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Japan's Bloggers: Humble Giants of the Web
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Who's Blogging  |
Before computers, there was a strong tradition -- enforced by summer homework assignments during elementary school -- of keeping pen-and-paper diaries.
The diary habit runs so deep in Japan that it transformed the craft of blogging from an American-style lecture to a Japanese-style personal narrative, according to Ito, the Technorati board member. In the process, he said, blogging exploded as a mega-fad for Japan's huge middle class, a kind of karaoke for shy people.
This is an affluent country where most families can afford home computers, super-cool mobile phones and fast Internet connections. But Japan is also rather uniform in its wealth, Ito said, noting that "few people have so much money that they have better things to do than blog."
Another important reason for the high volume of blogging in Japan is the triple convergence of sophisticated mobile phones, ubiquitous high-speed wireless networks and long rides on commuter trains.
Cyberspace and real space are merging in Japan, Ito said. Young people blogging on cellphones are often "co-present" with five to 10 of their peers, as they move through cities like electronically tethered schools of fish.
Ito predicts that in the United States, as mobile phones and wireless networks improve, blogging will, in effect, become more Japanese.
That means constant connection to one's blogging device while writing shorter but more frequent blog postings. It also means less chest thumping about wicked politicians, less trumpeting of one's expertise and more chatty postings about cats, kids and lunch.
Katsuhiro Kimura, a systems engineer in Tokyo, has been blogging in this laid-back style for two years. He writes an anonymous diary about his 5-year-old son, Shota. Photos posted on the blog never show the boy's face.
In a recent entry, Kimura wrote about how Shota had looked forward for 70 days to attending a Pokemon movie. When the big day arrived, Shota wore Pokemon socks to the movie theater and ate popcorn from a Pokemon bucket. The blog says Shota "walked out of the theater as if he were jumping."
When an American newspaper reporter e-mailed the anonymous author of "Shota's Papa" and asked for an interview, Kimura was, as he later said, "utterly shocked. I hadn't told anyone else that I blog."
Special correspondent Akiko Yamamoto contributed to this report.
