Topic: Japanese life
The Dark Subculture of Japanese Youth
Yo Yahata, Sekai (monthly magazine), Tokyo, Japan, February 2004; From the April 2004 issue of World Press Review (VOL. 51, No. 4)
Recently, there is a growing trend for some young people to lean toward a spirit of something we may call ?the dark.? ....the term ?gloomy old men? (nekura) gained popularity with stand-up comics, and the previously lauded workingmen with brows knit from their laborious efforts fell out of favor and were no longer respected. The worker?s masochism of people who used to believe that ?as long as I endure, someday I?ll be rewarded? has ceased, and I believe that in its place we now have the neo-masochism of young people who tend toward ?the dark.?
....working masochists think that they (the suffering workers) are nobler than those who relax and enjoy their lives. Neo-masochists think they (the innocents) are nobler than the sullied, worldly people.
But the elements they have in common end there. The endurance of the working masochists soon changes into resentment. The intensity of this identification as a victim tends to put distance between the masochists and the people around them.
The neo-masochists who expose their bleeding wrists in public are unlikely to ask, ?Who put me in this situation??
