Comment by random9749832
3 days ago
You can still go out there and do things like join a running club. People are still going to arcades in Japan.
Comments like these are kind of ironic.
3 days ago
You can still go out there and do things like join a running club. People are still going to arcades in Japan.
Comments like these are kind of ironic.
Nowadays' Japanese arcades are not like the ones GP is describing, most players don't interact with each other directly anymore.
Notable exceptions are places like Mikado centers that organize tournaments and keep the old flame alive.
I don't think the culture is the same due to cabinets having network capabilities now, but I do think it's possible.
At the taito station in Akihabara, I've met tourists a few times when I was in town for a large tournament (EVO Japan) and made friends from it. I've also had people watching me play, but unfortunately I don't speak Japanese.
I know there's a few arcades that still have some street fighter III: third strike cabinets with regulars. I can't speak for other games but at least for street fighter, people are almost always open and friendly.
I was there 2 years ago. I went inside one of the multi storey gaming places in Akihabara. The old school (90's and older) era games are a small section in one floor when there is 6 storeys of gaming.
That sounds like the Taito Station on the right side of the street. On the other side there is a Gigo with a whole floor for retro games, and Hey! that is focused almost only on retro games.
> Comments like these are kind of ironic.
Why, because there is one country in the world where this doesn't apply?
It's a commentary on modern Western culture, not a request for hobby suggestions.
>not a request for hobby suggestions
Of course it's not. Why look at anything positive or actually do something when you can instead engage in the tired tropes like looking at the past with rose tinted glasses as a way of comforting yourself.
You can be as positive as you want to be, and should absolutely take action and do things to better socialize.
But to pretend it’s remotely the same as it was 40 years ago is utterly ridiculous. Now when you do such things like a running club you are joining a group of very self-selecting people who for the most part have a certain personality type.
You simply do not get the diversity in group experiences as there used to be. It was either go through social discomfort or sit alone bored with zero social interaction. Now the friction to get that social dopamine hit is extremely low bar, and going beyond it the bar has been raised considerably.
Not to mention doing stuff like running club or rock climbing just feeds into the hyper-scheduled world the west has become. Spontaneous social interaction is important too, and those third places are increasingly scarce and involve far more friction. Which again self-selects for certain personality types and lifestyles.
For some people these changes are positive - much easier to find niche activities to do with others. For other people they are extremely negative.
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