The thread kicked off with a post from a Hello! Project fan who’d lost sight of why they kept pouring big money into individual meet-and-greet sessions (kobetsu) just to be “recognized” (ninchi) by a member. Does spending more really mean more satisfaction? How should fans think about members who are simply being friendly as part of the job? And how does this compare to underground idols in terms of how often events even happen? The debate ranged widely over money and fandom psychology.
I think I'm about done with this.
Don't you feel like you have to keep supporting them financially? There's also that "offering to the gods" (o-fuse) mindset at play.
For now I'm shifting toward just defaulting to watching from home whenever I'm unsure.
Think it over carefully~ Money matters, you know~ (quoting a famous old Japanese insurance-commercial jingle)
I'm planning to just cleanly quit right at the 30th anniversary concert.
There's got to be a better use for that money.
For fans — if the members who flirt with you are just doing it as a job, then it's a legitimate option to buy individual time with whichever member actually engages with you, not just your designated favorite (oshimen). You might end up switching favorites (oshi-hen) down the line anyway.
What if she says, "You haven't come to see me lately…"?
Some members will play along, but understand that's just the skill of making a customer feel liked — it's not genuine affection.
So you're spending money purely for recognition and bragging rights?
Keep in mind rich people sometimes spend big specifically so everyone knows they spent big — it's basically the idol-fan version of a rich guy driving a luxury car.
In the end, whoever has fun playing along wins.
Pay 10,000 yen, get 80% satisfaction. Pay 100,000 yen, get 95% satisfaction. Either choice is fine — it's up to you.
How popular someone is at individual sessions is also basically an index of "members willing to play along with them" — something you can't really put a number on.
"Recognition" is also just a tool members use to build that flirty-sales (koi-koi eigyou) atmosphere of "come play with me again."
So you got recognized — congrats. That just means the member's fine playing along with you, so keep buying if you want. Just know you can end up on her bad side too.
Sometimes I hear about otaku DMing members directly and it honestly freaks me out.
>>29 Not on Instagram?
Comments on Instagram Stories are basically all DMs anyway, so that's not really unusual — though it is a little weird to point it out.
Members are doing this as a job, so at individual sessions they show up looking cute and in cute outfits. Customers should just enjoy it — a member's personal feelings are beside the point. Not clicking with a member? Could just be compatibility, or maybe she's not the type who does the flirty-sales routine.
I've had a member ask me to send good restaurant recommendations later over Instagram DM.
Both the craving for recognition at individual sessions and flexing that recognition on X (Twitter) are bottomless. The one time I went "executive producer" tier (a paid sponsor credit some idol projects sell), the closest I got to a member was snapping a photo — and even that was fun.
Ah, so we're talking about DMs — if a member reads blog comments, she might check DMs too. Trying too hard to stand out there will probably just fall flat, so acting normal is probably best.
The hard part is that some customers can't help but chase being the member's "number one" or her favorite. That's tough — it's mostly down to luck, honestly. But there's plenty a customer actually can control: self-improvement.
If you want to step on other fans to become your oshi's number one, just go find an underground idol with only a handful of fans instead.
>>39 Underground idols actually end up costing way more money. Hello! Project still has relatively few events by comparison.
Guys with no money to spend try to stand out with their chants (call-and-response) instead.
If you want to stand out from other otaku, you need to bring real value. Are you going to drop millions of yen on every single release? Become a sponsor of an affiliated company? Or, in terms of being the one who hands out opportunities — like a producer on a film or drama, or, if a member's aiming to be a voice actress, the producer who could actually cast her, or even the original author of the source material?
Wait, is this even specific to Hello! Project? This applies to plenty of other fandoms too.
Why should you work on self-improvement? Because throwing money at a member or bluntly declaring your feelings has an extremely low success rate for actually getting through to her. Improving yourself so she naturally takes an interest in you is the real shortcut to becoming a favorite.
>>44 I know that already. If you want to be number one, don't you basically need to be able to single-handedly support your oshi's whole career?
I can't even max out my iDeCo (Japan's individual retirement savings plan), so I wouldn't know — how much can people actually pour into this stuff?
>>76 Stop it. Quit it. That's enough now.
*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Hello! Project) thread “I’ve slowly started thinking maybe I don’t need to keep dropping big money just for ‘recognition’ and ‘flexing’ — maybe it’s okay to quit.”
Leave a Reply