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It's interesting to me that the Japanese words in the table, "bushido", "katana", and "yakuza" are more known to (this dataset of) men than women. The fashion-r
by BlameKaneda 5y ago
It's interesting to me that the Japanese words in the table, "bushido", "katana", and "yakuza" are more known to (this dataset of) men than women. The fashion-related words (taffeta, chignon, espadrille, etc) being known more to women makes sense to me, but I'm not sure why the three Japanese words are more known to men.
- bryanrasmussen 5y agoI would think, given your username, that you would have a feeling that these male words are more 'badass'?
- HideousKojima 5y agoYeah, I'm pretty sure the gender ratio of "people who have seen Akira" is probably 10:1 male:female
- bryanrasmussen 5y agocome on, I made sure every girlfriend I ever had learned all about it shortly before breaking up with me!
- onion2k 5y agoIt's interesting to me that the Japanese words in the table, "bushido", "katana", and "yakuza" are more known to (this dataset of) men than women. Those three words in particular feature heavily in lots of video games and films. That could explain some of it.
- tzs 5y agoThe Yakuza were in a season 8 episode of The Simpsons in 1997. That would help make it a perfectly cromulent word for a lot of people.
- vmception 5y agojapanese cultural appreciation is heavily indexed on nerd culture and that's heavily men. just an additional audience to skew the metrics.
- errcorrectcode 5y agoWeird Al should have a yakuza-themed album with about half nerdcore and half alternately shouting and squealing in Japanese.
- bitwize 5y agoSounds like the rappers from Snow Crash. For the closest real-world analogue, check out m-flo.
- errcorrectcode 5y agoCool. I was just thinking there ought to be an AI chat agent that can recommend music based on themes and mood, perhaps with a periodic, paradoxically-opposite sense of humor.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- bitwize 5y agoThe biggest weebs I knew in college were women. Sailor Moon is woefully underestimated in terms of how much it contributed to redressing the nerd gender balance. I won't say that it's completely redressed, but female anime fans and japanophiles are considerably more prevalent now than in decades past. Now, the bits of culture that concern swords and warrior codes of honor? Yeah, those are boy things, mainly.
- vmception 5y agoyeah that reminds me its something I’ve noticed too. although I encountered something similar, in my schools they were a very distinct subculture defined by their affinity to Japanese culture, whereas what I see now amongst younger people is that many more attractive popular well adjusted women (people in general) are ok with or into anime, that style, and non-US cinema at all. I like this outcome.
- valarauko 5y agoMy guess is that their martial link is why more men know of them, rather than the fact that the words are Japanese. I would suspect that the same would hold true for martial words of non-Japanese origin as well.
- jbay808 5y agoLike "Howitzer" (~85/~55).
- burnished 5y agoA code of honor, a sword, and a mob. These are stereotypically masculine topics, and also words that appear in video games and movies, sometimes as the title itself.
- commandlinefan 5y agoI'd be curious to see the skew among native Japanese speakers - I'm assuming the test in the link was run on Americans.
- djur 5y agoEnglish speakers. If you look at the original study they have a similar breakdown for US vs. UK, which is almost more interesting.
- djur 5y agoI'm skeptical about the result for katana, though. Women are almost as likely to know "boson" as "katana"?
- brimble 5y agoI doubt that particular word (katana) would be quite so permanently stuck in my head if not for watching Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles a lot as a kid. That was a show that was for-sure aimed at boys. The other places I could imagine having encountered it enough for it to have stuck are action video games and Japanese or Japanese-influenced action cinema & anime. I have some very confident guesses at how male and female interest rates in those would break down.
- errcorrectcode 5y ago
- brimble 5y agoSure, any particular person may buck their cohort trend, but that doesn't mean the trend's not there. Just as I'm sure there are some guys really into sewing or fashion who'd look at the original list and think, of the mostly-women part, "of course I know these, who doesn't?"
- errcorrectcode 5y agoPersonal bias ftw.
- rsynnott 5y agoThe word 'boson' was in the news quite a lot for the last decade or so, due to CERN. The word 'katana', not so much.
- errcorrectcode 5y agoDudes are all secretly gangsta OGs working up the food chain to be a baws someday.
- PaulDavisThe1st 5y agoOh, the fast food chain, you mean.
- errcorrectcode 5y agoIf those jobs haven't been automated yet. Brought to you by Carl's Jr. https://shiftwa.org/fast-food-chains-announce-automation-plans-as-a-result-of-high-minimum-wages/ https://shiftwa.org/fast-food-chains-announce-automation-pla...
- rozab 5y agoAn intersection of military history, video games, and weeb-dom. 'Yakuza' is notably a popular and long-running video game series