Japanese Guys Way Behind on Lifestyle Trends
As a once-powerful economy doomed by decade-long deflation, Japan is a vision of our own future. But as trend-adopters, Japanese men are years behind us. Still with the fey emo metrosexual thing, guys?
Global trendspotting organization The Washington Post reports that the current generation of young Japanese men are self-proclaimed "herbivores"—gentle, sexless souls who eschew the corporate lifestyle in favor of spa treatments and "flannel-patterned shirts, bought first-hand but made to look second-hand."
They're nerdy hipsters circa 2005, in other words. You'll never rule the world again when your trends are this played-out, Japan. Even your trend-antitheses need work:
Akira Tanaka, 26, [is] a "carnivore" who ridicules the herbivorous desire to "blend into the atmosphere."
"I was brought up in a family where, if you're a man, you ought to act like a man," Tanaka said. He works as a hairstylist.
