BBC’s Hard News Reporting: Deranged Teens Obsessed With Japanese Fashion
Posted by: Leonora Epstein
Filed in:
news
11:40AM, Tuesday June 30th 2009
According to the BBC, the newest fashion movement to capture the obsession of British teens is a Japanese style called manba, which involves this weird blackface situation and Kiss makeup. The youth culture is meant to be rebellious and anti-conformist, and places women as the higher sex. Naturally, manba is the package deal and comes with its own genre of music and dance moves that involve hand movements that make the dancer look like a traffic director on speed. The BBC talked with two manba-obsessed teens (which constitutes a movement, clearly), one of whom is a young boy who will either grow up to be a drag queen or star in Britain’s next Will and Grace spinoff. He says, “I was always into Japanese fashion…my first reaction to manba was like, ‘oh my god what is that?” Then I found I actually quite like it. I’m not a very confident person, but when I have my makeup on i’m more confident.” Be sure to click through to watch the hilarious dance video, which if it weren’t made by the BBC, could be a contender for a YouTube hit. [BBC]
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Ninaka
wrote on June 30 2009 @ 11:45 am: [report]
It’s better than them doing drugs….right?
CheeeeEEEEse
wrote on June 30 2009 @ 11:58 am: [report]
@Ninaka: That’s planned for Thursday. They gotta take the edge off somehow.
sstephs
wrote on June 30 2009 @ 12:12 pm: [report]
FINALLY! Something from Japan that I don’t want the US to import.
To be fair though, i think it was the Amazonians who started this trend.
psychotwilightgirl
wrote on June 30 2009 @ 12:58 pm: [report]
love it! lol!
AgentBeryllium
wrote on June 30 2009 @ 01:06 pm: [report]
LMAO @ Ninaka & CheeeeEEEEse!
CheeeeEEEEse
wrote on June 30 2009 @ 01:12 pm: [report]
@Sstephs: There are tons of stuff you don’t want that so happens to be Japanese, let me count the ways: Yaoi, used pantie machines on the street, their boring porn (The girls are all screechy and they censor all the good bits), their television programming….I could go on and on or I can just say GAIJIN SMASH!
DancerNinja
wrote on June 30 2009 @ 01:29 pm: [report]
Haven’t the harajuku kids been doing this make-up and para-para dancing for ages now? They way the kids dance over there is like the meeting of The Macarena and flight attendant instructions, on crack.
sstephs
wrote on June 30 2009 @ 02:52 pm: [report]
@CheeeeEEEEse
1. I believe the correct term is “love machine”
2. their porn? like listening to mice make love!!!
3. Waaaay better than telenovelas.
There’s a need for all of this.
I stand behind my statement.
cjmar
wrote on June 30 2009 @ 08:36 pm: [report]
I’ve heard it being called “ganguro” and it’s a way for Japanese teens to rebel against the standard of beauty. For instance very pale skin and black hair is considered beautiful, so they tan their skin and bleach their hair to the extremes. Also their makeup is a lot better applied than these kids in the picture above.
bumbler
wrote on June 30 2009 @ 09:01 pm: [report]
@cjmar Hrm seems like that message might get lost in western cultures where tanned and bleached is the norm. Not that I think many would find these two particularly attractive. Another fad with a costume sigh, reminds me of this quote from Good Omens
“Human beings mostly aren’t [particularly evil]. They just get carried away by new ideas, like dressing up in jackboots and shooting people, or dressing up in white sheets and lynching people, or dressing up in tie-dye jeans and playing guitars at people. Offer people a new creed with a costume and their hearts and minds will follow.”
Erin G
wrote on July 1 2009 @ 09:52 am: [report]
@cjmar: Its kinda like the Japanese equivalent to being goth, would you say?