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New Japanese Pop Idol Shocks Fans With News - She’s Not Real
- w1ntermute 15y agoIt's amazing how Gibson predicted this sort of thing almost 20 years ago: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Idoru https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Idoru
- Klinky 15y agoThe 1994 anime "Key: The Metal Idol" had a similar idea as well. https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Key_the_Metal_Idol https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Key_the_Metal... We could also even go back to Fritz Langs's 1927 film Metropolis: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolis_%28film%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolis_%28film%29
- FiddlerClamp 15y agoI was thinking "Sim0ne" from 2002 with Al Pacino: "A producer's film is endangered when his star walks off, so he decides to digitally create an actress to substitute for the star, becoming an overnight sensation that everyone thinks is a real person."
- sireat 15y agoAs far as animes go: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megazone_23 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megazone_23 was probably first, came out in 1985. The plot development is rather horrible, but idea wise very infuential.
- johnyzee 15y agoGood call, 'Wintermute' :) Gibson's stuff seems to never feel old, a remarkable achievement for sci-fi stuff from before the internet era.
- lani 15y agocame in to mention gibson ... btw, I thought Gorillaz was halfway there to Idoru...
- VMG 15y agoThis whole thing also gives off a a strong Philip K. Dick vibe.
- mechanical_fish 15y agoGibson, who is after all the guy who said "the future is already here; it's just not evenly distributed yet", might well point you to patio11's comment, and to various Media Lab-type demos from twenty years ago, and then ask: Was it not obvious that this would happen? You've also politely failed to notice that Gibson, along with many other people, believed the hype about AI twenty years ago. ;) Gibson's great because he notices things. For example, I will be eternally grateful for all the Joseph Cornell stuff in Count Zero because it prompted me to go see a show full of actual Joseph Cornell boxes, which are wonderful and are exactly as Gibson described them.
- StavrosK 15y agoWhat is the Joseph Cornell stuff? All I could find was a Wikipedia mention of some boxes, but no actual description.
- mechanical_fish 15y agoRead Count Zero and you will learn all about Joseph Cornell. Not facts, mind you, but you will learn what Cornell's work feels like. The Cornell exhibition I went to see is, alas, closed now: http://www.amazon.com/Joseph-Cornell-Lynda-Roscoe-Hartigan/dp/0300111622/ref=pd_sim_b_4 http://www.amazon.com/Joseph-Cornell-Lynda-Roscoe-Hartigan/d... ...and all the boxes are back in the hands of various collectors. But modern art museums have them in smaller numbers. I saw a few of them at the Art Institute of Chicago, for example.
- ChrisArchitect 15y agoawesome, was totally going to bring this up.
- lloeki 15y agoBefore that ('94) there was Sharon Apple in Macross Plus: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Macross_plus https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Macross_plus The Japanese culture at large is quite in phase with virtual stuff and robots.
- yoshyosh 15y agoI always find it interesting how easily we can be fooled by media, magazines, and makeup. We can be so quick to create these false paradigms on what is real. It will be interesting once technology gets to the point where AI robots can create similar illusions.
- kalleboo 15y agoThey also have a flash site where fans can create their own ideal member using parts from the other girls, and then share and rank each other's creations http://www.icenomi.com/oshimen/index.html http://www.icenomi.com/oshimen/index.html
- lsc 15y agosounds like a fairly standard horror movie plot For example: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0303361/> http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0303361/>
- jrockway 15y agoI wrote a CPAN module to do something similar: Acme::MorningMusume::ShinMember: http://search.cpan.org/~jrockway/Acme-MorningMusume-ShinMember-0.01/lib/Acme/MorningMusume/ShinMember.pm http://search.cpan.org/~jrockway/Acme-MorningMusume-ShinMemb...
- patio11 15y agoThis is only a little bit weirder on the continuum of what we already do for pop starlets, both in Japan and the United States. Japan has been manufacturing them -- that is totally the right word, too -- for about 30 years. Disney cottoned onto it a bit later. These days producers already have the key personality traits, demographic fit, sound, and marketing campaign for the new brand already planned out prior to launch, then they just need to find the least important component, the actual girl. They have perfected it so instead of the fund-a-thousand-bands-have-one-breakout-success label model they pick that, e.g., Miley Cyrus will be the next big thing for twelve year olds and then they make it happen. If Disney could produce popstars in a laboratory they would. For folks interested in how the Japanese content industry does it, see Merry White's books on the Japanese youth culture, particularly as it regards magazines. (They might need an update for the Internet age, but not all that much of one.)
- JonnieCache 15y ago>If Disney could produce popstars in a laboratory they would. They basically did. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mickey_Mouse_Club http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mickey_Mouse_Club
- Semiapies 15y agoYes, they've been doing this closer to sixty years.
- bane 15y agoThat manufacturing also appears to carry a considerable investment (or possible payoff). One initially wonders why, when manufactured pop stars spectacularly flame out, that they are simply told to go low profile for a while then come back and act like nothing happened...until you think of them as a multi-million dollar entertainment machine their managers no doubt poured tons of money into in the form of singing lessons, dancing lessons, acting lessons, language lessons, etc. plus the money spent on building up "brand" awareness etc. I follow Korean pop culture more than Japan's, but I definitely have a sense that the K-POP labels have virtual stables of up and coming "properties", getting paid little, living in bunks with other stars-in-training and eating instant noodles, but being given the very best in song and dance lessons for hours a day, waiting to be selected by their manager to begin a nationwide PR blitz and concert series for at least 2 years of "instant" stardom, then cultural obscurity. I imagine that something no entirely dissimilar happens in the U.S., but the feeder system is all different... The K-Pop starlet BoA is one I remember very well (also semi-popular in Japan if I understand correctly), chosen at about 13 (years ago), dropped out of school and "manufactured" through endless training programs to become what she is today. Interestingly, she was an investment by her label specifically for export to the U.S. and Japan. She hasn't done well in the States, but her label seems happy with her performance across the Sea of Japan, infiltrating J-Pop. Her interviews in the States (in very good, but accented English) came across as weird, slightly aloof, uncomfortable and detached...kind of what you'd expect out of somebody who has never really lived a normal life.
- tl 15y agoThere's also Hatsune Miku, a Japanese singer created in software: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hatsune_Miku http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hatsune_Miku http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTXO7KGHtjI http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTXO7KGHtjI
- DarkShikari 15y agoMiku is the polar opposite though -- she's a character that anyone can use to create their own albums, merchandise, comics, and so forth. The real product is the software itself, which the character has, of course, so effectively promoted. Effectively, Miku is a sort of "democratized" form of pop culture: instead of a single media company tightly controlling a pop star, it's the masses who reap the benefits. Hatsune Miku is to Japanese pop idols what Touhou is to popular traditional franchises like Gundam -- and accordingly, has grown in popularity at nearly unheard-of rates. If we're lucky, the next few decades will have more and more of this: pop culture made by consumers, for consumers, for the benefit of consumers.
- sthlm 15y agoThis reminds me of S1m0ne (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0258153/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0258153/), in which a CG actress is developed and the producer (unlike this case) attempts to keep it a secret.
- maeon3 15y agoDoes this mean that High Definition Video evidence of a suspect performing a crime does not constitute very strong evidence of that suspect as guilty of the crime?
- thyrsus 15y agoNot in and of itself. Evidence of a crime must have strong provenance, that is, people testifying to its history and curation. That's the theory. Whether jurors will be sufficiently sophisticated is a crap shoot - but I'm not prepared to propose anything better.
- nitrogen 15y agoThere was an episode of the TV series Sliders in which the main cast lands in a crime-free world that is obsessed with reality TV cop and court shows. Since the world is crime free, the TV producers stage crimes and digitally superimpose the faces of unwitting perpetrators, then arrest them, try them, and execute them (IIRC - maybe it was just a prison sentence). I'm sure the theme has been used elsewhere as well.
- roundsquare 15y agoIt might at some point, but not yet. This kind of thing would not be feasible enough to do except in extreme circumstances. In the future, as this gets easier to do, it might well become a problem.
- astine 15y agoIf all our celebrities were CG-generated illusions... what would all the tabloids print to sell magazines? Actual news? I think I'm looking forward to the future!
- thyrsus 15y agoI doubt you can libel a fiction, so I think the tabloids would get even more creative. Ambush photographers would be replaced by cheaper digital choreographers.
- astine 15y agoBut then you'd be violating copyright. Also it'd be stupid; It's not like people won't realize that the pop-stars aren't real.
- ahi 15y agoThe pop-stars aren't real now, they just happen to be played by flesh and blood actors.
- noonespecial 15y agoYes but those flesh and blood actors have some very peculiar failure modes once the weight of fame rests on them. This makes for great gossip news.
- horseshoes 15y agoLike a computer-generated thing isn't part of reality.
- tvon 15y agoI think "not a real person" is implied.
- DanielBMarkham 15y agoNow automate the entire thing. 20 years from now. You are befriended on Facebook++ by a person who looks somewhat like all the previous girlfriends you have had. Initiating a 3-D video chat, she seems very friendly and has a lot of the same interests as you do. Every now and then -- so infrequently that you do not notice -- she mentions a particular brand or commercial product, always providing a link. Other than that, she's just a great friend. Always there to provide advice, always willing to cheer you up, always enjoying your jokes and stories. Heck, maybe she's even willing to help you out with your startup, providing introductions to her friends and helping you with your marketing. Maybe she helps locate your next big client. Great stuff, eh? Except she doesn't exist.
- pyre 15y agoIt's already happening to some extent with real people. There was an article that passed through here a while back that had interviews with ex-419 scammers. One of them was making a living by pretending to be the online girlfriend of some guy. He talked about it in much the same way. He would give him advive, cheer him up, etc. He was essentially 'farming' the guy for money. But this means that he had to deliver real value to the guy to keep stringing him along.
- sliverstorm 15y agoThe kind of cool thing about that example is, provided the guy wasn't being told he'd get to meet the girl, it's just a simple value exchange, beneficial for both parties. (So long as the advice the scammer gives is good!)
- jedschmidt 15y agoThis business model has been popular in Japan since cellphones got email: http://www.cnngo.com/tokyo/play/deaikei-duties-posing-online-woman-355918 http://www.cnngo.com/tokyo/play/deaikei-duties-posing-online...
- groby_b 15y agoWhich, I believe, is known amongst con artists as a "long con". Harder to pull off, bigger payout.
- snorkel 15y agoIs it that hard to cast a real Japanese girl who looks like that?
- golgo13 15y agoWow, is Youtube absolutely useless for me. Almost 2 minutes to watch a 15 second clip!
- prewett 15y agoI immediately thought of Sharon Apple, in "Macross Plus" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharon_Apple#Sharon_Apple http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharon_Apple#Sharon_Apple), although I suppose Hatsune Miku is really the modern Sharon Apple, sans sentience.
- billybob 15y agoNone of the models on magazine covers are real, either. They're just based on real people. This was a great video showing how far from reality Photoshop can take a picture: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYhCn0jf46U http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYhCn0jf46U We're now to the point where supermodels feel bad about themselves when they look at photos of themselves. That is seriously messed up. This fictional Japanese video star is just the next nutty step.
- spc476 15y agoSeveral years ago I came across a website that allows you to make an average face, by averaging the images of multiple people (http://www.faceresearch.org/demos/average?img=/tomcat/average/uploads/img85452.jpg&tem=/tomcat/average/uploads/img85453.tem http://www.faceresearch.org/demos/average?img=/tomcat/averag...). Averaging two dozen faces produces rather striking results (http://boston.conman.org/2007/08/28.1 http://boston.conman.org/2007/08/28.1). Even averaging a few faces produces better looking people.
- cantbecool 15y agoLet us not forget about this gem of Japan: http://singularityhub.com/2010/11/09/cant-miss-videos-of-japans-3d-hologram-rock-star-hatsune-miku-in-hd/ http://singularityhub.com/2010/11/09/cant-miss-videos-of-jap...