Most facepalming article on Kotaku EVER

[ZeroAX]

http://kotaku.com/5735366/japanese-youth-shunning-sex-forwhat-exactly

Not only does this have nothing to do with games, not only is the topic of the article stupid, but the writers has to try and defend the Japanese, thus giving the source material credibility (the best way to devalue an argument, is to make it a joke). I don't remember when was the last time I read something online and did an actual facepalm, but this did it for me.

Here Mister Kitamura and Mister Ashcraft, have another facepalm for your poor taste.

[Breetai]

Not only does this have nothing to do with games...

Where, on that site, does it say that it is a dedicated game site? It seems like a game plus nerd news site to me.

[dsheinem]

at the bottom:

"Culture Smash is a daily dose of things topical, interesting and sometimes even awesome — game related and beyond."

this post, however:

[Original_Name]

To be honest, that was the most interesting thing I've read on Kotaku in more than a year. It does relate to video games -- video games are an integral part of the Japanese "pop-culture" which the article repeatedly mentions. It's not a 1:1 ratio, but it is relevant... there is an underlying question of "Do video games make Japanese men less interested in real women?" which is very pertinent to the culture of gaming -- the article does its best to debunk the notion, but it's an interesting question to ask. I've literally heard people say things like, "I wish real girls were as hot as the ones in anime/video games."

Regardless, even if it wasn't relevant at all, I think that people need to get over the fact that sometimes video game news sites incorporate more than just video game information into their articles. Yeah, the sappy junk about dead actors is total filler, but there's no problem with finding ways to connect video games to the outside world... people run away from reality too much. If you check the average young person's Bookmarks, you're bound to find countless pop-culture sites and maybe one dusty news portal that they never check. Make 'em branch out into the real world some, to see if maybe these obsessed gamers will ask themselves if they've notice a personal decrease in sex drive (although I personally think that decreased obsession with sex in our modern culture would be a great thing) -- it connects them with the world at large for at least a fleeting moment... and it'll do them some good.

[d123456]

Thank god none of those dating sims were ever localized. We´d all be virgins!
And thank god they have so little sex there. That´s just mo´ fo´me!
Kotaku is just a regularly updated site with lots of humor and stuff.
We as a community have to keep each other updated on relevant stuff!

[AppleQueso]

I don't get it

...what's so facepalm about this again?

[NJC]

That was a fascinating article, thank you.

[Croooow!]

I actually found that article to be rather insightful. While I was in Japan it seemed like I found this topic being brought up at least once a week to the point where I hated it. But the article does a good job of identifying the real cause of the decline in the birth rate rather than resorting to scapegoats such as video games, porn, anime. A stagnant economy, sky high cost of housing, and a corporate culture that demands an incredible amount of your time make starting a family incredibly difficult and as a consequence people find an escape in the above mentioned videos games, etc. The article also does a good job of pointing out the flaws in the study; sex and sekkusu do not necessarily mean the same thing.

[ZeroAX]

I don't get it

...what's so facepalm about this again?

Well it might just be me, but in general seeing a "scientist" say that the Japanese youth are shunning sex, to me was like all those "scientists" who still think video games are murder simulators that will corrupt your mind. Just because a stereotype exist, it doesn't mean it's even remotely true.

And the facepalm on the writer's part, is that stupid things like that should be made fun of, and not taken seriously, which is what he went on to do by defending video games, and saying that the decline of birth rates has to do with a lot of other stuff.

Also declining birth rates != 1/3 of young people not wanting to have sex...at all

[J T]

Brian Ashcroft does a lot of these 'stranger in a strange land' kind of posts since he lives in Japan now. I find them interesting.