Posts Tagged ‘internet’

American Baby Photo Becomes Japanese Internet Meme

Sometime back in 2000, Allen S. Rout, a systems programmer from Gainesville, Fla., posted a few photos of his 5-month-old son, Stephen, on his personal website. They were the kind of photos every parent takes, but one in particular stood out: Stephen wearing a pair of red overalls, smiling in a crib. “We’re really blessed,” Rout wrote as the caption. “Stephen is an amazingly happy baby.”

The photo had faded from memory until this past July, when Rout, curious about his online reputation, did a Google search of himself. Deep within the results pages, he found the picture of Stephen. Only, it wasn’t exactly the same picture.

He was surrounded by cartoonish word bubbles filled with Japanese writing: “Don’t call me baby!” they read. “Call me Mr. Baby!” And there were other images in which the photo was transformed further: Stephen has a pompadour in one, a head full of snakes in another. His face was pasted onto Kurt Cobain’s head, carved into Mount Rushmore and tattooed onto David Beckham’s torso. He was an eight-bit video game character. He became a three-dimensional sculpture.

Somehow, Stephen’s smiling face had permeated a corner of Japanese visual culture. It showed up on wacky television game shows, and occasionally it blotted out images of genitalia in pornography, to comply with Japanese law. There are so many iterations that, for a time, if you did a Google Image search for “happy baby,” the original photo of Stephen was the first result.

Read the rest here or on the NYT site.

• Akihabara News – Gadgetry from Japan (Subscribe)
• Dannychoo.com – Your portal to Japan (Subscribe)

Japanese Geek House

Yesterday, FTV aired a feature report about the growing popularity of Japanese people seeking roommates to share the cost of living and enjoy a family-like sense of community. It included this segment about a “Geek House” for computer nerds:

Three men, all of them computer programmers, share the 2LDK apartment [2 rooms + a combined Living/dining/kitchen space] and split the 130,000 yen rent. (According to the Geek House’s website, there are actually 5 residents – Pha, Hikipuro, ykic, tomo3141592653, and iyoda.) They seem to spend their free time sitting around on their respective notebook computers, programming and chatting over Twitter. Since the apartment is near Akihabara, it is easy for geek friends to come visit.

Their shared apartment is part of the Geek House Project, which aims to set up similar arrangements across Japan. Their website is currently taking applications for Geek Houses to be set up in Kyoto, Aichi, and Sapporo.

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• Dannychoo.com – Your portal to Japan (Subscribe)

Privacy scare after photo of princess posted on the INTERNET

A tiny photograph that may or may not show a member of the Japanese royal family was posted on Mixi (part of the scary internet). Somehow, this very dull photograph showing a girl in a school uniform smiling has created an uproar over what is supposedly a horrible violation of her privacy:

“It has not been confirmed whether the photo actually is of Princess Kako,” said a Gakushuin public relations official commenting on the leak. “We cannot provide any information on how the boy obtained the photograph.”

Noriyuki Kazaoka, Vice-Grand Steward of the Imperial Household Agency, said he hoped there would be no recurrences.

“We cannot confirm that it is (Princess Kako), but from the perspective of protecting private information, we think that generally, going ahead and posting photographs on the Internet without consent cannot be called appropriate behavior. We hope that this sort of thing does not happen again in the future.”

To view some photos of the princess that aren’t considered private, check out this Sankei article.

Related story: A bilingual tourism PR magazine published by the Japanese government has comic strips telling foreigners not to violate the rights of geisha by putting photos of them up on the internet.

• Akihabara News – Gadgetry from Japan (Subscribe)
• dannychoo.com – Your portal to Japan (Subscribe)
• Kirainet.com – A geek in Japan (Subscribe)

Japanese women like moderated bulletin boards

The Yomiuri has an article today discussing the popularity of moderated internet bulletin boards and web posting sites among women:

For example, Women’s Park, operated by Benesse Corp., is a question-and-answer style bulletin board in which membership is limited to women. Its purpose is to share information about birthing, child-raising and other women’s interests.

Prospective members of Women’s Park confirm their identity by sending a postcard to the company, and all messages sent to the site are checked every day before being posted.

Tsukurepo is a popular section of Cookpad, a cooking Web site introducing recipes posted by members. The section is for members who have actually cooked dishes using recipes posted on the site to write reviews of their experiences and opinions.

To post opinions in the Tsukurepo section, advance approval from those who introduced the recipes is necessary.

Hatsugen Komachi, hosted by The Yomiuri Shimbun, also operates under these types of controls. Web site editors check all postings in advance to prevent the appearance of messages containing insults and false information.

Sounds like the polar opposite of 2-channel.

Trans-Pacific internet cables

A map showing high speed internet cables under construction in Asia, via Technology Review/Foreign Policy:

2-Channeler Arrested For Bomb Threat Against Soka Gakkai

A 43-year-old librarian has been arrested for posting bomb threats on 2-channel:

“Soka Gakkai members kept on trying to get me to vote for their favored election candidates,” he was quoted as telling investigators. “I wanted to get back at them.”

At around 10:25 p.m. on April 2, Kamikawauchi posted a message on the Ni-Channeru (2-Channel) bulletin board saying, “I’m going to blow up the Soka Gakkai’s Sakai-Ikeda Auditorium in Osaka on April 4,” Tokyo police said.

His bomb threat forced Soka Gakkai employees to go on alert, thereby obstructing business, according to investigators.

Investigators suspect that he also put up a message on the Internet threatening to blow up Zenkoji Temple in Nagano after the Olympic torch relay organizing committing scrapped its plan to use the temple as the starting point for the relay at its request.