A Hikkikomori StopGap

Is HikiCulture turning more and more into a spam forum?

This is another placeholder topic but one slightly more serious:

First off, I’ve no doubt that - for members of this forum - this could easily come off as a HikiPhpBB vs. HikiCulture vs. AnonIB /hikikomori/ thread.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t help that coincidentally I’ve made a recent return post on HikiPhpBB.

This isn’t intentional but is a result of me just being frustrated and bored so I decided to re-check the Hikikomori boards I know of (except Sankaku and HikiCulture)

Sankaku because it’s a news site and I’m too busy to add further information overload unto myself and HikiCulture because I’ve been banned.

Another major blow to my bias but I’ll let you decide how much based on this incident:

From a recent revision of the Hikikomori wikipedia page discussion board:

I’ve been a member on a few Hikikomori and recluse forums and websites for a while now. “HikiCulture” keeps being linked to here, but it generally is not a good place for information and help. It’s still fairly new and the administrator has no idea on how to run a forum correctly and generally doesn’t understand that the site is for people who need help and information. He overreacts and abuses control without thinking about his actions, and he has Asperger’s Sydrome which hinders his decisive abilities, causing harsh and uncalled-for actions which may offend. He also bans people for things which are petty and do not require action. It’s generally a place to avoid due to this. The community itself is great, but the administrator known to some as “Chair” isn’t good for the community. I’ve heard of other Hikikomori sites opening soon for giving advice and help and they’ll be linked to here once they have been created.

Also, I am not meaning to cause offense, I have been asked to write this comment by a lot of members of the community at “HikiCulture”. The way it’s ran is unfair and the staff do not care about us with mental conditions, reclusiveness, depression and social anxiety. It’s not wise to link to “HikiCulture” any further.

Now I didn’t write this and I only had a short time on HikiCulture so I have no way of verifying this but what’s worrying is that this comment was up a few days ago.

I don’t participate much in Wikipedia but the argument while not verifying to me that it was accurate, did convince me that there was ample reason to remove the HikiCulture link from the main article so I decided to do so.

What’s worrying and why I am being harsh and calling it spam is that not only was the link restored but that the above quote was also removed.

…

Now I get that there’s no proof of any persistant trolling nor is this even a rare issue for most wikipedia articles but it is kind of worrying that the Hikikomori label may be starting to be used as a marketing tactic and that’s why I’m preserving these quotes in case it never gets restored.

(I’ve no patience for wikipedia edit wars.)

I also fully accept the responsibility that I may be accused of doing the same thing with this blog and this may come off as hypocritical mud-slinging by me but since I have no way to prove my integrity, I could only give my word that I don’t have an agenda against Hiki-Culture but it would be heart breaking if future Hikikomoris gather in the wrong place due to wikipedians’ neglect of protecting the Hikikomori article from such edits.

Therefore even if the word “spam” can be interpreted as sensationalism, this would have to stay to serve as linkbait in case the issue becomes more drastic in the future.

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Justice by Points

Justice by points essentially means they’d ignore a crazed ax wielding man walking down the street because they are buys ticketing people and trying to harass them into a half-excuse to arrest them. Then when the ax man comes back after butchering a family, they call a mini-army and take him down, then get even more “Points”. But the officer who just gives warnings and stares away bad guys before they do something bad at least doesn’t get a promotion, if not fired…

And, likewise, Prosecutors will go after girls photographing themselves nude but ignore insider traders and other high-profile crimes. More “Slam Dunk” cases, better score. Criminal who do a Lot of damage to society but can afford good lawyers, bad score.

Source: http://www.sankakucomplex.com/2009/09/25/schoolgirls-arrested-for-photographing-themselves/

Typo issues aside, this is why even as a Hikikomori, it is important to discuss the laws and policies of the world. It may seem like this is a problem for the outsiders or that we should deal with these issues with a severity of most internet forums (i.e. dogmatic and viciously against anyone with opposing opinions) but the problem is that the rest of the world are too busy tiring themselves to really listen unless there’s a special occasion like the election.

Yes, most of us aren’t politicians, political science students and internet sadists but that’s why we have one of the most ample opportunities to listen and apply that dream by the US Constitution Founding Fathers which was for law to be understood and discussed by common lay-men and not be controlled by a “ruling class” (I’m sorta combining a theme by Marx here). That said, I’m not saying many of us don’t know some politics but I think we as an online community even when talking about politics treat it like the rest of people do and I can sit here and type all kinds of adjective of what that means, but those of you who’ve participated in an online political discussion already know how, just like religious topics, they are often anxiety-inducing topics even to normal internet surfers. How we progress beyond a community that won’t crumble when bringing up those themes will be a huge test of how much our community has improved beyond normal communities. How much we value the information we get from that kind of a community may even be the X-factor in elevating us into an online community so unified the likes that may never have existed before.

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How Mainstream Media works

People often know this at the common sense level — but I got the sense, from talking online with other Hikikomoris, that they didn’t quite realize the urgency of why we’re as vulnerable as we are in our current state.

This of course not really being the first post I shared about how the media works but it still needs to be emphasized that: “Mainstream media knows how to turn ordinary things into something horrible!” …and that’s why for a minority group such as us Hikikomoris, it might not seem that if we’re not Japanese, we’re not on a ticking time bomb. It may just seem that all we need is to keep a low profile. It may just seem that MSM won’t pick us up because the term is not catchy enough to attract regular TV watchers. It may even seem like I’m just scare mongering or talking about a what-if situation that may take years or centuries to even manifest but until the day we develop our own answers and our own definition of who we are — and not just as a personal opinion,  but valid enough opinions that will be accepted by majority of our group; we will always be under a ticking clock where people from the outside will constantly redefine our lives until it is used by our countries’ mainstream media against us. Yes, it’s true that someone from outside invented and popularized the word “Hikikomori” in the first place but it doesn’t mean once the ball gets rolling that these people are not looking to trample someone else besides us. As the previous quote implied: It’s all the same when it comes to victims.

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Are Western ‘nerds’ and ‘geeks’ deserving of the label of ‘hikikomori’ and being consigned to rehab centers like they are in Japan?

No.

I think the real issue is that in hierarchy conscious Japan, with each thing having and knowing its “place”, that the minute a new phenom appears and there is no previous history or tradition in Japan of dealing with it, there is a panic, if you will, to categorize and label it; to make it safe and understandable to society. This categorization occurs even if this flattens the phenomenon down into an overly simplified two-dimensional label that does not completely take all aspects into account nor is an inaccurate descriptor of what is happening.

No one feels threatened by the phenom anymore because they can label it and dismiss it from their own personal lives; they can keep it at arms length. Not to mention they no longer need to consider what caused it to appear in the first place. By not taking cause into account and treating from that base, there appears to be a ‘build-up’ as a social issue gets really out of control. It is at this point, when things reach critical mass, that Japanese society takes corrective measures. This can be seen with numerous school-related problems such as school-refusal, violence against teachers, suicide, and so on.

I feel that naming and labeling in Japan is much much more dangerous and comprehensive once it enters the public discourse as conformity and group-ism is valued.

Labeling is like a net or heavy blanket put on top of a smoking pile of leaves. The fire may or may not be out, be we will never know as a big heavy blanket is safe and unthreatening to look at. You never again see the phenomenon that is underneath, unless of course the fire underneath gets so intense that it sets the blanket alight; but then it is far too late.

Labeling is a way for society to exercise power upon something currently outside its ken. It creates a two dimensional symbol of the phenomenon in the discourse of the mass consciousness; it’s a short hand if you will, that is not really an accurate picture and perhaps even a pale shadow of reality cast by the fire in Plato’s Cave.

—

Source: http://towakudai.blogs.com/my_weblog/2004/11/are_western_ner.html

Basically I’m sharing this for the same reason I shared this post.

I wouldn’t even be surprised if many prefer this version over all of my writings.

Let’s face it: This is simple and direct.

Sure, I hate this style because it’s “stock”.

It’s so deprived of emotions… so safe from major criticisms… so lacking in substance that these kinds of writing can often evict an act of *nod *nod or *shakes head* and nothing of substance ends up getting discussed by the group who needs to talk about it most. (us)

…

(Let’s not forget that while the analogy of the smoking pile of leaves sounds good, it can really be applied to anything outside of Hikikomoris)

…

Nevertheless, it is what it is: An opinion that matches with my own but explains it in a succinct manner that, if I wasn’t a Hikikomori, I wouldn’t have much disagreement with it.

Unfortunately I am (or I consider myself one) therefore I just can’t let my criticism go because we can’t afford just agreeing or disagreeing on this issue. We REALLY need to address and discuss it.

Unfortunately, I don’t even know how to begin communicating why this issue is a serious one — so you might as well consider my criticism as just “hot air”. (I wouldn’t even be surprised if someone accused me of just being jealous of this person’s writing style.)

Nathan Fox, University of Maryland, and his colleagues subsequently reported that children with two short alleles of the 5HTTLPR gene whose mothers also reported receiving low social support were more likely to show behavioral inhibition (fearfulness and a tendency to withdraw) at age 7. Those receiving high support did not show the tendency, and those with the long alleles but receiving low support also appeared “protected” by their genetic makeup. Behavioral inhibition may put a child at risk for mental illness in later life (Fox et al., 2007).

Genetic predisposition to stress sensitivity may in some cases become a self-fulfilling cycle. Fox and colleagues found that some very behaviorally inhibited children were regarded by their mothers as hard to soothe and received less care and sensitivity as a result; this in turn tuned up the child’s sensitivity to stress through the alterations in the mPFC and amygdala mentioned earlier. In the model Fox and colleagues propose, genetically influenced temperament in early childhood influences the quality of caregiving children receive, which in turn shapes a child’s attention bias to threat.

—-A Cup Half Full—-

So Nietzsche’s strenuous view of life, “whatever doesn’t kill me makes me stronger,” just plain isn’t true. Stressors that don’t kill you in the short run may yet shorten your life or drastically lessen its quality.

But quit your moping and look on the bright side: The newly refined science of stress could lead to new drug therapies that can control stress or inhibit its effects on health. Also, depression and anxiety are not only results of stress, but also causes, and existing therapeutic and medical treatments for these conditions can help change how people perceive threats, put their life challenges in context, and cut stressors down to manageable size. The cycle doesn’t have to be vicious, in other words.
What’s more, the confirmation that the mind directly affects the body can work as much in our favor as it does to our detriment, as the personality-and-stress research above indicates. As APS Fellow Carol Dweck, Stanford University, has argued, personality is mutable (see Herbert, 2007); if our outlooks and beliefs about ourselves can be changed, so (theoretically) can our vulnerability to life’s slings and arrows.

The bottom line: Stress is not inevitable. Even with more than one’s fair share of vulnerability genes, there’s plenty of room to take one’s life and one’s mind in a less stressful direction. Relaxation techniques such as meditation and yoga, for example, have been confirmed to quell stress demons. Even if you are a determined workaholic glued to your cell phone or a fearful and angry urban neurotic like Woody Allen, stress-reduction methods are readily available to cope with stress in the short term and even alter perceptions of stressors in the long term.

Meyer Friedman, co-discoverer of the link between “Type A” behavior and heart disease, is a case in point. A self-described Type-A personality, Friedman wound up suffering a heart-attack at age 55. He made the conscious choice to change his ways in accordance with his own discoveries — including following his own prescription by reading the classics. To get more in touch with his slow, patient, and creative side, he read Proust’s languid seven-volume opus Remembrance of Things Past three times. In short, he trained himself to relax and enjoy life, and he had the last laugh at stress by living to the ripe old age of 90.

—-The Social Side of Stress—-

Any kind of frustration or challenge can cause stress, but by far the most powerful stressors, as measured by physiological stress responses, are those caused by disrupted or absent social relationships (Koolhaas, de Boer, & Buwalda, 2006). Loss of friends and loved ones, inadequate nurturance, and social isolation all have major impact on health and well-being.

At the University of Chicago, APS President John Cacioppo and Louise Hawkley have studied the health effects of social isolation, an increasingly common malady in the modern world. Among their findings are that lonely older adults show more arterial stiffening and higher blood pressure than their nonlonely counterparts and that the association between loneliness and blood pressure increases with age (see Hawkley & Cacioppo, 2007, for a review).

Cacioppo and Hawkley also found that loneliness directly impacts the HPA axis. In middle-aged and older adults (but not young adults), loneliness is associated with higher levels of epinephrine in the blood, and lonely people of all ages show elevated levels of cortisol. By desensitizing the mechanism whereby cortisol turns off more cortisol production, the social isolation frequently experienced by older adults may hasten physical decline (Hawkley & Cacioppo, 2007). Lonely individuals of all ages also have poorer sleep than nonlonely people and therefore get less of sleep’s essential restorative benefits.

Humans and other social animals particularly seek the company of others when facing threats — both for safety and for social support. The general affiliative response — what APS Fellow and Charter Member Shelley Taylor, UCLA, has called “tending and befriending” (Taylor, 2006) — is mediated by the hormone oxytocin. Oxytocin rises during times of separation or disrupted social relations. Just as the familiar “adrenaline rush” of epinephrine induces the familiar fight-or-flight reaction, it is oxytocin that causes us to desire company and social togetherness. It may be especially important in females, reflecting their different reproductive and survival priorities from those of males — i.e., caregiving (tending offspring) and lessening social tensions through friendly overtures (befriending).

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Full Article: http://www.psychologicalscience.org/observer/getArticle.cfm?id=2265

I do disagree that this implies that: “Nietzsche’s strenuous view of life, “Whatever doesn’t kill me makes me stronger,” just plain isn’t true but I do hope all Hikikomoris not only social anxiety based ones take this into heart.

The reality of this situation is much darker. If all humans today would be injected by all the histories of the world right now, right here… these observations would be treated as statement of obviousness in most everything we value. Beyond stress, beyond fatigue, beyond genes is the reality that education, politics, recreation, entertainment, morality, religion… all have fallen due to this model.

…and I’m only creating this particular scenario because some of you may see the effects stated in this quote as that one made by a cold, hard scientist. Maybe not even a scientist, but written by someone with an agenda.

You might not be far off…

I certainly don’t have enough knowledge and passion in science to verify this effect and you could even accuse me as having my own cynical bias and agenda but I do know that it happens quite a lot. So much so that the reality of this situation is that the average cynic, even when they are accused of being cynics, are being optimists in their thoughts, actions and reactions.

To quote a conversation from a Law and Order SVU episode titled “Charisma”:

George Huang: Well, what do you want to talk about?

John Munch: Well, it doesn’t really matter. We could all talk till we’re blue in the face. It’s not gonna change the fact that the human race is ever-evolving and will always come up with elaborate, repulsive, and depraved ways to kill each other.

George Huang: And that’s what really bothers you, isn’t it? That you can still feel disgusted.

The full reality of this situation is also beyond the average cynical view in that we Hikikomoris aren’t heading towards the better. Most of us aren’t desperate enough to go beyond this normal state of decay and trauma. (Some of us even think we’ll be ok if we’re just able to hop on the “normal people” bandwagon!)

The reality is, the longer we Hikkikomoris act like normal internet surfers and forum posters, the farther the chance we’ll ever be able to steer the course of our future (and the future of our children and of future people who will be like us).

Remember, the reason most of us are this way is because in the past, the people who are similar to us didn’t do enough to change their present and create a better world for us. This isn’t just a criticism of them but also of the direness of this entire situation. Are we, today, going to follow in the footsteps of our past?

This is why I don’t mind reading rants:

I can appreciate that painting someone as ignorant, narrow-minded, or generally lacking perspective is a tactic of debate, especially on message boards, because it’s a way of asserting yourself as an intellectual superior. But before, you accuse me of being an ‘idealistic moralizer’ consider the image that you might be projecting as someone who resorts to tired conventions of online arguments.

—

From an un-Hikikomori related topic in IMDB.

It’s still surprising how I can talk to people one on one on the internet and they would share something personal but then they would end it with something like “Nevermind. I’m just ranting now.”

The truth of the matter is that rants can be one of the most sincere and honest form of conveying yourself to another person.

Yes, if everyone tolerated every rant, we’d be knee-deep in emo mud but at the same time, to a person who really cares for the substance of what another person is saying — Rants mixed with reasoning can serve as the coup de grace to many doubts on how you feel about a topic.

It is the knife that slashes through the hypocrisy of the sounds coming out of our mouths we call “typing”. It is honest emotion sharpening honest emotion and it unintentionally produces the “grain of truth” that is often ignored and under-noticed when not said; but often becomes “stating the obvious” when unearthed and posted in all it’s simplistic but underrated glory.

In this case, this rant shows how easy it is to potshot people under the traditional rules of the internet. Most internet veterans know what I mean.

The usual “you’re banned from this forum due to flaming, trolling and spamming” was never good enough. Even an internet who read Flame Warriors know it’s not enough.

(Edit: even an internet newb)

The problem is that most internet admins and mods think it’s good enough. So much so that those who try to break the mold often resort to making “subjective” decisions and rules that often end up serving as the flip-toss for the quality of THEIR forum rather than setting up a new standard for people to follow.

The irony though is that by settling on the idea that the old rules are the basic rules and that anyone trying to change them is only being politically correct, the lack of renewed ethical perspective for this view has created the modern day internet version of the “Politically Corrects”.

One that is exclusive to the internet in that depending on what place and what culture you stumble on, you can be a troll for opposing someone’s view where as elsewhere you can go to hell and high water to become a troll — and you won’t get accused of trolling — while the frustrated victim ends up being called the troll and that’s if BOTH of you didn’t get punished. (For Christ’s sake people, trolling is not cannibalism or Saudi Arabian surprise sex! It’s not that confusing to know where the line is drawn.)

This has become a whole mish-mash of subjective nonsense that popular internet surfers like to excuse as proof for the “diversity” within the internet when in reality — like real life political correctness — it’s essentially just a monotonous, parodic,  predictable and conformistic-producing mindset that is keeping the internet from improving socially as it has technologically.

http://hikkikomori.tumblr.com/post/176494546/just-a-video-upload-connecting-to-a-recent-post-i

…

This; of course, extends beyond our tissues and is more of a general internet issue.

But as Internet Hikikomoris we have a special role in this ecosystem!

…

As a group we are composed of people who like to claim they are just suffering from social anxiety disorder while others want to claim we are doing this for a reason.

If you’re a neutral observer who stumbled upon our community though, would you say we were among the top eschelon for pioneering a better place for discussions over the internet? Even if you lower your standards to “Hikikomori 2 Hikkikomori” discussions?

No.

Even if you just narrowed it down to the ratio of polite users?

No. (Hell, there’s even a HikiCulture topic where some posters said they liked the smaller community because the PhpBB forum suddenly got ruder when a bunch of new posters came in.)

The bottomline, as it stands, is that we’re no better and no worse as a community than most other internet communities.

Now why is that bad?

Because most of us know and admit that we are socially unorthodox.

Now we can be socially unorthodox and accept most people’s assumptions that we are below average pathetic little social creatures or we can be socially unorthodox and use other people’s criticism of us as opportunities to make ourselves socially above average.

The dissenters might counter with the cliche “Why settle for those two choices?”

I would counter by saying it’s because we’re special that way that we can afford to have these two choices pushed against our faces and still be able to afford other choices.

This is nature’s way of asking whether we want to adapt (and accept that we are special) or conform (and accept that we are normal). This is where we as Hikikomoris in our baby form of a community decide whether we want to learn to walk faster than the rest of the babies or go back to being among those who crawl and hope by doing so, we can crawl just as fast as the average baby barring the few talented among us. This is our quest, our destiny to change

…and the crossroads we must make

…and the crossroads we must take

…AS a community

…and NO. I’m not saying we should be a group who becomes stricter with how we treat each other and better at filtering and separating the rude and inflexible ones from the polite and inflexible ones so that we may not start flame wars as much.

…I’m asking of us to push our group, our individual ethical standards and our community to become more accepting of diverse social interactions by being able to welcome both those who are rude and flexible and those who are polite and flexible so that we may start the breeding ground for a community that can be flexible yet intolerable to those who want to toe the line and pretend not to be trolls, flamers, potshotters, “etc. other Flame Warriors” and invoke rightful justice upon them while avoiding causing rightful injustice to the ones who don’t deserve such harsh punishments because we set a goal to be socially unorthodox rather than striving to be the social norm. (or below that.)