? Point being that Korea is rarely a good example of Japanese war conduct. It's like saying that all US foreign policy during the Cold War was identical to US foreign policy toward communist nations.
Anyway, hope that helps. Just wanted to clear up a few points with the above post.
This has been another useless post from....
Killfile(TGK)
No trees were killed in the creation of this post. However, many electrons were inconvenienced.
These comments remind me of Quake. A bunch of anonymous cowards spouting a bunch of racist bullshit on the console.
That just gave me an idea for a good Survivor series: Stick a bunch of 'normal' people in the general population of a maximum security prision and see how long they last. I'd watch that.
I think what you're trying to say is that the Japanese lack ethics. This has been known for some time. They really don't value the individual, and they seem to have a preocupation with hummiliating people. Just look at the pr0n that comes from Japan, or the fact that the Japanese killed POW's at a rate 4x that of the Nazi's, or what they did in Korea.
I don't think the Japanese are a people we want to emulate.
The Japs tortured POW's. How does Bushido explain this? What does kendo have to do with mass rape of Koreans? How do you explain away the fixation the Japs have with humiliating women and girls. Japan as a nation is dieing a slow death and their moral lackings are partialy to blame.
Yeah it would kind of be like a real life Mystery Science Theater 3000
"Hence the magazines"?
Heh, if the guy was male, I'm sure he had more uses for those magazines than entering some contests. Remember...he was naked...
JAPAN, THE COUNTRY THAT BROUGHT YOU PEARL HARBOR, NOW BRINGS YOU...NASUBI!!!
Sex and Death. It's harder and harder to shock the public. Watch Ulrika Johansson split the beaver :D
--- Hajotkaa siihen, kapitalistit!
TV-wars. No need to stage combat, we get to see some cool stuff on tv. Always against your favourite dictators. Saddam VS Bush Sr. Saddam VS Clinton. Saddam VS Bush Jr, maybe? It would be cool to see explosions again. We are all sick, don't deny seeing war flare up is cool. If it happens, enjoy it. "Saddam VS Bush Jr, now LIVE on NATO TV! Watch carefully how rockets blow up his palace, this is NATO TV!"
--- Hajotkaa siihen, kapitalistit!
The last one to barf and/or poke out his eyeballs wins a billion dollars!
- Chris Z. Wintrowski -
- Chris Z. Wintrowski -
[ Site ]
I don't know.. the last time I was in France I saw a game show involving a blindfolded man attempting to identify his wife by means of fondling her and several other women's breats. It seems vapid and degrading enough to be Japanese TV. I certainly wouldn't say European TV is immune to stupidity.
We're having McVeigh's execution televised. Execution as entertainment is the ultimate in reality TV, it's also fucking sick and the downfall of all that is supposed to be called human.
I wish I was making up this stuff but I'm not.
At the time I was a teenager, so I didn't see what all the fuss was about. Now I'm in my early 20's, and I can definitely feel the guys' pain. :)
Here's an even better idea... paraphrased from George Carlin.
... you know, guys with the broken chain tatoos on their arms and 'No Fear' stickers on the back of their new pickup trucks? The kind that think Football is the highest of culture? Take all of those 'tough' alpha male scumbags, throw them into a giant room and give them weapons. Let them kill each other, and whoever is the last man standing wins. Afterwards, blow the winners head off with a shotgun ... then show it all live on TV!
Get all these 'Alpha male' types
-- Jim
-- Jim
Well you're worng on the censorship. We have less censorship in Europe, but way better tv. The reason - more money. 1) There are national channels that are paid by taxes, so they don't have to attract viewers with cheap programs like Jerry Springer. 2) There are less programs, that means they can sell the advertisingtime for more, bringing in more money with less commercial breaks. Well maybe the Europeans better culture also enhances the quality :-)
Think about this a second. A litle kid get suspended for making a "gun" gesture, goes home, and watche survivor or x-files or some ultraviolent TV show or movie. Talk about mized messages...
I'm the stranger...posting to
sad that people will degrade themselves for cash
-OR_BraveHeart "there's nothing certain in life except death and taxes"
It's at http://www.killfrog.com! It's actually quite a funny shockwave cartoon series.
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DRM is like antifreeze, to the MPAA/RIAA it's sweet, to the consumers it's poison.