My first thought was, how the hell can you write this story and not mention the very famous RealDoll, which is an American product?

Because either the writer didn't know about them - which indicates a lack of simple Googling - or, more likely, because the story is better if it's cast as "Look how weird/sad/lonely/perverted Japanese man are - aren't we glad we're not like that?" In which case it may have been the editor who excised the writer's sentences about RealDoll. I guess "Some Men Like Sex Dolls" is not much of a story.

Gross.

This is a pretty good example of what the CEO of Fark.com means when he talks about the massive dump of non-news. He's got a book out, althought I haven't read it, in which he identifies mass media patterns that repeat over and over again in lieu of real reporting. There's a brief but interesting interview with him on the 4 Hour Work Week blog.

If you think about it too much, it gets a little depressing.

Posted by jane at July 21, 2007 06:00 AM | TrackBack