On June 17, 2017, Japanese idol group NMB48 member Sudo Rinhana suddenly announced the marriage news at the scene of the annual AKB48 general election, which not only formed a news hotspot in Japan, but also unexpectedly caused a huge controversy in the Chinese Internet public opinion field.
From the standpoint of 48G (i.e. 48Group, which is the collective name of a series of female idol groups belonging to the same operating team, such as AKB48, AKE48, NMB48, etc.), Sudo's behavior undermines the "love prohibition regulations" expressly stipulated in the team, which is no different from fraud. To bystanders who do not understand the workings of Japanese idol groups, or who hate them even if they do, the ordinance itself is absurd and dehumanizing.
In this debate about "can a teen idol fall in love", the basic strategy of 48G fans is to popularize some of the "common sense in the circle" that exists in the Japanese idol industry that seems strange to ordinary passers-by, and the response of the anti-other party is quite dismissive, "Consistently, is it right?" ”。
In fact, the "Love Prohibition Ordinance", a code of conduct for the private life of teenage idols, was not the norm in the industry when the idol industry first emerged. On the contrary, in recent years, it has gradually been fixed in the discourse power between capital (operators), idols, and fans. The transformation of the Japanese idol industry and the entertainment industry, the unprecedented growth of the fan economy, and the subtle changes in the psychology of fans are all products of this process, not Sudo's personal "whether there is a problem with private morality" can be summarized.
In the history of the development of Japanese female idols/groups, the history of male idols/groups can be divided into two distinct eras, bounded by the year 2005, when AKB48 was born.
Active teen idols/groups and idol actresses of the 1970s and 1990s, such as Truth of Heaven (1971), Candies (1972), Pink Lady (1976), Kitten Club (1985), Kyoko Fukada (1996), and Good Morning Girls (1998), all debuted on TELEVISION drafts, variety shows or TV series, and their core sources of income were generally record sales, film remuneration and advertising endorsement fees.
By the beginning of this century, when AKB48 was preparing to debut, the Internet rose rapidly as a new media, and its influence gradually overshadowed the traditional media represented by television. Sales in the Japanese record industry have also been hit by online downloads, falling from 600 billion yen (about 37 billion yuan at the current exchange rate) at their peak in 1998 to less than 300 billion yen in 2016.
In response to changes in the market environment, the AKB48 portfolio was born without the traditional monetization approach.
Instead of pinning their hopes on tv platform dissemination and record sales revenue (AKB48's exclusive TV variety show was only launched in 2008 after it became popular), they used the Internet as the main publicity position, holding small-scale performances in fixed venues every day to create a new concept - "idols who can meet", in order to attract core fans to repeatedly buy tickets to watch performances at low prices (ticket prices were initially 1,000 yen, about 60 yuan), as the main source of income.
In 2009, the first "AKB48 Single Selection General Election" was launched, which aims to determine the popularity ranking of 48G members by means of fan voting, so as to determine which members will be able to enter the next single recording. Ballots to participate in the event are distributed in the form of physical CD records, and fans often buy hundreds of CDs in order to make their favorite idols get higher rankings and better team resources. Fans are often "excessive consumers" — for example, after Sudo made his wedding declaration, witnesses reported seeing two Sudo fans crying at the subway station because the two voted 300 and 1,000 votes respectively, which also meant buying physical CD records with the same number of votes. As a result, the AKB48 general election means that based on the competition mechanism within the team, it is necessary to encourage fans to over-consume. This operating model is also known as "AKB Commercial Law", and with this strategy, 48G has created one sales miracle after another at a time when the Japanese recording industry is in decline. The total election helped 48G achieve what it is today (it was from 2009 that AKB48 sold almost all of its singles and CDs sold more than a million copies).
Obviously, the fan groups attracted and shaped by AKB48, from consumption habits to path dependence on media, are greatly different from tradition, and can be said to be representatives of emerging fan groups in the Internet era.
Media changes and changes in the market environment have shaped the two distinct operating models of the Japanese idol industry. It has also directly led to the trade-off between capital (operator), idols, and fans in the idol industry.
In the capital-idol-fan relationship, the most significant change is of course the increase in the status of fans.
In the idol industry from the 1970s to the 1990s, the television media and the capital (operators) represented by record companies and agencies obviously had an absolute right to speak, and it was the capital and the media that decided which idols could debut and which idols could get more exposure.
During this period, compared with the likes and dislikes of fans, the ban of TV stations and the snow hiding of record companies and agencies were the most fatal blows to idols. Due to the single and narrow communication platform, fans can only choose from a limited number of idols promoted by capital (today's 48G is a super-large group with a total number of hundreds of people), and fans have neither channels nor qualifications to interfere in the operation strategy of capital and the private life of idols, and at most privately express dissatisfaction. For example, the fan support meeting of the ancestral girl idol group Candies, its daily activities are nothing more than organizing fans to help (cheering) at the concert site and related activities, and the most out-of-line action is only to call on the members of the fan club to buy a few more records and support the cause of the idol for the last time when the group is about to disband. The nature of such a fan support meeting is nothing more than a "fan alliance" that assists the brokerage company in organizing and managing fan activities.
At a time when the market is extremely sluggish, the entertainment industry's dependence on the fan economy is rising rapidly, and the so-called "AKB Business Law" is a shrewd business strategy, but without the support of fans, it is impossible to talk about. Fans vote with money, not only enough to interfere with the operational strategy of capital (the operator) (of course, the vote of fans does not affect the decision-making of the operator 100%, for example, Yuko Oshima won the first place in the second AKB48 general election, and did not continue to be reused in the next year), but also tied the future of the idol with the likes and dislikes of the fans, thus obtaining the qualification to "negotiate" with the idol: once the fan is dissatisfied with the idol, they can choose to stop or reduce the voting - it is always the most effective to speak with money.
If you have watched the video of the AKB48 general election, you will know that when idols come on stage to thank you and mention fans, they are always respectful and cautious, saying things like I have worked hard, carried everyone's expectations, and done not do well enough to hope that fans will not be disappointed in me. This attitude, similar to job reporting, is difficult to find in traditional idols.
In this way, the 48G fan group that spends a lot of money to help idols rise to the top is essentially a "shareholders' meeting" without compromise.
So, why don't fans want idols to fall in love?
The psychological and pleasure mechanism of fan star chasing is simply a mixture of "self-projection, narcissism" and "intimate relationship and sexual relationship imagination". Self-projection and narcissism, which is to see the success of idols as their own success and thus gain satisfaction, are common among fan groups. The fan base of celebrity idols will also feel honored (called "career fans") because their idols have won professional awards, etc. In addition, satisfying fans' imaginations of intimate relationships and sexual relationships is also a basic function of idols. Idols are often the "dream lovers" of fans, and within the idol industry, a set of perfect "services" have also been developed - fixed language, movements, behaviors, such as using fingers to compare heart shapes, and so on. This discourse system, in turn, solidifies the imagination of "I am in love with my idol." For 48G fans, in addition to the above two kinds of psychology, there is also a sense of pleasure to watch the neighbor's little sister and daughter grow up (called "cultivation powder").
In this way, if the idol openly says that he is in love, it will inevitably destroy the fans' imagination about the intimate relationship and affect the enthusiasm of the fans to support the idol. Although this idea seems quite naïve, the entire idol industry is based on this kind of imagination, and not allowing fans to dream means that the industry itself has no need to exist.
In the last century, when the Internet was not developed, fans had limited access to idols, and even if they met in the TV screen day and night, they could not know the true state of idols outside the screen. The image of the idol is also mostly packaged in layers. In the 1980s, the popular idol singer Koizumi Tomoko once sang a song "Because I am an idol" (なんてったってアイドル), the lyrics of which read, "Because I am an idol, although I am in love, I am still insensitive to gossip, and my personal image is the most important... Although we are in love, when we interview, we must also say that there is no comment, and ask my agent."
Idols are in love while deceiving fans to say "still single", which has long been almost the default common sense in the industry. Fans have illusions while taking the risk of being deceived and deceiving themselves, which is also an inherent industry ecology. In the era when fans' voice is insufficient, even if the idol breaks out a scandal, fans do not have the ability to reverse the fait accompli, and often can only tear up posters and break records in protest.
With the rapid development of the fan economy, on the one hand, fans are gradually strengthening, and even have the possibility of competing with capital. On the other hand, idol artists are getting worse and worse. In the early years, the singing and dancing strength and acting skills of idols were mostly remarkable, and even if they lost fan support, they could stand on their business level. After takuya Kimura, a god-level idol, announced her marriage, her career was hit, but she was still able to get a certain job opportunity. However, today's idol artists, especially idol groups such as 48G, are mostly difficult to gain a foothold in the industry without fans spending money to support them. Faced with the competition mechanism within the team of the general election, their situation is even more severe, and once the scandal is spread, even if it only makes a small number of fans feel dissatisfied and stop voting, it will inevitably cause a sharp decline in the ranking of the election. So much so that in the 48G idol, some people have cut their hair and apologized for the rumors.
Compared with their predecessors, the idols of the new era must not only obey the instructions of the capital, but also take into account the needs of the fans, and on both sides are the gold lords and bosses, and no one can afford to offend.
The taboo of idol marriage and love life has always been tacit, it is the common knot of idols and fans, and it is also the hidden danger in the career of all idols (the most widely known example is Andy Lau's decades-long hidden marriage).
Nowadays, in the power structure of the idol industry, capital and fans are holding their own ears, and the autonomy of individual idols is suppressed to the minimum. The existing order of power has been broken, and the stereotypes and old laws established on it must be rewritten. Fans who have the right to speak, how can they tolerate idols lying to themselves while talking about love.
The "love prohibition regulations" are more like an insurance agreement for fans, and the most important function is to solve the worries of increasingly powerful consumers - fans, protect their consumer rights, and enhance their consumer experience and consumer confidence. At the same time, it also provides a great righteous reputation for capital punishment of illegal idols. Even for idols, they can also operate their own brands and reputations by strictly implementing this norm to attract more consumers. It is in order to comply with this trend, at the beginning of the establishment of AKB48, the "love prohibition regulations" became the team norm in black and white.
Although so far, the "love ban ordinance" has only been relatively popular in the Japanese idol industry, as long as the power structure within the industry is roughly similar, it is not difficult to form a similar situation. Although the fan base of domestic idols has not yet obtained the status of 48G fans, they have known that their purchasing power is enough to influence the success or failure of idol careers, and the heat created by fans in social networks is real money and silver in the information age. As a result, they also began to speak out to negotiate with economic companies, interfering in the idol's work plan, the team's personnel arrangement, and even the idol's private life. At the beginning of this year, Ren Jialun, an actor who became popular for starring in the TV series "Datang Glory", was strongly resisted by fans because of his sudden public love affair - a large number of fans announced that they had "depowdered" and sent articles advising him to see the situation clearly and not to offend fans at the beginning of his career.
The fierce debate around the "love prohibition regulations" shows that the fan economy and fan circle logic are subtly becoming part of daily life. In Japan, the AKB48 general election is far more focused than the parliamentary election, and in early 2016, the remarks of a member of an idol group also triggered a cyber war on the Internet Chinese. Whether it's Sudo or the "love ban", or the traffic stars whose names cannot be mentioned in Chinese social networks, they seem to be random, aimless, and bizarre intrusive into your daily life, but behind everything, there is a solid and huge meaning system - we can't avoid it, we are in it, and we have to relate to it.
……………………………………
Welcome to find us on Weibo, please click here.
You can also pay attention to our WeChat public account "Interface Culture" [ID: BooksAndFun]