It’s weird that people marvel over “host” and “hostess” clubs in Japan, when I know of many restaurants in the US and Canada, where the main draw is that a pretty girl/guy will be nice to you for your time there. Is it the exact same thing? No. But it’s clearly serving the same niche.

The difference seems to be that in Japan, the exchange of social services (in the broadest sense) are pretty direct and straightforward. In the west, there’s a taboo about paying for social benefits, so people have to pretend they actually want to spend $20 on a crappy burger that happens to be served by an attractive woman.

When you see something framed this way, proceed skeptically!

This is right here probably a major explanation for the whole phenomena. I have seen this exact attitude with individuals who are in their 30s and living with their parents. Something in their upbringing gave them this immense sense of worth but the world isn't rewarding them for the little work they do as much as they think it's worth.

So, since their whole worldview cannot be reconciled with how they are treated outside their family, it makes sense to retreat to that very same safe place as before.

He is right he could do extraordinary things, but first he needs to work hard to get there.

There is a nag that tries to force you to enter your e-mail mid-way down the page.

Is it because it's a psychological disorder? Is it because the parents don't want the financial burden?

The pandemic has certainly recently shown me the upsides of withdrawing totally from society. It's not for me (I'm antisocial, not asocial) but I can see why some would prefer it.

I wonder if this is true, or if there's a darker side to the hikikomori that we just don't see as much of.

If you watch the 'My Self Reliance' channel on youtube (and I realize the guy has a wife and older kids), the alone part doesn't seem so bad if combined with ongoing projects. Plus these are projects that have to get done.

Plus, he has a good looking Golden Retriever, no doubt better company than some of the people I know.

https://witness.worldpressphoto.org/it-felt-safe-here-adcb41...

Psyc 101 grads comment if we are lucky?

Most of the comments are not even from people associated with Japanese culture.

I personally believe the best attitude is to accept that if someone can't get out of a certain situation by themselves, they need help. No additional judgement required. Now, who you want to help or whether you want to help someone is your choice, as we often already have enough trouble in our own lives to also go helping others. That's ok. But anything else is trying to rationalize who needs more help, when we are always lacking context and perspective.

This is extremely presumptive and dismissive. Also living with your parents isn't necessary an indicator of a social reclusve.

The imagined authority and declared lack of execution both allow him to reject expectations from others thereby taking out uncertainties. Absolutely in no offense, the last line of your comment is not an unpredictable response and also emotionally not aggressive, which I suspect is what he is expecting from people around. People in the state of burnout also won't work hard, because the soul is already spent from having previously done so. They don't seem to try to meet or exceed expectations despite looking mostly healthy, though they might think they're capable of or remember themselves to be.

Japanese education for a child in upper middle class during 2000s was horrible. It was essentially a 12 hours a day double work starting 10-12 years old that ends at university entry exam. That creates basis for excessive overtime and workaholism culture that will burn out some graduates within first three years of work if they had not already. Perhaps if they do and declines to be mourned early they'll end up here.

If they could recontextualize failure as adversity: a key part of learning, and making progress, the failure could build resilience instead of compounding to a point where they feel like they are better off giving up and isolating.

I remember a “HR Collective Negotiation” teacher in my masters (one of the top schools of France). He said “When you need to fire 193 people, don’t ask for 400 to come back to 200. Ask for 193 and negotiate until you get it.”

I’ve always applied this rule in my life. (Socially it doesn’t work at all, but I do it because I’d like to see a world that works on sincere values).

So I never demanded anything from my father up to the point I needed him. At 35 years old I told him modern women were unmanageable and my life was turning sour, and I needed help, I needed people to understand that men are being mistreated by the system, but I said it with ample documentation (you could watch the excellent movie The Red Pill, which depicts pretty much the complexity of our position), and that the only answer of society towards us is “Incel”. By the time I asked my father, I had already created some networks through politicians, but on the topic that interests me, all still had the same dismissive position, because promoting men doesn’t work politically. I’m saying that so you don’t say that I hadn’t walked my walk.

So apparently I’m able to make about 3 million dollars, between one startup which IPO’ed and my own company which has 6 employees. But I’m still not good enough for women, and worthy of being treated as the scum of the earth.

So I asked my father whether at least in my family, the upsides of men could be acknowledged, and if in addition to admiring my sister’s climb of Everest, we could acknowledge that we could give men the same kind of help for finding affection as we give women at work. I gave specific examples and came back on several angles. My father refused to respond to my demand, treating me as a spoilt brat every single time.

I do not see, when one has already contributed to society more than his father’s entire life of taxes (along with thousands of hours of volunteering, don’t assume I’m only talking in money, it’s just a symbolic result), what gives society the right to treat us as a tax slave and never give us love in return. I’ve always tried to be the kindest of all, but that’s also a receipe to be stepped upon, which seems to be an attitude that we think is totally ok for women.

There aren’t many ways besides violence to be heard by people who refuse to hear us. I’ve already tried words! And more importantly for me: I’ve already tried taking positive action.

Remains violence.

Just saying.

Not necessarily sense of worth, I would argue. I doubt that it's the first time in history when parents told their children that they are very beautiful and smart, much better than anyone else.

IMHO cushion of enough wealth to allow a lifestyle of "prefer not to" combined with lowered expectations of the life is a total destroyer. Many people in developed countries can choose not to face the difficulties of the life and be entertained and fed through their adulthood.

If it's hard for you to face rejection or go through social situation there's enough infrastructure to let you live your life in a room. You may or may not have income if you don't have to pay rent, staying alive is extremely cheap so your parents can take care of you with almost no impact on their budget. You can also do some remote work that requires only tech literacy.

I myself had periods of "going back to parents home" when I was feeling "No expectations form my life but not interested in dying". What worked for me was forcing myself out of my comfort zone through changing cities/countries with no enough fund to sustain that kind of lifestyle.

It worked well for me 3 times so far. The state of "living in your room" is easy thanks to the internet, I don't remember getting bored because my schedule was always full with "projects", TV series, games and online discussions(forums->facebook->Digg->reddit). You notice the toll on your body and you disconnect at some point when your peers move on with their phase in their lives.

I'm not exactly an introvert(I simply need time alone too), I actually enjoy the company of people and what works for me is re-inventing myself somewhere else and meet completely new people. That's the phase I feel alive instead of content, suddenly I feel like I have a purpose(because I actually do have a purpose. I'm doing rebuild from scratch and there's plenty of stuff to do). At some point the things stabilize and I start feeling like disconnecting from the society for a while.

I just wonder why these other people don't seem to break their stay in the room period. The world is full of opportunities and it's actually very friendly place overall. The flaming extraverts are cool too.

I have a hypothesis for this too. One thing I noticed about my "live in the room phase" peers is that they tend to deny observations, they are extremist in their lifestyles and fight to the bitter end any evidence that another way of life is possible and it's within their reach. They are extremely cynical towards the outside world. I think this is required because, to maintain inaction you need to have a gap between what's possible and what you can do. If you accept that the world is full of opportunities, the only way to have a gap preventing you from picking these opportunities is to have low abilities. So yes, it does have a component of self worth.

Is there an abundance of this in Japanese culture that I wasn't aware of?

It seems to me that for some the only winning move is not to play.

EDIT: and as I understand it Japan’s culture is especially brutal for some personalities, although I have no first-hand experience. For all the problems we have in the US at least I can be a total wackadoo without feeling like I have failed my entire family and shamed myself and all my acquaintances in the eyes of society.

I also expect there are health effects to lifelong withdrawal from all social contact and from not leaving one’s room. We’re not meant to totally avoid touch and eye contact and movement.

How is it much better to slave away at a minimal wage job at a McDonald's or a desk job shuffling papers for 40 years surrounded by people that treat you like shit? (service workers have horror stories to tell about bosses and customers alike).

You might be antisocial, but at least one of the guys in TFA talks of overwhelming shame. It's arguably (perceived or not) external reasons for this self-solitude, possibly a matter of heteronomy rather than autonomy.

Of course it's a societal issue.

Getting these individuals help might just be treating the symptoms, however, if the cause turns out to be a cultural phenomenon. It might require targeted political effort to properly frame and address the real problems.

They're symptomatic of something gone very wrong. Withdrawing from the world for a prolonged period shouldn't be so appealing that an entire social class develops around doing so.

Not to say I don't sympathize, ofc.

The problem does seem somewhat overstated though. Wikipedia says ~400,000 people in a population of 125 million.

In the article they mention that the parents pay $8K per year or more for this service.