As IF Times

‘Feminized’ Japanese Men Boost Kao Sales as Women Pamper Less – Bloomberg.com.

Hidden among this development is a fundamental sea change for men everywhere.  Japanese men have always carried the reputation of the most chauvinistic of nationalities.  In what other culture is it  institutionalized that the men shall go forth during the day to work, then regularly go out with the boys at night to drink in bars, then stagger home to a compliant wife.  The chauvinism of Japanese men is so legendary, that over the past generation, Japanese women en masse have decided to forego the idea of marriage at all, preferring to live with other gals, or in many cases, opt to move out of the country.  It seems marrying into another culture, especially to compliant north American men, was preferable to enduring life as irrelevant chattel in Japan.

Big news then, that girly men are emerging in Japan, for it is only a matter of time before this phenomenom hits these shores with much bigger impact.  In north america, the gay population of men have always led the way as far as personal grooming and in fact, much of their influence is reflected in the male ideal today.  When was the last time you saw a picture of a hairy chest on the cover of any men’s magazine?  If the market for men’s cosmetics, moisturizers, bronzers and  depillitators takes off in north america, it will single handedly be able to re-ignite GDP growth. 

As we all know, men are a competitive bunch and you can bet that there will be bruising competition to get access to the best personal grooming products.  Think of the money spent on trophy items such as Porsches or Ferraris and you can extrapolate the degrees to which men will pay for the “rarest of  face creams” no doubt harvested from an obscure Himalayan plant which only blooms once every 8 years and then, only at night…in a month that ends with a ‘t’.

Naturally, we will see some changes in our society.  In contact sports for example, much more care will be taken so as not to disturb a carefully coiffed hairstyle or freshly manicured nails.  Ultimate fighting fans will hear shouts of “not the face, not the face” by the fighters, who in fact essentially just slap each other around  before someone gives up when given one too many purple nurples.   Thankfully, because of regular waxing, the audience will not be disgusted by the view when the fighters are bent into compromising positions.

Strip bars and such may suffer, but the spa club business will mushroom.  Men being men, exclusive clubs will open with big initiation fees to distinguish the better ones from the daily pay clubs.  Men will hoard 5, 10 or even vintage 12 year old bottles of skin softener to be brought out only on special occasions to be shared with their best buddies.  At restaurants, we will see the phenomenon of men going off to the bathroom in pairs.

Not all will be good unfortunately.  Women will be crowded out of the medicine cabinet by the gaggle of men’s products.  In addtion, no one will be on time for anything anymore because “getting ready” will have a few more steps for both sexes.  At least they’ll look fabulous when they arrive.

history of useless inventions: chindogu.

In the news recently are increasing  reports of people apparently not knowing how to turn off their cars.  After just a little over a hundred years of having  automobiles become a mainstay of our everyday lives, you would think that aspect of car ownership would be pretty much solved. 

In the very early stages of the automobile, starting a car wasn’t exactly a flick of the wrist.  You were required to throw that scarf around you neck and stoop down at the front of the contraption, pushing mightily on a removable crankshaft until the engine sputtered to life. Soot and greasy hands were always an issue and that’s why driving gloves were required of motorists.  If you didn’t have those and a handlebar moustache, you couldn’t expect to drive.

Some years later, someone invented the ignition key as means of turning on or off the car.  A pretty reasonable invention which all manufacterers adopted and soon the hand crankshaft went the way of driving goggles and handlebar moustaches.  Recently many car makers in the spirit of chindogu as explained in the link above, have moved towards allowing cars to ‘intelligently’ sense that their owners were nearby because of an electronic fob in their pockets.  This fob would automatically unlock the doors and allow starting of the car by pressing a button on the dash or console.  Apparently, clicking a fob and then turning it in an ignition slot to start or stop the car was seen as too onerous a task for most people. 

This has created a new set of problems.  Apparently, some people cannot figure out how to turn off their cars in an emergency and in some cases, the cars are left running unknowingly until discovered 7 hours later.  There was a report of a driver who didn’t know how to immobilize his Toyota Avalon.  Apparently, there are procedures that drivers have to become familiar with other than just turning off  a key.  The word ‘chindogu’ referenced in the link specifically refers to inventions that are purely for the sake of ingenuity without necessarily commercial utility and I believe this new method of starting or stopping cars comes perilously close to being the poster item for this definition.

In the old days, watching TV shows such as Star Trek,  it was  amusing that the doors would slide open automatically when someone approached.   It seems cool, but in practice, it’s mostly useless in real life.  If you can’t even be bothered to turn the handle on a door,  that pretty much says you’d better sign up for a personal trainer.

This key fob ignition is somewhat reminiscent of the “New Coke” product some years back.  It was an unmitigated flop and soon the product was retired and the classic Coke was brought back as the mainstay.  Perhaps this fob/ignition thing  is a fad.  Perhaps it will go the way of New Coke, or electric dog polishers, or butter from a roll-on stick.  If it does, then it’s legtimate chindogu.

If   however, more of these kinds of  ” convenience” inventions are brought out to make driving easier and with less input from the operator, I humbly submit that such an  invention already exists.  It’s called  a taxi.