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Hikikomori: The Postmodern Hermits of Japan

194 points by marsrover 10y ago

robobro 10y ago
site appears to be down...
Animats 10y ago
This ties in with yesterday's article about young people staying home and playing video games. The article mentions "Welcome to the NHK"[1], which is an unusually bitter anime. [1] http://www.gogoanime.to/welcome-to-the-nhk-episode-1 http://www.gogoanime.to/welcome-to-the-nhk-episode-1
- flyingfences 10y ago
  While there are much better sites than gogo for watching anime (Flash? ugh), I absolutely second the recommendation to check out Welcome to the NHK.
  - lerax 10y ago
    Welcome to the NHK is the nightmare and the messias of all hikikomoris. Awesome drama and funny too. +1 for this recommendation
  - rm_-rf_slash 10y ago
    I also recommend it, and this is one of the rare animes where I can say I actually prefer the English dub over subtitles due to the raucous and raunchy nature of the series. Although in my opinion the plot went completely off the rails by episode 6 and failed to recapture its original charm at every bizarre twist and turn. Either way, I still watched it through to the end.
  - manveru 10y ago
    Check out animeftw
    - astrange 10y ago
      If you're going to pirate anime, please don't do it on a streaming site with ads.
      - ihuman 10y ago
        Unless you use adblock, there isn't a pirate streaming service for anime that doesn't have ads. Even the non-streaming bittorrent trackers have ads. How can you pay for a server to host anime if pirates are trying to avoid paying money?
        astrange 10y ago
        Some of them run on goodwill, it's not very expensive to host a tracker. Nyaa runs on JList ads.
- Red_Tarsius 10y ago
  Hikikomori is also a minor phenomenon in Italy. It seems that a positive family environment, unchecked Internet consumption and bleak job prospects play a major role. Welcome to NHK is inspired by a much sadder book, but the anime captures the hikikomori mindset well enough.
  - sdrothrock 10y ago
    > It seems that a positive family environment This alone seems to suggest that the Italian version may be completely different; hikikomori isolate themselves from their families as well, which is one of the very weird traits about it for Japanese people.
    - Jtsummers 10y ago
      Is a negative family environment common/typical/frequent for the hikikomori?
      - hkmurakami 10y ago
        It's the overprotective and overcaring parents who enable this behavior in the first place.
        brilliantcode 10y ago
        I disagree. It's the cultural reaction of being self-resilient and maintaining face against the structural pressures that capitalism presents in economies that started to stagnate since the early 90s. The evidence I see to support the observation above is the recent rise of "Wae To Ri" in South Korea since the economy started to stagnate post Asian Financial crisis. It's identical to hikkikomori. I see this in other economically stagnant European countries as well, for example in Spain or Portugal where 1/2 young people are unemployed.
        mixedCase 10y ago
        > It's the cultural reaction of being self-resilient and maintaining face against the structural pressures that capitalism presents in economies that started to stagnate since the early 90s. Or maybe the kid simply has been pampered all his life and has never been properly incentivized at working towards independence. Occam's razor and all.
- ihuman 10y ago
  Which article are you talking about? I've tried using HN's search to find it, but my google-fu is failing me.
  - killwhitey 10y ago
    https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13890782 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13890782
- ue_ 10y ago
  >The article mentions "Welcome to the NHK"[1], which is an unusually bitter anime. Say what you will, but I found it to be excellent.
  - Analemma_ 10y ago
    I mean, I think you're both right. It was "excellent" in the way that Requiem for a Dream was excellent; i.e., it was excellent and I never want to watch it again.
    - mos_basik 10y ago
      Is your username a reference to Stephenson's Anathem? If so, and given your assessment of Requiem for a Dream, I probably have very similar tastes as you and might have to actually watch Welcome to the NHK in the near future.
      - Analemma_ 10y ago
        It is! I mean, sort of. The word "analemma" predates the book ;) but that's where I got it.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
salich 10y ago
I appreciate the article--I spent about a year as kind of hikikomori. Nevertheless I feel the need to make some minor critiques...I feel the author makes a number of small errors in trying to prove their point. For example, the author says: "The Hikikomori phenomenon is now finding a form of narrative legitimacy in cinema, manga and pop culture. It is creating its own iconography. The novel Welcome to NHK (acronym for Nihon Hikikomori Kyōkai or The Japanese Hikikomori Association) plays with the name of Japan national broadcasting giant (NHK) and a story of a conspiracy to create the Hikikomori. The novel became a manga series and a twenty-four episodes anime series. Since then Hikikomori characters multiplied in anime and manga: Rozen Maiden, Serial Experiments Lain, Tatami Galaxy, Anohana: The Flower We Saw That Day, to name a few." Welcome to the NHK is a novel from 2002, and the anime came out in 2006 iirc, so "now finding a form of narrative legitimacy" is maybe a bit disingenuous...and Serial Experiments Lain, which is from 1998, predated it and to my mind more properly fits alongside other cyberpunk meditations on technology and identity (interestingly, though, there is an 2channel-styled imageboard that has adopted Lain as its mascot). Similarly, I don't think someone would watch Tatami Galaxy or AnoHana and come away from those thinking that the "dominant theme" is about hikikomori-ness. At least, I didn't. You could certainly contest these points, though--the author's method of speeding through points that, if more properly explored, might not fit so cleanly into the essay's thrust, just left a bad taste in my mouth. Just my 2c. It just crossed my mind that the American writer Tao Lin makes a number of explicit references to this lifestyle in his work; he has an ebook called "Hikikomori", which I haven't read, and his novels almost always have the main character spending days or months not really talking to anyone, feeling depressed, and just "doing things" on the internet. He has a book coming out in the future called "Leave Society". If anyone knows of other American authors who treat this topic, would be interested. I feel like it has certainly come up in literature, just not under this name.
- roymurdock 10y ago
  DFW examines this phenomenon, obtusely, in Infinite Jest. None of his characters are Hikikomori (and honestly a book about someone sitting around and doing nothing sounds a tad boring and self-absorbed, but I'll have to read Leave Society to find out), but they are all forced to deal with a world over saturated with drugs, politics, sex, tennis, and the TV/video media. Orin, the main character's older brother, becomes a semi-recluse/sociopath, which is the closest character to an explicit Hikikomori DFW paints in the book. The other major characters rely on other forms of relief to cope with their anxiety, depression, family issues, etc. DFW wrote Infinite Jest in 1996 before the internet truly took over. I'd love to see another book tackle the issues and repercussions of internet-soaked culture the way DFW tackled the nature of addiction in Infinite Jest.
chobytes 10y ago
i was a bit of a hiki for awhile as a teen. i didnt goto HS or anything, i just stayed in my room and sat on 4chan for years. for me i think it was that the combination of some unmedicated mental issues i didnt know i had yet, and a bad family situation, had left me barely able to cope with being alive. on the bright side i got my start with tech/programming/etc with all that free time. thanks /g/ haha
- Pfiffer 10y ago
  tidas thrad
- brilliantcode 10y ago
  I guess when I was working on my SaaS, I was in a similar situation for a few years. I didn't have any social interactions. Just coding and peddling monthly subscriptions for years and years. Were there underlying issues that drove me to such extremes? I think so. But I really thought that I could pull it off.
chridal 10y ago
I just saw https://youtu.be/Jyfnl8K8fJM https://youtu.be/Jyfnl8K8fJM which covers this topic quite well
brilliantcode 10y ago
I feel like this is the future for tomorrow's generation. As artificial intelligence's economies of scale proves to be far more seductive than exploiting human labor, unskilled white/blue collar labor will disappear. As jobs become scarce like they have become in Japan and Korea, intense competition will inevitably produce 'losers'. Losers in the context of a structural pressure imposed on those that fail to keep up. I feel like there's a connection between neo-Confucian societies and hikkikomori. It's also a rising phenomenon in South Korea.
- Florin_Andrei 10y ago
  How about the United States, where a person's value depends to a large extent on the amount of money they make, and "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" is the prevailing mentality?
  - cell303 10y ago
    saw this recently on HN: Men not at work: Why so many men aged 25 to 54 are not working[1]. I know that "not working" and "not leaving your bedroom" are differnt things, but maybe that's what makes it "American". [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13795397 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13795397
    - Florin_Andrei 10y ago
      A really interesting question: Let's assume that AI does explode, and it does obsolete jobs like a steamroller in a glass sculpture exhibition. Which culture is best prepared, by its nature, to face the tremendous tsunami of unemployment in a way that minimizes overall suffering and leads to the best long-term outcome? Take your pick from: american "bootstraps culture", asian post-confucianism, west european "humane capitalism", east european post-communism, south asian (okay: indian) semi-socialism, etc, etc. P.S.: The designations are a little bit tongue in cheek, don't take them literally.
      - noisy_boy 10y ago
kerbalspacepro 10y ago
I didn't read Escape to Another World[0] until today, but it has a similar point. Could it be that the West, as has been the case in other areas, is following the same path as Japan as it turns around the demographic transition? Does Japan have the same pseudo-sociopathic self-help movements that grew up in the US in response to people leaving society? [0] https://www.1843magazine.com/features/escape-to-another-world https://www.1843magazine.com/features/escape-to-another-worl...
wje 10y ago
There's a solo RPG titled after the phenomenon that, I feel, pretty well captures he idea and feeling of being a hiki. It's a kind of 'week in the life' game, where the narrative occurs entirely in the form of journal entries that you write to make sense of your rolls. Very chilling, in some playthroughs. http://dsg.neko-machi.com/hikikomori.pdf http://dsg.neko-machi.com/hikikomori.pdf
- stagbeetle 10y ago
  I was excited for a moment, but then I saw the PDF. This is a tabletop RPG not a regular RPG usually connotated as a video game. Nonetheless, it's still pretty interesting.
  - aidenn0 10y ago
    Probably a generational difference, but RPG definitely doesn't imply video game to me. Back when I was young, I saw CRPG (Computer RPG) used for bards-tale style games, and JRPG (Japanese RPG) used for DQ style games. I haven't seen CRPG used since the late 90s, but JRPG is sometimes still seen. While we're discussing RPG terminology, more serious players of systems that do not place emphasis on tactical combat might also object to the term "tabletop" as a catchall for the non-computer RPGs, as that term historically refers to RPGs with roots in tactical war-games, such as D&D (though you do need some place to put your wine glass for a truly authentic of "The Extraordinary Adventurse of Baron Muchausesn").
  - WorldMaker 10y ago
    Different people have different expectations. I have friends that still insist videogame RPGs be called CRPGs, because they are the younger upstart and tabletop the original.
- jmcgough 10y ago
  There's also Yume Nikki, which is surreal and fascinating, about a hikikomori girl who travels through her dreams. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yume_Nikki https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yume_Nikki
tn13 10y ago
This might be just an oriental way of living. I am not sure why researchers are hell bent on classifying almost anything as some kind of mental issue. I frequently stepped out of workspace to grab a hot coffee and my psychologist friend told me that drinking hot beverages frequently is a person's way of coping to the lack of emotional warmth in life by replacing it with material warmth!
- wallacoloo 10y ago
  I think it's more that these roles seem to prefer studying phenomena from an outside point of view - some believe that by immersing themselves in the culture, they would lose their objectivity (also, this appears to be a particularly difficult culture to immerse oneself in, as by the definition presented in this article, having deep social interactions with a Hikikomori makes him/her less of a Hikikomori). I think really the key is to work your way into the place where you can relate to the people you're studying, but still understand the person you were before / the status quo.
  - xkxx 10y ago
    > (also, this appears to be a particularly difficult culture to immerse oneself in, as by the definition presented in this article, having deep social interactions with a Hikikomori makes him/her less of a Hikikomori) Anonymous communication doesn't count as "social interactions". Imageboards are where the hikikomori culture thrives. I doubt many would remain hikkis if they were deprived of internet access.
- ThrowawayR2 10y ago
  > This might be just an oriental way of living. If that were true, why are there increasing instances of the same phenomenon in Western nations?
TorKlingberg 10y ago
I have a theory about Western and Japanese nerds. It's not really worked through, so don't get too angry if something is wrong. In the western, and especially American, stereotypical school environment of the '90s, the bookish nerds were social outcasts and bullied. There was a strong connection between nerdyness, not fitting in and intelligence. The nerds sat at home and learned programming on their own. Of course it turned out intelligence is very useful. The nerds ended up producing a lot of valuable things, such as much of the internet. In Japan, there wasn't the same too-cool-for-school attitude, and the smart kids did alright socially. Good for them, but it meant they didn't spend their high school and college years programming alone. That eventually hurt the Japanese tech industry, who couldn't just hire self-taught programmers and had to wait for the school system to figure it out or teach their employees to program from scratch. Back in school, there will always be social outcasts of course, but in Japan, the average "nerd" was no more intelligent than people in general, maybe the opposite. I think they were more artistic than their western counterpart. The Japanese nerd-sphere were making amazing amateur manga (dōjinshi) back when art on the western web was little more than scribbles in Ms Paint. Sadly for them, making manga porn doesn't pay like programming. With no way to support themselves and no social status, the Hikikomori hide from the outside world. What makes all this interesting for us is that the west appears to follow in Japan's tracks. Today's high school students are much more diligent and better behaved than 20-30 years ago. Meanwhile nerd culture isn't as intellectual any more. Japan has a group of online right-wingers that love to harass opponents. They are called netto-uyoku and are just like the alt-right, except they appeared a decade earlier, and their racism is directed at Koreans and Chinese. I have no doubt we will see a wave of Hikikomori in the west. They may be different. Maybe they will live alone and survive on delivery food instead of living with their parents.
- WalterSear 10y ago
  No parents, no hikikomori. America's is more likely to have rampant homelessness, particularly as boomer parents start to hit peak insolvency.
  - TorKlingberg 10y ago
    At least in Japan, that hasn't happened. The homeless and semi-homeless are an entirely separate group of mostly 50+ (former) construction workers and day laborers. The hikikomori-likes who cannot live with their parents stay in manga cafes that offer cheap overnight rates for a comfy chair and a PC in a booth. They need some kind of job to pay for it, but not much.
navs 10y ago
I sure found that article difficult to read. Considering it was done by someone with a PhD in Literature, I guess it's just me. Welcome to the NHK was a great watch. Someone would call it terribly depressing but surely not to the degree of Elfen Lied or Neon Genesis Evangelion. The author mentions: > An identikit of an average Hikikomori: likely a school dropout, may or may not have specific skills, most likely unemployed unless he has an online gig of sort, lives in his room in his parents' house, never steps out of the house, spends the day daydreaming, reading, roaming the internet, flipping TV channels, floating in his room. It's comfortable being at home, especially your family home. I could spend all day reading online, offline, watching adultswim's marathon streams or just taking naps. When I walk outside the safety of my home I meet people that are different from me. These people don't speak by reciting lines from early Simpsons episodes. These people don't think my jokes are funny. These people don't talk about the things I like to talk about. The Internet solves this. Reddit gives me subs. IRC gives me channels. Twitter gives me the ability to follow only those that interest me. I'm able to be someone else online, the best extension of me or the me that I want seen. Now if my parents continue to pay and let me stay at home, I'll do just that. Eventually, that routine will be too difficult to break. In my darkest moments, I thought exactly that. It was simply easier and more comfortable being at home and socializing online. When I read articles like these I relate and think back to those dire moments when my room had a leaning tower of pizza boxes and I hadn't showered in over a month.
- sillysaurus3 10y ago
  So what happened?
  - navs 10y ago
    You can only deal with the smell of stale pizza and unwashed armpits for so long. Before I completely let that lifestyle consume me, I decided to seek help and reached out to my local District Health Board. Now I am still a bit of a recluse but I make it a point to physically leave the house and exercise at the gym. Going to and running local Meetups via Meetup.com helps with socializing. The local library allows me to pick and read books outside of home and be surrounded by people, quiet but nonetheless present. Medication also helps and continues to give me a wee boost. It is surprising, though, how easy it is to slip back into that comfortable sleeve. A few weeks back UberEATS launched in New Zealand. It was also raining terribly with thunderstorms and the like. That was all I needed to spend two days tucked in bed with empty UberEATS bags and the sound of Space Ghost playing continuously off my laptop. If it hadn't been for my physical trainer messaging me on the Monday to remind me of training, I'd have stayed in that bed a good while longer.
pmoriarty 10y ago
I strongly object to insinuation that people who are socially isolated and dependent in the physical world are almost by definition wasting their lives. Not everyone's spending their online lives doing nothing but surfing porn and Facebook. They could have very rich online lives, where they are able to socialize - even very freely, competently, and confidently. They could be very creative online, or learning, producing, and contributing to all sorts of projects, from open source programming, bug fixing, or documenting to contributing to projects like Wikipedia to creating art or music, and so on. They could have many friends online, or perhaps the focus of a scholar. They could even be helping others on all sorts of online forums. What's missing is the ability to support themselves and the lack of friends or a support network in the physical world. But what a lot of people from the old, mostly physical-only world miss is that the virtual world can often be as rich or sometimes even richer, more full of potential and free of limits than the physical world. All sorts of achievements and connections are possible to a much greater extent virtually than physically. Many people can find social and emotional connections, creative and productive fulfilment, and a great education online, where they could have many problems in the physical world. That's not always or necessarily a pathology. It's an expansion of possibilities, which are sometimes negative, but not always or necessarily so, and sometimes can be positive, growth-promoting, and can even lead to more physical contact -- as when someone who's active online find a kindred spirit online and then continues the relationship in person. I'd love for there to be more research on how modern hermits spend their time online, rather than always fixating on a pathological interpretation of the choice of being solitary.
- digi_owl 10y ago
  The western world is very obsessed with face time. Likely because those at the top are very good at it.
- clouddrover 10y ago
  > All sorts of achievements and connections are possible to a much greater extent virtually than physically. Like what? In any case, I don't think it matters much if you can't support yourself. If the achievements and connections don't translate to scope and agency then what are they worth? It's certainly possible to do something worthwhile, generally fail in life, and only have the value of your work recognised after your death. This has happened to many artists who are now regarded as greats in their fields. But I think the online world makes it too easy to delude yourself into thinking what you're doing is worthwhile when in fact it isn't. So much of the online world is premised on feedback loops and empty rewards, like levels in games or even karma points on Hacker News. You get "praised" by these systems just for using them. It can become an addiction like gambling can become an addiction. It becomes easy to lose perspective and waste time pursuing something that is ultimately valueless. You gave the example of helping others in online forums. Let's say that's, for example, helping people with Microsoft Windows. I'd say all you're doing in that case is taking on the cost of Microsoft's software support. You're making the cost of doing business cheaper for Microsoft with no real return for yourself. Altruism is good, but I think too many people do it at too much cost to themselves. In the end, if the expansion of possibilities doesn't result in real world returns then I think they cannot be called opportunities. They must be recognised as merely distractions.
greggman 10y ago
This article bugged me. It seems like a Columbine style which hunt. Some people killed some other people. The killers played video games. Therefore beware evil video games. In this case it was some people killed some other people. Those people were hikkikomori. Therefore hikkikomori equals latent murderer. There were lots of other stereotypes, judgements, misunderstandings etc... It felt very much over sensationalized, exaggerated, and wrong on so many levels
BrailleHunting 10y ago
Related topic: https://news.vice.com/video/schoolgirls-for-sale-in-japan https://news.vice.com/video/schoolgirls-for-sale-in-japan
deskglass 10y ago
Gwern discusses this in his essay at https://www.gwern.net/The%20Melancholy%20of%20Subculture%20Society https://www.gwern.net/The%20Melancholy%20of%20Subculture%20S... He makes an interesting point that by withdrawing from larger society into sub cultures, people can return to dealing with groups of a size our minds are more comfortable with. It's the same reason small towns are (I hear) less socially stressful. I am not convinced though. In larger society I end up dealing with relatively small groups anyway - friends, family, and co-workers. It seems pretty straight-forward that people would want focus on their interests and spend their time communicating with people that share those interests. It's definitely unfair and unfortunate that other people end up supporting them financially. With that said, we'll eventually have to come to terms with vast numbers of people not being economically productive anyway. People will have to do something. Withdrawing from society at large in favor of the parts of it that interest them seems like a fine choice.
- rustynails 10y ago
  "It's the same reason small towns are (I hear) less socially stressful. I am not convinced though. In larger society I end up dealing with relatively small groups anyway - friends, family, and co-workers." There's a fundamental difference. In a small town, most of the people around you are usually known to you and friendly. In a bigger town, you tend not to know/trust more people directly around you. Kids spend much less time at the local park and more time indoors. I wrote a posting recently talking about social pressures of our modern day and part of my post was comparing the communities around us today vs 50 years ago. I'm lucky that I live in a suburb where I know many people around me. My friends (who don't live locally) and extended family are both surprised and envious at how lucky we are being surrounded by friendly and generous people. Frequently popping in, bringing home made cakes, jams etc. I love it! As an example, I had a neighbour bring my wife some flowers recently for no particular reason. I am fairly certain that our modern lifestyles and socialisation with neighbours is far more stressful than it used to be, judging by most people I know.
fallingfrog 10y ago
Alienation, atomization of communities, and commoditization of people are features of capitalism, not bugs. Just saying.
- pottersbasilisk 10y ago
  Sad, and socialism and communism has starvation and death. The god of biomechanics is too cruel.
  - fallingfrog 10y ago
    Totalitarian communism is not the only alternative to capitalism.
a-guest 10y ago
Escape from reality is not limited to culture, race, economic background, or a society's technological advancement; it has always been a part of the human condition. In modern times, a unique form of escape presents itself with great force in affluent societies, even though the "escape artist" him/her-self need not live in an affluent environment. The escape artist requires these basics: (1) shelter, however primitive, (2) a food source, and (3) either a television (TV), video games (VG), or internet connection (IC). TV/VG/IC is the escape mechanism, and the escape artist, whether he/she stays in the 4 walls of his/her room or occasionally ventures out, lives in the confines of his/her escape world. Perhaps we can consider aspects of "Hikikomori" as a uniquely Japanese manifestation of this condition, mingling itself in fascinating fashion with Japanese cultural nuances. Thought experiments: Would Boo Radley have been a hikikomori if he lived in Kyoto rather than Maycomb, Alabama? What are the differences and similarities between: (1) a hikikomori living in Kyoto, (2) a person living in inner city Detroit, MI, living from welfare check to welfare check and watching TV 16 hours a day, and (3) a college dropout living with his parents in suburbia and watching TV 16 hours a day? In what ways is a hikikomori who programs different than the TV/VG/IC escape artist? Would Boo Radley have saved Jem and Scout Finch in "To Kill a Mockingbird" if he had been playing video games 16 hours a day? Find two studies whose authors claim watching television: develops a sense of wonder, encourages critical thought, benefits interpersonal relationship skills, solidifies familial bonds, promotes physical well-being, reduces the objectivization of persons, cures depression, increases patience and self-control, reduces sense of entitlement, grows positive self-worth, and decreases worry, sense of isolation, and self-pity. Next, find studies coming to the opposite conclusion.

194 points by marsrover 10y ago

site appears to be down...

This ties in with yesterday's article about young people staying home and playing video games. The article mentions "Welcome to the NHK"[1], which is an unusually bitter anime. [1] http://www.gogoanime.to/welcome-to-the-nhk-episode-1 http://www.gogoanime.to/welcome-to-the-nhk-episode-1

flyingfences 10y ago
While there are much better sites than gogo for watching anime (Flash? ugh), I absolutely second the recommendation to check out Welcome to the NHK.
- lerax 10y ago
  Welcome to the NHK is the nightmare and the messias of all hikikomoris. Awesome drama and funny too. +1 for this recommendation
- rm_-rf_slash 10y ago
  I also recommend it, and this is one of the rare animes where I can say I actually prefer the English dub over subtitles due to the raucous and raunchy nature of the series. Although in my opinion the plot went completely off the rails by episode 6 and failed to recapture its original charm at every bizarre twist and turn. Either way, I still watched it through to the end.
- manveru 10y ago
  Check out animeftw
  - astrange 10y ago
    If you're going to pirate anime, please don't do it on a streaming site with ads.
    - ihuman 10y ago
      Unless you use adblock, there isn't a pirate streaming service for anime that doesn't have ads. Even the non-streaming bittorrent trackers have ads. How can you pay for a server to host anime if pirates are trying to avoid paying money?
      - astrange 10y ago
        Some of them run on goodwill, it's not very expensive to host a tracker. Nyaa runs on JList ads.
Red_Tarsius 10y ago
Hikikomori is also a minor phenomenon in Italy. It seems that a positive family environment, unchecked Internet consumption and bleak job prospects play a major role. Welcome to NHK is inspired by a much sadder book, but the anime captures the hikikomori mindset well enough.
- sdrothrock 10y ago
  > It seems that a positive family environment This alone seems to suggest that the Italian version may be completely different; hikikomori isolate themselves from their families as well, which is one of the very weird traits about it for Japanese people.
  - Jtsummers 10y ago
    Is a negative family environment common/typical/frequent for the hikikomori?
    - hkmurakami 10y ago
      It's the overprotective and overcaring parents who enable this behavior in the first place.
      - brilliantcode 10y ago
        I disagree. It's the cultural reaction of being self-resilient and maintaining face against the structural pressures that capitalism presents in economies that started to stagnate since the early 90s. The evidence I see to support the observation above is the recent rise of "Wae To Ri" in South Korea since the economy started to stagnate post Asian Financial crisis. It's identical to hikkikomori. I see this in other economically stagnant European countries as well, for example in Spain or Portugal where 1/2 young people are unemployed.
        mixedCase 10y ago
        > It's the cultural reaction of being self-resilient and maintaining face against the structural pressures that capitalism presents in economies that started to stagnate since the early 90s. Or maybe the kid simply has been pampered all his life and has never been properly incentivized at working towards independence. Occam's razor and all.
ihuman 10y ago
Which article are you talking about? I've tried using HN's search to find it, but my google-fu is failing me.
- killwhitey 10y ago
  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13890782 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13890782
ue_ 10y ago
>The article mentions "Welcome to the NHK"[1], which is an unusually bitter anime. Say what you will, but I found it to be excellent.
- Analemma_ 10y ago
  I mean, I think you're both right. It was "excellent" in the way that Requiem for a Dream was excellent; i.e., it was excellent and I never want to watch it again.
  - mos_basik 10y ago
    Is your username a reference to Stephenson's Anathem? If so, and given your assessment of Requiem for a Dream, I probably have very similar tastes as you and might have to actually watch Welcome to the NHK in the near future.
    - Analemma_ 10y ago
      It is! I mean, sort of. The word "analemma" predates the book ;) but that's where I got it.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

salich 10y ago

I appreciate the article--I spent about a year as kind of hikikomori. Nevertheless I feel the need to make some minor critiques...I feel the author makes a number of small errors in trying to prove their point. For example, the author says: "The Hikikomori phenomenon is now finding a form of narrative legitimacy in cinema, manga and pop culture. It is creating its own iconography. The novel Welcome to NHK (acronym for Nihon Hikikomori Kyōkai or The Japanese Hikikomori Association) plays with the name of Japan national broadcasting giant (NHK) and a story of a conspiracy to create the Hikikomori. The novel became a manga series and a twenty-four episodes anime series. Since then Hikikomori characters multiplied in anime and manga: Rozen Maiden, Serial Experiments Lain, Tatami Galaxy, Anohana: The Flower We Saw That Day, to name a few." Welcome to the NHK is a novel from 2002, and the anime came out in 2006 iirc, so "now finding a form of narrative legitimacy" is maybe a bit disingenuous...and Serial Experiments Lain, which is from 1998, predated it and to my mind more properly fits alongside other cyberpunk meditations on technology and identity (interestingly, though, there is an 2channel-styled imageboard that has adopted Lain as its mascot). Similarly, I don't think someone would watch Tatami Galaxy or AnoHana and come away from those thinking that the "dominant theme" is about hikikomori-ness. At least, I didn't. You could certainly contest these points, though--the author's method of speeding through points that, if more properly explored, might not fit so cleanly into the essay's thrust, just left a bad taste in my mouth. Just my 2c. It just crossed my mind that the American writer Tao Lin makes a number of explicit references to this lifestyle in his work; he has an ebook called "Hikikomori", which I haven't read, and his novels almost always have the main character spending days or months not really talking to anyone, feeling depressed, and just "doing things" on the internet. He has a book coming out in the future called "Leave Society". If anyone knows of other American authors who treat this topic, would be interested. I feel like it has certainly come up in literature, just not under this name.

roymurdock 10y ago
DFW examines this phenomenon, obtusely, in Infinite Jest. None of his characters are Hikikomori (and honestly a book about someone sitting around and doing nothing sounds a tad boring and self-absorbed, but I'll have to read Leave Society to find out), but they are all forced to deal with a world over saturated with drugs, politics, sex, tennis, and the TV/video media. Orin, the main character's older brother, becomes a semi-recluse/sociopath, which is the closest character to an explicit Hikikomori DFW paints in the book. The other major characters rely on other forms of relief to cope with their anxiety, depression, family issues, etc. DFW wrote Infinite Jest in 1996 before the internet truly took over. I'd love to see another book tackle the issues and repercussions of internet-soaked culture the way DFW tackled the nature of addiction in Infinite Jest.

chobytes 10y ago

i was a bit of a hiki for awhile as a teen. i didnt goto HS or anything, i just stayed in my room and sat on 4chan for years. for me i think it was that the combination of some unmedicated mental issues i didnt know i had yet, and a bad family situation, had left me barely able to cope with being alive. on the bright side i got my start with tech/programming/etc with all that free time. thanks /g/ haha

Pfiffer 10y ago
tidas thrad
brilliantcode 10y ago
I guess when I was working on my SaaS, I was in a similar situation for a few years. I didn't have any social interactions. Just coding and peddling monthly subscriptions for years and years. Were there underlying issues that drove me to such extremes? I think so. But I really thought that I could pull it off.

chridal 10y ago

I just saw https://youtu.be/Jyfnl8K8fJM https://youtu.be/Jyfnl8K8fJM which covers this topic quite well

brilliantcode 10y ago

I feel like this is the future for tomorrow's generation. As artificial intelligence's economies of scale proves to be far more seductive than exploiting human labor, unskilled white/blue collar labor will disappear. As jobs become scarce like they have become in Japan and Korea, intense competition will inevitably produce 'losers'. Losers in the context of a structural pressure imposed on those that fail to keep up. I feel like there's a connection between neo-Confucian societies and hikkikomori. It's also a rising phenomenon in South Korea.

Florin_Andrei 10y ago
How about the United States, where a person's value depends to a large extent on the amount of money they make, and "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" is the prevailing mentality?
- cell303 10y ago
  saw this recently on HN: Men not at work: Why so many men aged 25 to 54 are not working[1]. I know that "not working" and "not leaving your bedroom" are differnt things, but maybe that's what makes it "American". [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13795397 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13795397
  - Florin_Andrei 10y ago
    A really interesting question: Let's assume that AI does explode, and it does obsolete jobs like a steamroller in a glass sculpture exhibition. Which culture is best prepared, by its nature, to face the tremendous tsunami of unemployment in a way that minimizes overall suffering and leads to the best long-term outcome? Take your pick from: american "bootstraps culture", asian post-confucianism, west european "humane capitalism", east european post-communism, south asian (okay: indian) semi-socialism, etc, etc. P.S.: The designations are a little bit tongue in cheek, don't take them literally.
    - noisy_boy 10y ago

kerbalspacepro 10y ago

I didn't read Escape to Another World[0] until today, but it has a similar point. Could it be that the West, as has been the case in other areas, is following the same path as Japan as it turns around the demographic transition? Does Japan have the same pseudo-sociopathic self-help movements that grew up in the US in response to people leaving society? [0] https://www.1843magazine.com/features/escape-to-another-world https://www.1843magazine.com/features/escape-to-another-worl...

wje 10y ago

There's a solo RPG titled after the phenomenon that, I feel, pretty well captures he idea and feeling of being a hiki. It's a kind of 'week in the life' game, where the narrative occurs entirely in the form of journal entries that you write to make sense of your rolls. Very chilling, in some playthroughs. http://dsg.neko-machi.com/hikikomori.pdf http://dsg.neko-machi.com/hikikomori.pdf

stagbeetle 10y ago
I was excited for a moment, but then I saw the PDF. This is a tabletop RPG not a regular RPG usually connotated as a video game. Nonetheless, it's still pretty interesting.
- aidenn0 10y ago
  Probably a generational difference, but RPG definitely doesn't imply video game to me. Back when I was young, I saw CRPG (Computer RPG) used for bards-tale style games, and JRPG (Japanese RPG) used for DQ style games. I haven't seen CRPG used since the late 90s, but JRPG is sometimes still seen. While we're discussing RPG terminology, more serious players of systems that do not place emphasis on tactical combat might also object to the term "tabletop" as a catchall for the non-computer RPGs, as that term historically refers to RPGs with roots in tactical war-games, such as D&D (though you do need some place to put your wine glass for a truly authentic of "The Extraordinary Adventurse of Baron Muchausesn").
- WorldMaker 10y ago
  Different people have different expectations. I have friends that still insist videogame RPGs be called CRPGs, because they are the younger upstart and tabletop the original.
jmcgough 10y ago
There's also Yume Nikki, which is surreal and fascinating, about a hikikomori girl who travels through her dreams. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yume_Nikki https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yume_Nikki

tn13 10y ago

This might be just an oriental way of living. I am not sure why researchers are hell bent on classifying almost anything as some kind of mental issue. I frequently stepped out of workspace to grab a hot coffee and my psychologist friend told me that drinking hot beverages frequently is a person's way of coping to the lack of emotional warmth in life by replacing it with material warmth!

wallacoloo 10y ago
I think it's more that these roles seem to prefer studying phenomena from an outside point of view - some believe that by immersing themselves in the culture, they would lose their objectivity (also, this appears to be a particularly difficult culture to immerse oneself in, as by the definition presented in this article, having deep social interactions with a Hikikomori makes him/her less of a Hikikomori). I think really the key is to work your way into the place where you can relate to the people you're studying, but still understand the person you were before / the status quo.
- xkxx 10y ago
  > (also, this appears to be a particularly difficult culture to immerse oneself in, as by the definition presented in this article, having deep social interactions with a Hikikomori makes him/her less of a Hikikomori) Anonymous communication doesn't count as "social interactions". Imageboards are where the hikikomori culture thrives. I doubt many would remain hikkis if they were deprived of internet access.
ThrowawayR2 10y ago
> This might be just an oriental way of living. If that were true, why are there increasing instances of the same phenomenon in Western nations?

TorKlingberg 10y ago

I have a theory about Western and Japanese nerds. It's not really worked through, so don't get too angry if something is wrong. In the western, and especially American, stereotypical school environment of the '90s, the bookish nerds were social outcasts and bullied. There was a strong connection between nerdyness, not fitting in and intelligence. The nerds sat at home and learned programming on their own. Of course it turned out intelligence is very useful. The nerds ended up producing a lot of valuable things, such as much of the internet. In Japan, there wasn't the same too-cool-for-school attitude, and the smart kids did alright socially. Good for them, but it meant they didn't spend their high school and college years programming alone. That eventually hurt the Japanese tech industry, who couldn't just hire self-taught programmers and had to wait for the school system to figure it out or teach their employees to program from scratch. Back in school, there will always be social outcasts of course, but in Japan, the average "nerd" was no more intelligent than people in general, maybe the opposite. I think they were more artistic than their western counterpart. The Japanese nerd-sphere were making amazing amateur manga (dōjinshi) back when art on the western web was little more than scribbles in Ms Paint. Sadly for them, making manga porn doesn't pay like programming. With no way to support themselves and no social status, the Hikikomori hide from the outside world. What makes all this interesting for us is that the west appears to follow in Japan's tracks. Today's high school students are much more diligent and better behaved than 20-30 years ago. Meanwhile nerd culture isn't as intellectual any more. Japan has a group of online right-wingers that love to harass opponents. They are called netto-uyoku and are just like the alt-right, except they appeared a decade earlier, and their racism is directed at Koreans and Chinese. I have no doubt we will see a wave of Hikikomori in the west. They may be different. Maybe they will live alone and survive on delivery food instead of living with their parents.

WalterSear 10y ago
No parents, no hikikomori. America's is more likely to have rampant homelessness, particularly as boomer parents start to hit peak insolvency.
- TorKlingberg 10y ago
  At least in Japan, that hasn't happened. The homeless and semi-homeless are an entirely separate group of mostly 50+ (former) construction workers and day laborers. The hikikomori-likes who cannot live with their parents stay in manga cafes that offer cheap overnight rates for a comfy chair and a PC in a booth. They need some kind of job to pay for it, but not much.

navs 10y ago

I sure found that article difficult to read. Considering it was done by someone with a PhD in Literature, I guess it's just me. Welcome to the NHK was a great watch. Someone would call it terribly depressing but surely not to the degree of Elfen Lied or Neon Genesis Evangelion. The author mentions: > An identikit of an average Hikikomori: likely a school dropout, may or may not have specific skills, most likely unemployed unless he has an online gig of sort, lives in his room in his parents' house, never steps out of the house, spends the day daydreaming, reading, roaming the internet, flipping TV channels, floating in his room. It's comfortable being at home, especially your family home. I could spend all day reading online, offline, watching adultswim's marathon streams or just taking naps. When I walk outside the safety of my home I meet people that are different from me. These people don't speak by reciting lines from early Simpsons episodes. These people don't think my jokes are funny. These people don't talk about the things I like to talk about. The Internet solves this. Reddit gives me subs. IRC gives me channels. Twitter gives me the ability to follow only those that interest me. I'm able to be someone else online, the best extension of me or the me that I want seen. Now if my parents continue to pay and let me stay at home, I'll do just that. Eventually, that routine will be too difficult to break. In my darkest moments, I thought exactly that. It was simply easier and more comfortable being at home and socializing online. When I read articles like these I relate and think back to those dire moments when my room had a leaning tower of pizza boxes and I hadn't showered in over a month.

sillysaurus3 10y ago
So what happened?
- navs 10y ago
  You can only deal with the smell of stale pizza and unwashed armpits for so long. Before I completely let that lifestyle consume me, I decided to seek help and reached out to my local District Health Board. Now I am still a bit of a recluse but I make it a point to physically leave the house and exercise at the gym. Going to and running local Meetups via Meetup.com helps with socializing. The local library allows me to pick and read books outside of home and be surrounded by people, quiet but nonetheless present. Medication also helps and continues to give me a wee boost. It is surprising, though, how easy it is to slip back into that comfortable sleeve. A few weeks back UberEATS launched in New Zealand. It was also raining terribly with thunderstorms and the like. That was all I needed to spend two days tucked in bed with empty UberEATS bags and the sound of Space Ghost playing continuously off my laptop. If it hadn't been for my physical trainer messaging me on the Monday to remind me of training, I'd have stayed in that bed a good while longer.

pmoriarty 10y ago

I strongly object to insinuation that people who are socially isolated and dependent in the physical world are almost by definition wasting their lives. Not everyone's spending their online lives doing nothing but surfing porn and Facebook. They could have very rich online lives, where they are able to socialize - even very freely, competently, and confidently. They could be very creative online, or learning, producing, and contributing to all sorts of projects, from open source programming, bug fixing, or documenting to contributing to projects like Wikipedia to creating art or music, and so on. They could have many friends online, or perhaps the focus of a scholar. They could even be helping others on all sorts of online forums. What's missing is the ability to support themselves and the lack of friends or a support network in the physical world. But what a lot of people from the old, mostly physical-only world miss is that the virtual world can often be as rich or sometimes even richer, more full of potential and free of limits than the physical world. All sorts of achievements and connections are possible to a much greater extent virtually than physically. Many people can find social and emotional connections, creative and productive fulfilment, and a great education online, where they could have many problems in the physical world. That's not always or necessarily a pathology. It's an expansion of possibilities, which are sometimes negative, but not always or necessarily so, and sometimes can be positive, growth-promoting, and can even lead to more physical contact -- as when someone who's active online find a kindred spirit online and then continues the relationship in person. I'd love for there to be more research on how modern hermits spend their time online, rather than always fixating on a pathological interpretation of the choice of being solitary.

digi_owl 10y ago
The western world is very obsessed with face time. Likely because those at the top are very good at it.
clouddrover 10y ago
> All sorts of achievements and connections are possible to a much greater extent virtually than physically. Like what? In any case, I don't think it matters much if you can't support yourself. If the achievements and connections don't translate to scope and agency then what are they worth? It's certainly possible to do something worthwhile, generally fail in life, and only have the value of your work recognised after your death. This has happened to many artists who are now regarded as greats in their fields. But I think the online world makes it too easy to delude yourself into thinking what you're doing is worthwhile when in fact it isn't. So much of the online world is premised on feedback loops and empty rewards, like levels in games or even karma points on Hacker News. You get "praised" by these systems just for using them. It can become an addiction like gambling can become an addiction. It becomes easy to lose perspective and waste time pursuing something that is ultimately valueless. You gave the example of helping others in online forums. Let's say that's, for example, helping people with Microsoft Windows. I'd say all you're doing in that case is taking on the cost of Microsoft's software support. You're making the cost of doing business cheaper for Microsoft with no real return for yourself. Altruism is good, but I think too many people do it at too much cost to themselves. In the end, if the expansion of possibilities doesn't result in real world returns then I think they cannot be called opportunities. They must be recognised as merely distractions.

greggman 10y ago

This article bugged me. It seems like a Columbine style which hunt. Some people killed some other people. The killers played video games. Therefore beware evil video games. In this case it was some people killed some other people. Those people were hikkikomori. Therefore hikkikomori equals latent murderer. There were lots of other stereotypes, judgements, misunderstandings etc... It felt very much over sensationalized, exaggerated, and wrong on so many levels

BrailleHunting 10y ago

Related topic: https://news.vice.com/video/schoolgirls-for-sale-in-japan https://news.vice.com/video/schoolgirls-for-sale-in-japan

deskglass 10y ago

Gwern discusses this in his essay at https://www.gwern.net/The%20Melancholy%20of%20Subculture%20Society https://www.gwern.net/The%20Melancholy%20of%20Subculture%20S... He makes an interesting point that by withdrawing from larger society into sub cultures, people can return to dealing with groups of a size our minds are more comfortable with. It's the same reason small towns are (I hear) less socially stressful. I am not convinced though. In larger society I end up dealing with relatively small groups anyway - friends, family, and co-workers. It seems pretty straight-forward that people would want focus on their interests and spend their time communicating with people that share those interests. It's definitely unfair and unfortunate that other people end up supporting them financially. With that said, we'll eventually have to come to terms with vast numbers of people not being economically productive anyway. People will have to do something. Withdrawing from society at large in favor of the parts of it that interest them seems like a fine choice.

rustynails 10y ago
"It's the same reason small towns are (I hear) less socially stressful. I am not convinced though. In larger society I end up dealing with relatively small groups anyway - friends, family, and co-workers." There's a fundamental difference. In a small town, most of the people around you are usually known to you and friendly. In a bigger town, you tend not to know/trust more people directly around you. Kids spend much less time at the local park and more time indoors. I wrote a posting recently talking about social pressures of our modern day and part of my post was comparing the communities around us today vs 50 years ago. I'm lucky that I live in a suburb where I know many people around me. My friends (who don't live locally) and extended family are both surprised and envious at how lucky we are being surrounded by friendly and generous people. Frequently popping in, bringing home made cakes, jams etc. I love it! As an example, I had a neighbour bring my wife some flowers recently for no particular reason. I am fairly certain that our modern lifestyles and socialisation with neighbours is far more stressful than it used to be, judging by most people I know.

fallingfrog 10y ago

Alienation, atomization of communities, and commoditization of people are features of capitalism, not bugs. Just saying.

pottersbasilisk 10y ago
Sad, and socialism and communism has starvation and death. The god of biomechanics is too cruel.
- fallingfrog 10y ago
  Totalitarian communism is not the only alternative to capitalism.

a-guest 10y ago

Escape from reality is not limited to culture, race, economic background, or a society's technological advancement; it has always been a part of the human condition. In modern times, a unique form of escape presents itself with great force in affluent societies, even though the "escape artist" him/her-self need not live in an affluent environment. The escape artist requires these basics: (1) shelter, however primitive, (2) a food source, and (3) either a television (TV), video games (VG), or internet connection (IC). TV/VG/IC is the escape mechanism, and the escape artist, whether he/she stays in the 4 walls of his/her room or occasionally ventures out, lives in the confines of his/her escape world. Perhaps we can consider aspects of "Hikikomori" as a uniquely Japanese manifestation of this condition, mingling itself in fascinating fashion with Japanese cultural nuances. Thought experiments: Would Boo Radley have been a hikikomori if he lived in Kyoto rather than Maycomb, Alabama? What are the differences and similarities between: (1) a hikikomori living in Kyoto, (2) a person living in inner city Detroit, MI, living from welfare check to welfare check and watching TV 16 hours a day, and (3) a college dropout living with his parents in suburbia and watching TV 16 hours a day? In what ways is a hikikomori who programs different than the TV/VG/IC escape artist? Would Boo Radley have saved Jem and Scout Finch in "To Kill a Mockingbird" if he had been playing video games 16 hours a day? Find two studies whose authors claim watching television: develops a sense of wonder, encourages critical thought, benefits interpersonal relationship skills, solidifies familial bonds, promotes physical well-being, reduces the objectivization of persons, cures depression, increases patience and self-control, reduces sense of entitlement, grows positive self-worth, and decreases worry, sense of isolation, and self-pity. Next, find studies coming to the opposite conclusion.