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I'm married into a South Korean family, and from my observation Korean society has less intense version of Japan's social collective mood (IIR it's written as '情' in both countries)

It's really difficult to read about this kind of thing and maintain an appropriate feeling of cultural relativism without wanting go "oh Japan" or in my case "oh Korea". There's been many times with my family and friends a seemingly intractable situation will come up that a Westerner would simply resolve with a bit of a Western Rock'n'Roll "well fuck 'em" attitude and get on with life. As a Westerner, I find it incredibly frustrating at times. But obviously it's more complicated then that and when I try to see things through my family and friend's cultural lens it all makes a kind of sense.

On the flip side, I think lots of Western behavior is explained by an insatiable desire for group membership -- despite social expectations of individuality (especially for Americans).

People do all kinds of weird behaviors, bizarre clique joinerisms like wearing crazy fashions, or obsess over the moment they turn old enough to join the Marines or take on group-specific behavior patterns, and just like with 情 this mood and desire seems indescribable to them (I don't know of any satisfactory word in English for it). But you can go to any public place and look at groups of people who all dress, act and try to be as "the same" as possible as their clique-mates.

And then you end up with the strangest of all joiner group identities, the ones made up of "individuals" who strive obsessively to be "individuals" just exactly like all the rest of their clique-mates. Hipsterism seems to be a particularly well known variant of this, but there are others.

I suspect a similar psychological mechanism is at play, but just on opposite ends of the spectrum.

YMMV, but having seen both the Japanese and Korean sides of the coin, I'd generalize Korea as being more "intense" on all counts: studying even harder, working even longer, endurance being prized even more as a virtue. Although I think both societies are slowly evolving out of this, Japan is just a bit further down the path.

But yes, the let's-all-be-individuals-together cliques are still going strong. Japanese Halloween illustrates this nicely: virtually everybody who dresses up does so in matching groups.

http://tokyofashion.com/halloween-in-japan-shibuya-costumes/

It seems to tap into some kind of deep sub-cultural emotion. I mean, we are social animals and all, but sometimes it gets weird.

https://wedatenerds.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/frat-guys.pn...

I don't disagree at all with Koreans doing things in a particularly intense way. Based on my readings of ancient to modern Korean history it seems to definitely be a fairly modern cultural trait (at least not much older than the occupation).

However, Japan seems to have a very intense cultural relationship with this particular mood. I can't really think of a single k-drama that will spend half the episode with a character fretting about how they may be threatening the social harmony of their group, but I could probably pick a j-drama, anime or manga that does at random. It seems to be an issue Japanese people spend an extraordinary amount of time contemplating, expressing, acting upon, reacting to, watching, evaluating, teaching and thinking about.

It can make consumption of some Japanese media quite interminable for people who don't care.

Koreans definitely study like crazy - probably more than any other country in the world and much more than they should. Many students come home from school only to spend the entire afternoon + evening at cram school in order to "prepare for their future" - which ironically will end up being an average pay desk job.

They definitely work long hours as well and have ridiculously high suicide rates - higher than Japan's and third highest in the world.

> "Then you end up with the strangest of all joiner group identities, the ones made up of "individuals" who strive obsessively to be "individuals" just exactly like all the rest of their clique-mates.

I think you just described the goth scene perfectly :) Though at least some of the goths are hyper aware of it & treat their "I'm like so different" goth uniform as a joke.

On a related note, going to a goth nightclub regularly is one of the best things I ever did. Being around people who are all similarly socially anxious & tending towards introvert/recluse (and with a shared interest in metal / synthpop) helped us all to become dramatically more social creatures.

Weirdly, as an extrovert who had serious social anxiety as a teen, I find that hanging out with people who are still socially awkward and introverted brings me right back to the anxiety I conquered years ago. I think the key factor now is that as an extrovert I give out a lot of social energy and so when I don't receive it back in turn I think I've fucked up or aren't entertaining people and thus it makes me briefly quite self conscious.

Interesting, you've described myself to a tee there. I think your hypothesis is sound, too, as that's what I've always sort of assumed.

Most of that is just culture blindness. Saying all Goth’s look alike is basically saying that all opera’s sound alike.

Objectively clowns costumes have a lot more verity than suits. However, for someone that knows suits they can be rather expressive. That same person might group a clown as 'other' and not bother to parse it past, wig, face paint, and bright clothing.

Hikikomori are also well "networked" online and play the game of who is authentic and who is fake. Perhaps it is as popular as it is because it has become an identity.

I have read a fan translation + to-fiction conversion of a japanese manga about a hikki who died saving other people, ended up in a fantasy world and became successful. The sub-culture is definitely going strong and international.

Mushoku Tensei (Unemployment reincarnation)

And that identity would be otaku?

Welcome to the N.H.K. is an anime that explores Hikikomori.

> to the total exclusion of any third place

There's always Starbucks. I'm only half-joking, there's always people there at all times of the day in Japan.

Well, starbucks was intentionally founded to be a "third place".

That's precisely why I said I was "half joking" :)

I go to Taito Station and play Ultra Street Fighter 4 and/or coffee shops when I don't have much else going on.

Strolling in the konbini or donki and figuring out what I could possibly find that could satiate this vague craving for something that I don't know what it is also works. You never know what you end up, buying, if anything. More often than not something dense in calories and/or containing caffeine or alcohol. Oh consumerism.

I'm from Mexico, and I semi correlate with this.

When I graduated from college, I worked my entire time there and was kind of over stressed/exhausted, so I took a sabatic year. I spent I guess 6 months browsing the web, reading about compilers, and watching video lectures, I just spent time with my mom. My dad started questioning me, but both were very supportive.

After about 6 months, I started to gain weight, so I decided to join a Gym. A pal offered me classes on a local university and things started to move on.

I was very depressed, sad, I didn't want to do anything, literally, I just wanted to sleep. At the end, I took about 16 months in rehabilitation, I grew frustrated of literally doing nothing, and started to work again, first at the family company as a hobby, then as general manager, it really helped me that I've been an entrepeneour since my 16's, and well. things just keeps going.

I really where on a different position than all of this persons, but I acknowledge it's very hard to stand on your feet after a break down. Is like you loss the will to live and you start giving a fuck about everything, friends, family, money, everything.

Returning to the sabatic year. the second part of that sabatic year, was one of the happiest moments on my life, I got a Girlfriend (Denisse), I traveled not a lot, but enough, wasted all the money I've saved from the company I had on college (I developed webpages), but I got some great friends, they were awesome people and I laughed and enjoyed life like never before.

Straightforward to the present time. last year suddenly I felt like the loneliest person on earth, I've been working so hard the last 6 years, that again I didn't had friends at all, I wake up, work, gym, bed. In that order, now I'm in my 30's, still single, I buyed a flat, buyed fourniture, but at the end, I still live with my parents, I just can't handle being alone there. and throught I can say I'm quite succesful, being succesful is not actually a requisite to make friends, a requisite to being friends is being happy, and was again stressed but now I was kind of angry with life too.

I changed gym (I used to go to a sports club rather exclusive, where I couldn't meet new people), joined graduate school, actually I'm studying two master degrees right now, one in applied statistics, and another one in business planification. I also joined new groups in order to meet new people. Things are changing now. Now I've friends againg to hang out on weekends. But damn, I have to make assessments every now and then about my life, and take corrective actions because if I just keep going, it seems that the path always takes me to a depressive life, maybe is my personality, maybe I isolate when I take a challenge (as a programmer, I like to program in isolation, so when I become general manager of the family company, I isolated myself until I took the company to profit again). Nevertheless, the only thing I take for sure is: Damn, life is difficult.

It's tough too because social pressures and norms are much stricter in Japan than elsewhere. This contributes to both the stings of social alienation, and the unwillingness of parents to kick their kids out of the nest.

> to the total exclusion of any third place

there were Arcades, but they pretty much all closed in the nineties

Not here in Japan. I just left as a matter of fact. Lots of people there.

Yep. I'm in Tokyo and they're very common.

Lets bring them back.

This is incredibly on point.