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> The younger generation seems to be dealing with the rampant consumption and materialism, and the emptiness that results, by embracing the cute. This resonate

> The younger generation seems to be dealing with the rampant consumption and materialism, and the emptiness that results, by embracing the cute. This resonates. Didn't realize it until now though.

livueta 4y ago
This thesis always reminds me of Satoshi Kon and Paranoia Agent. https://web.archive.org/web/20210820145247/https://sittingonanatomicbomb.wordpress.com/2010/08/27/the-true-brilliance-of-paranoia-agent-and-why-its-all-about-the-bomb/ https://web.archive.org/web/20210820145247/https://sittingon... > “monotonous ruins of a nation-state… perfectly realized in the name of capitalism.” > Urban isolation and rapidly advancing technology have helped erode reality in favor of representation. Connection with real human beings becomes less desirable; cartoon characters to which you will never be held accountable become ideal friends. > a cartoon dog, soft and cuddly, with no blood, no fragile network of organs, no accountability and no ability to hold others accountable.
foobarian 4y ago
I feel uneasy dismissing this new way of things and harkening back to the more meaningful old days, because the crispy clear meaning back then often stemmed from war. When you had adversaries threatening to destroy your country of course it felt so much more fulfilling to train to be any number of supporting or active roles. Without that pressure, things seem to lose that sharp drive but perhaps we are better off. It is also probably true that we have not evolved to live in a state of peace, and have a long way to go as a race to become accustomed to it.
- UncleOxidant 4y ago
  > When you had adversaries threatening to destroy your country They have exactly that threat from North Korea. But I suspect that the culture of "rampant consumerism and materialism" is part of how they deal with that (also the cuteness thing he mentions possibly plays a part)
- kcanini 4y ago
  I wonder whether the threat of attack from North Korea is felt in daily life in Seoul.
  - chrischen 4y ago
    I didn't get that from day to day life, but you'd probably feel it in things like mandatory military service, and the fact that escalators going down to subway stations were deeper than normal.
  - creakingstairs 4y ago
    As a Korean I can tell you we mostly don’t care about their threats day to day. Their missiles don’t even make our news cycle sometimes. But we did care when they were more brazen (like sending specialists to assassinate our president) and now anti-communism is one of driving ideologies of our society, for better or worse. Calling someone “socialist” can be an insult :p
  - foobarian 4y ago
    I was mostly thinking of a much more severe war cycle like WW1 or WW2 which have been out of most living people's memory at this point and so don't drive the culture as much any more. Before that it was constant bloodletting. We truly live in unprecedented times.
  - tkgally 4y ago
    I’ve lived in Japan—in and near Tokyo—for four decades, and on the trips I’ve made to Seoul I’ve enjoyed observing similarities and differences between the two cities. One of the differences was uniformed soldiers riding the subway in Seoul, something I’ve never seen in Tokyo. Another was what looked like emergency supplies stored on subway platforms; I’m guessing they were there in case the subways had to be used as bomb shelters. (I can’t read Korean, so I might have misidentified the items or their purpose.) Postwar Japan has done a lot of preparation for natural disasters but has had essentially no civil defense measures against military threats. That might be changing, though. Just a couple of weeks ago, for the first time, the city of Tokyo designated 105 subway stations as emergency evacuation sites in case of missile attacks [1, in Japanese]. This was prompted not only by the continued threat from North Korea but also by what has been happening in Ukraine. [1] https://news.yahoo.co.jp/articles/34fd48f39ee9b8a78197f350e820e4a6473e3340 https://news.yahoo.co.jp/articles/34fd48f39ee9b8a78197f350e8...
cm2012 4y ago
Or, cute things are just fun. One of my favorite things about Korea and Korean products is that they take the time to make even small things like pens pretty. I would love for American society to "embrace the cute" more.
Forbaldoonly 4y ago
Materialism and rampant consumption, yes. But thinking this as a generational affect seems a superficial analysis. Older generation is pretty materialistic (like many countries that became rich quick) perhaps more so than the young. Showing pictures of old people hanging out enjoying hobbies to back this point is silly because younger generation would be either in school(or 학원) or working! Cuteness out of emptiness you feel inside is also for me fall short. My reading(armchair psychology, yes. But as a Korean who thought about this a lot) is that this is more to do with patriarchal culture where man and woman appeals there take-careablity(woman: man would want to take care of me/man: I could be a good protector). In confucious culture there's lot of emphasis on who takes care of whom and familial analogy is applied to every relationships.
- UncleOxidant 4y ago
  > Materialism and rampant consumption, yes. But thinking this as a generational affect seems a superficial analysis. Older generation is pretty materialistic I guess I didn't read it as him saying "the young are more materialistic" but more as "the young are dealing with the fallout of a culture of rampant consumption and materialism". The young are generally too young to have built the culture of rampant consumption and materialism, but it's all they've known.
dereg 4y ago
It's a shallow analysis, and I say this as a fan of Arnade's prior work. Cartoons and "cuteness" are symbols expanding one's palate of expression. LINE was the first messenger app to roll out stickers. Those stickers, mostly cartoons, do a vastly better job of encapsulating expression, especially online, than GIFs, Emojis, and Emoticons do. Stickers are commonplace messages in Korea. Stickers in America, on the other hand, have not caught on. If I had to speculate, it is because the art is shallow, soulless, and an commercial grab. From Arnade's piece: > If you make anything and everything a lovable character, that dampens the edges. Makes a life of buying and selling stuff a little less dreary. A little less pointless. You could say the same for every culture. If you talk to Koreans, they cannot fathom America's addiction to hyperbole, whether it be in everyday conversation or in advertising. Examples: "That was an amazing meal." "It was to die for." "Absolutely." "You are the best!" "What a killer deal!" Now let's transform Arnade's original observation: > If you make anything and everything a hyperbole – "perfect" or "the best" – that dampens the edges. Makes a life of buying and selling stuff a little less dreary. A little less pointless. It fits, no? Would I describe American hyperbole as cope? No, it's merely how we encode emotions into language. Cartoons are the same for Koreans. Edit: I'd like to proffer a different reason for their prevalence: many cartoons are government-sponsored and are ways for the government to signal that they are welcoming to children as a response to the declining birth rate. You could interpret this dystopically – I just see it as cute.
- Emjaypark 4y ago
  As someone born in Korea and have lived 20+ years in Seoul, I can say your “preoffered” reason for prevalent cartoon characters is simply wrong. They are not just government propaganda. They are deep into every fabric of life and psyche of Korea’s younger generation. Arnade’s analysis is not shallow. It is insightful beyond any that I have ever read.
  - dereg 4y ago
    Can you expand on that? I just can’t agree with this assertion. It seems like a projection to me. Take the Jongro logo, for instance. Here’s its origin: > It was developed and donated free of charge by the Environmental Design Research Institute of Kookmin University in 2001; through opinion surveys and expert advice, it was born in a friendly, resident-centered form that cannot be found in other local governments. How in any way could you ascribe it’s existence to a deep emptiness?

> The younger generation seems to be dealing with the rampant consumption and materialism, and the emptiness that results, by embracing the cute. This resonates. Didn't realize it until now though.

livueta 4y ago

This thesis always reminds me of Satoshi Kon and Paranoia Agent. https://web.archive.org/web/20210820145247/https://sittingonanatomicbomb.wordpress.com/2010/08/27/the-true-brilliance-of-paranoia-agent-and-why-its-all-about-the-bomb/ https://web.archive.org/web/20210820145247/https://sittingon... > “monotonous ruins of a nation-state… perfectly realized in the name of capitalism.” > Urban isolation and rapidly advancing technology have helped erode reality in favor of representation. Connection with real human beings becomes less desirable; cartoon characters to which you will never be held accountable become ideal friends. > a cartoon dog, soft and cuddly, with no blood, no fragile network of organs, no accountability and no ability to hold others accountable.

foobarian 4y ago

I feel uneasy dismissing this new way of things and harkening back to the more meaningful old days, because the crispy clear meaning back then often stemmed from war. When you had adversaries threatening to destroy your country of course it felt so much more fulfilling to train to be any number of supporting or active roles. Without that pressure, things seem to lose that sharp drive but perhaps we are better off. It is also probably true that we have not evolved to live in a state of peace, and have a long way to go as a race to become accustomed to it.

UncleOxidant 4y ago
> When you had adversaries threatening to destroy your country They have exactly that threat from North Korea. But I suspect that the culture of "rampant consumerism and materialism" is part of how they deal with that (also the cuteness thing he mentions possibly plays a part)
kcanini 4y ago
I wonder whether the threat of attack from North Korea is felt in daily life in Seoul.
- chrischen 4y ago
  I didn't get that from day to day life, but you'd probably feel it in things like mandatory military service, and the fact that escalators going down to subway stations were deeper than normal.
- creakingstairs 4y ago
  As a Korean I can tell you we mostly don’t care about their threats day to day. Their missiles don’t even make our news cycle sometimes. But we did care when they were more brazen (like sending specialists to assassinate our president) and now anti-communism is one of driving ideologies of our society, for better or worse. Calling someone “socialist” can be an insult :p
- foobarian 4y ago
  I was mostly thinking of a much more severe war cycle like WW1 or WW2 which have been out of most living people's memory at this point and so don't drive the culture as much any more. Before that it was constant bloodletting. We truly live in unprecedented times.
- tkgally 4y ago
  I’ve lived in Japan—in and near Tokyo—for four decades, and on the trips I’ve made to Seoul I’ve enjoyed observing similarities and differences between the two cities. One of the differences was uniformed soldiers riding the subway in Seoul, something I’ve never seen in Tokyo. Another was what looked like emergency supplies stored on subway platforms; I’m guessing they were there in case the subways had to be used as bomb shelters. (I can’t read Korean, so I might have misidentified the items or their purpose.) Postwar Japan has done a lot of preparation for natural disasters but has had essentially no civil defense measures against military threats. That might be changing, though. Just a couple of weeks ago, for the first time, the city of Tokyo designated 105 subway stations as emergency evacuation sites in case of missile attacks [1, in Japanese]. This was prompted not only by the continued threat from North Korea but also by what has been happening in Ukraine. [1] https://news.yahoo.co.jp/articles/34fd48f39ee9b8a78197f350e820e4a6473e3340 https://news.yahoo.co.jp/articles/34fd48f39ee9b8a78197f350e8...

cm2012 4y ago

Or, cute things are just fun. One of my favorite things about Korea and Korean products is that they take the time to make even small things like pens pretty. I would love for American society to "embrace the cute" more.

Forbaldoonly 4y ago

Materialism and rampant consumption, yes. But thinking this as a generational affect seems a superficial analysis. Older generation is pretty materialistic (like many countries that became rich quick) perhaps more so than the young. Showing pictures of old people hanging out enjoying hobbies to back this point is silly because younger generation would be either in school(or 학원) or working! Cuteness out of emptiness you feel inside is also for me fall short. My reading(armchair psychology, yes. But as a Korean who thought about this a lot) is that this is more to do with patriarchal culture where man and woman appeals there take-careablity(woman: man would want to take care of me/man: I could be a good protector). In confucious culture there's lot of emphasis on who takes care of whom and familial analogy is applied to every relationships.

UncleOxidant 4y ago
> Materialism and rampant consumption, yes. But thinking this as a generational affect seems a superficial analysis. Older generation is pretty materialistic I guess I didn't read it as him saying "the young are more materialistic" but more as "the young are dealing with the fallout of a culture of rampant consumption and materialism". The young are generally too young to have built the culture of rampant consumption and materialism, but it's all they've known.

dereg 4y ago

It's a shallow analysis, and I say this as a fan of Arnade's prior work. Cartoons and "cuteness" are symbols expanding one's palate of expression. LINE was the first messenger app to roll out stickers. Those stickers, mostly cartoons, do a vastly better job of encapsulating expression, especially online, than GIFs, Emojis, and Emoticons do. Stickers are commonplace messages in Korea. Stickers in America, on the other hand, have not caught on. If I had to speculate, it is because the art is shallow, soulless, and an commercial grab. From Arnade's piece: > If you make anything and everything a lovable character, that dampens the edges. Makes a life of buying and selling stuff a little less dreary. A little less pointless. You could say the same for every culture. If you talk to Koreans, they cannot fathom America's addiction to hyperbole, whether it be in everyday conversation or in advertising. Examples: "That was an amazing meal." "It was to die for." "Absolutely." "You are the best!" "What a killer deal!" Now let's transform Arnade's original observation: > If you make anything and everything a hyperbole – "perfect" or "the best" – that dampens the edges. Makes a life of buying and selling stuff a little less dreary. A little less pointless. It fits, no? Would I describe American hyperbole as cope? No, it's merely how we encode emotions into language. Cartoons are the same for Koreans. Edit: I'd like to proffer a different reason for their prevalence: many cartoons are government-sponsored and are ways for the government to signal that they are welcoming to children as a response to the declining birth rate. You could interpret this dystopically – I just see it as cute.

Emjaypark 4y ago
As someone born in Korea and have lived 20+ years in Seoul, I can say your “preoffered” reason for prevalent cartoon characters is simply wrong. They are not just government propaganda. They are deep into every fabric of life and psyche of Korea’s younger generation. Arnade’s analysis is not shallow. It is insightful beyond any that I have ever read.
- dereg 4y ago
  Can you expand on that? I just can’t agree with this assertion. It seems like a projection to me. Take the Jongro logo, for instance. Here’s its origin: > It was developed and donated free of charge by the Environmental Design Research Institute of Kookmin University in 2001; through opinion surveys and expert advice, it was born in a friendly, resident-centered form that cannot be found in other local governments. How in any way could you ascribe it’s existence to a deep emptiness?