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The story
On X, Hiroyuki argued that “the smoking-area community shouldn’t be underestimated — it’s the same reason people who attend drinking parties get promoted.” On 5channel, some voiced agreement, saying “the smoking room has become a place for exchanging information,” while others pushed back, arguing “smoking rooms themselves are becoming rarer these days” and “the point of the original article wasn’t about alcohol or tobacco — it’s that meeting a wider variety of people more often is what actually affects promotions.”
Hiroyuki: Do Smokers Succeed More? He Argues ‘Same Reason People Who Attend Drinking Parties Get Promoted’
Entrepreneur Hiroyuki Nishimura (49) updated his official X (formerly Twitter) account by the 25th, writing about why he thinks smokers tend to succeed.
Hiroyuki began, “I’ve long done work that has me showing up at all kinds of companies, and the smoking-area community shouldn’t be underestimated — it’s the same reason people who attend drinking parties get promoted.”
Source: news.yahoo.co.jp / Read the original article here
What people said
Just don't do it when you can't.
Non-smokers are probably more stressed out than smokers are, so I don't think smoking's such a bad thing.
If you're hanging around without smoking, that's actually creepy.
Like, what reason would you even have to be in the smoking area?
Smokers can tell something's up, so they'll give you the cold shoulder (a play on "kemutagareru" — literally "smoked out," meaning treated as an unwelcome pest).
Secondhand smoke is worse for you, you know.
So you're saying the pachinko crowd is the one getting promoted?
Being dependent on something in the first place is a red flag.
Equating "cooperativeness" with "attending drinking parties" feels pretty outdated at this point.
Way too half-baked lol
The entertainment industry is full of smokers though.
so I get how that grows your network.
But with smoking, some guys are just using it as an excuse to skip work.
But smokers do seem to have this weird sense of community — or solidarity — that non-smokers just can't understand.
Apparently there are relationships that only exist within the smoking area.
Being able to talk directly not just to department heads from other divisions but even to executives is a big deal.
but it does help you become a familiar face.
How many years till retirement?
You'd be better off taking early retirement.
that's really what it all comes down to, huh.
Is there any data on that?
Smoking especially gets you looks like "wait, you still smoke?"
Hiroyuki's right —
plenty of people force themselves to smoke ultra-light 1mg cigarettes just to be there.
These days more people don't smoke,
so that kind of networking barely exists anymore.
If anything, smoking gets your evaluation lowered as a sign you can't manage yourself.
Back in my salaryman days, the smoking room was where people actually exchanged honest information.
Lately Hiroyuki's just stating his personal impressions with no data behind them.
Background and Key Points
Hiroyuki’s remark plays on a well-established piece of Japanese office culture: the tabako-beya or kitsuen-jo (smoking room), a space that survived Japan’s otherwise steady tightening of tobacco rules — the 2020 revised Health Promotion Act banned indoor smoking in most workplaces and restaurants but explicitly carved out sealed, ventilated smoking rooms as an exception. In many companies these became one of the few spots where staff from different departments, ranks, and even executives mix informally outside scheduled meetings, functioning the same way the post-work nomikai (drinking party) does as an unofficial channel for information and face-time with superiors. Japan’s overall smoking rate has fallen for decades, from well over half of men in the 1960s to under 25% today (and far lower among younger, white-collar workers), which is the backdrop for why several commenters say the phenomenon he describes is already fading.
The thread’s actual fault line wasn’t smoking versus health; it was whether Hiroyuki’s causal story holds up at all. Some agreed the smoking room genuinely functions as an informal networking node, but others insisted the mechanism he’s describing predates and outlives cigarettes — it’s about frequent informal exposure to a wide range of colleagues, and smoking or drinking are just one vehicle for that, not the actual driver.
What’s easy to miss is that no one in the thread cites actual data tying smoking status to promotion or income — a gap two posters explicitly flagged. Hiroyuki’s claim is presented as anecdotal observation from his own career, not survey evidence, and Japanese firms that still tolerate smoking rooms tend to skew toward older, more traditional industries — meaning any correlation between smoking and rank may simply reflect generational seniority rather than networking advantage.
*This article is compiled from excerpts and a summary of the 5channel (Entertainment & Sports News+) thread “[Entertainment] Hiroyuki: Do Smokers Succeed More? His Theory — ‘Same Reason People Who Attend Drinking Parties Get Promoted’.”
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