Fujoshi kanojo 腐女子 (”Fujoshi girlfriend”) is a new movie based on a blog by “Pentabu” that rode the original post-moe fujoshi boom to bestselling book status a few years ago. (Pentabu is currently blogging part 2.) I don’t have anything in particular to say about the movie itself, but the way it is being marketed is an excellent example of how the media misunderstands — or at least misrepresents — fujoshi.

Media treatment of the fujoshi concept has always been problematic. The root of the problem is, as usual, otaku culture. When the Akiban hordes first spread across the steppes of the mass media, triumphant cat emoticons unfurled, they brought their own women with them: maids, underground idols, voice actresses, cosplayers, and underage cartoon characters. That virtually all of these women were either personae played for cash or entirely imaginary did not prevent these ideals of womanhood establishing themselves in the public mind as a badly-needed feminine yin to Akibacentric otaku culture’s hypertrophied yanginess.

As a result, when media attention eventually turned to actual fujoshi, the elevator pitch — “They’re otaku, except girls!” — was more or less accurate (granting a broad reading of “otaku”), but the implications were misunderstood. If fujoshi were girl otaku, they must be the girls usually appearing alongside otaku in those TV specials and magazine articles, right? You know — the maids.

But no. As you might expect, although fujoshi and otaku often turn to the same texts for raw cultural material, they have very little to do with each other as cultural actors. There are fujoshi stores in Akihabara, but the main fujoshi center is in Ikebukuro — and it developed around a core of bookstores, not transistor hustlers.

“fujoshi syndicate”, a group of self-described “fujoshi OLs” from Tokyo (the only named member is one Ōta Maki 大田真樹) address this exact point in their recent book Naze, fujoshi wa danson-johi na no ka?『なぜ、腐女子は男尊女卑なのか？』 (”Why are fujoshi male chauvinists?”), discussing the cover of another book from 2007: Bokutachi no ki ni naru fujoshi 『僕たちの気になる腐女子』 (”Those fascinating fujoshi”), which also featured maid imagery on the cover.

Let’s start with the “face” of the book, its cover. The cover of Bokutachi no ki ni naru fujoshi is a girl in a maid outfit. — So at this point, it’s already failed. It’s true that there are a few fujoshi among the girls working in Akihabara’s maid cafes, but most of the staff there are not fujoshi but “Akiba girls” (アキバ系女子).

What are “Akiba girls”? By this we mean girls who love the anime and manga subcultures, but who also go to Akihabara to be made a fuss of. [...] They are otaku, but they don’t do the earthy “Let’s party, just us girls!” thing; they’re on good terms with male otaku too. One representative example would be Nakagawa Shōko (Shokotan).

In other words, otaku girls who wear maid outfits are not part of fujoshi culture, but rather Akiba culture. [...]

The syndicate then relate an apparently true story about how they once asked a maid cafe employee where they could find Messe Sanoh, a specialist retailer of woman’s video games, and that maid didn’t know: incontrovertible proof that she, at least, was no fujoshi.

The fujoshi syndicate actually spend more of Naze, fujoshi wa on this and other misconceptions of fujoshi by non-fujoshi (especially men) than they do on the title question. One argument they keep returning to is that the cosplaying, go-shujin-sama-ing media fujoshi addresses a deep psychological need within post-Bubble men. High salary, highly respected alma mater, and physical height: two of these three Bubble-traditional status markers are much harder to obtain than they used to be, and the idea of a secret caste of women — maybe there are some right there in your office! — who prefer the company of low-status, sensitive, intellectual types, and will even play along with their fantasies — this is bound to have appeal.

(Ironically, argue fujoshi syndicate, real fujoshi are just as status-conscious as ever, and have no interest in otaku as a rule. The syndicate traces this state of affairs to fujoshi reading material and its emphasis on status and power differentials as a source of eroticism.)

The argument here is not that there aren’t any otaku women who genuinely enjoy cosplay and Akiba culture, or that this is somehow inauthentic. Arguments about terminology and authenticity are a dead end. The question is to what extent the prominence given to these individuals impedes understanding of broader “fujoshi culture.” There is also arguably a political element involved: you can see this as the co-option of the idea of the fujoshi to reinforce sociosexual norms, the replacement of a uniquely female culture identity with one defined only in relation to male interests.

Unfortunately, though, it’s not a fair fight. As long as keen interests in fancifully-depicted gay romance and other distinguishing features of non-Akiba fujoshi don’t show up in photos, the media will always prefer the women dressed as frilly maids.

From most quarters of Japan there emanates a vaguely-defined, yet distinct fear and loathing of the internet. I have been quick to label this a “mass paranoia” — originally believing the fear goes beyond any rational assessment of risk — but as we will see, this is debatable. For the time being, I will just provocatively and sensationally label Japanese internet aversion — The Fear.

Some more pronounced aspects of The Fear:

User Trepidation
• A total and comprehensive refusal of Japanese social network site users to post real pictures of themselves (and often, real names)
• An obsession with ultra-long and complicated mobile-email addresses as a spam prevention measure, despite the fact that its effect may be minimal, especially when weighed against the inconvenience.
• A lack of user generated media — YouTube clips, in particular — featuring Japanese faces and real names. Many performers, despite virtuoso-level skills, wear masks or otherwise obscure faces in their video content.
• The predominance of anonymous sites like 2ch as the main corridors of internet culture.
• Blog writers, who have not established fame through other media, almost never reveal real names, even when the information and service provided is of professional quality and not explicitly personal. (More on this here.)
• The local discomfort towards Google Street Maps — debated on somewhat cultural-essentialist grounds — vastly outweighed the benefits for the louder section of Japanese users, forcing Google to plan a re-shoot of all the streets with a “lower angle camera.”

Corporate Indignation
• Mainstream media have essentially boycotted the internet as a new medium for content distribution. Newspapers do not offer full content online and quickly erase content lest it become searchable archives. Magazines rarely use homepages to do little more than list the table of contents in the print edition, and besides a few rare examples like Toyo Keizai and Cyzo, offer almost no full-text articles. Television stations do not sell nor stream programming online.
• Leading management company Johnny’s Jimusho does not allow the use of its talents’ faces on websites to promote their own projects. When images are used, the company fuzzes or otherwise distorts the pictures. (More here.)
• Mainstream news programming likes to play up internet-related crimes in order to discredit new media. See the Smiley Kikuchi incident and Asahi’s creation of fake blogs to prove the internet wrong. Also, this indignation towards the net seemed to fuel Mainichi’s reaction to the Wai Wai debate.
• Companies refuse to let their employees blog with real names on official corporate blogs, as “head hunters may steal away named writers.”

An early caveat: Companies in Japan do not have a strong track record for voluntary change, nor usually welcome increased competition, which is not as much a cultural trait as a universal behavior for oligopolistic firms. So viewed from that perspective, the Japanese mass media are “afraid” of the net, as they are slaves to their own monopolist thuggery and seniority-based decision-making process. If grumpy grandpas had been pulling the strings in Silicon Valley this whole time, everyone would still be using some early version of DOS. Technological foresight is difficult with bifocals.

For users, however, there seem to be three components of The Fear.

1. A fear that criminals and con-men will use online information to scam or otherwise harm the user
2. A fear that co-workers or bosses will find personal details which could be held against the individual within his/her organization
3. A fear of bashing from anonymous mobs for social transgression (especially being judged as an individual “too aggressively trying to stand out”)

The United States is a good counter-test for #1, as nobody has any manner of self-restraint against broadcasting personal information. Despite a culture of “oversharing,” however, I would like to assume — based on anecdotal evidence, at least — that most net scamming strikes naïve users who walk right into (Nigerian) criminals’ traps — rather than those who are “so conceited” to have put a real picture on Facebook. Cases of Internet victimization, bullying, etc. have gotten lots of press in the U.S., but much as driving is a risky activity that both Americans and Japanese would be loath to give up, Americans collectively have decided to accept these risks in order to enjoy the benefits of greater connectivity.

I can already hear the growing protests to this line of thought, however: stop trying to fit Japan into the American model of internet development. True enough. Americans have controlled the global standard for the world wide web, but Japan may not have the right cultural atmosphere to just dive head first into this brave new world. Google Street View is creepy to most everyone at some level, but for Generation X in the U.S., most fears are assuaged by a general good-will towards Google and a set of common ethical values. Imagine the case of Japan, however, where no one knows “what a Google is” nor has much sympathy for the last twenty years of Silicon Valley countercultural land-piracy. Google Street View would just be pure terror — technological menace from abroad.

But maybe the issue is not the internet at all. Néojaponisme contributor Adam Richards (from Mutant Frog Travelogue) points out to me that the net privacy concerns I call “paranoid” may be merely the offline status quo projected onto the new medium:

The Internet privacy obsession is an extension of pre-existing offline phenomena — mosaics on the news, translucent house windows, personal information protection law (and those stickers they place on official postcards), surgical masks, keitai stickers that block onlookers from reading over your shoulder, book covers on the train, people refusing to give their addresses to swine flu inspectors, the broad copyright protection and state-sponsored enforcement, the claim of “publicity rights” to refuse private citizens from photographing celebrities.

Adam believes that this culture of privacy stems from a (perceived) failure of law enforcement, which makes citizens take up matters in their own hands: “The police seem to only take action against major crimes, so people stop counting on them to help if something small goes wrong — hence people take more preventive measures.”

The unreliable police may be a cause for Fear #1, but Fear #2 tends to go hand-in-hand with Japanese society as a whole. The quasi-military organization of white-collar labor in Japan means that individuals often have to hide personality quirks that do not fit with the ideals and standards of the corporate atmosphere. Any sort of questionable hobby automatically qualifies as “secret double life,” and as much as the individual may want to blog about their weird anime obsession or pop sociological theories, for example, bosses may hold it against them. Obviously, this dilemma is somewhat universal — no one anywhere thinks they can get away with overtly public blogging about porn videos — but I would argue that the bar for internet-related impropriety is much lower in Japan — or at least, employees show much more self-censorship to what is an acceptable level of sharing on the web.

Fear #3 — being lynched by an anonymous mob — also seems to be totally legitimate, in that the internet in Japan so far has been almost exclusively about anonymous mobs making trouble for individuals and industry. This writer has found himself on a 2ch page called “Suspicious Foreigners” (someone wrote about my picture, “He looks like an Arab.”) 2ch has shattered many lives, and seeing that the 2ch mobs basically operate without any sort of constraint or liability, most people are smart not to throw their real names or faces out for bait. The Japanese net is basically a den for the “tyranny of the majority” — and the best part is the “majority” could literally be ten pathetic human beings in soiled sweatsuits operating out of some net café in Miyagi-ken and we would have no idea.

So maybe Japanese national paranoia towards the internet is not paranoia at all, but a slightly-overcautious but basically-accurate level of risk assessment. The problem, however, is that the mass anxiety — justified or not — has crippled the development of the internet, which subjectively-speaking, resembles the English-language net in 1997, in terms of graphic design, corporate participation, and general cultural influence. The only difference is that everyone in Japan knows the internet is supposed to be a big deal, instead of some freak side show for college kids and nerds.

Local internet is ultimately, however, an extrapolation of local culture, and so I almost feel some sympathy for the Momus line, in thinking that an attack on the pace of internet growth in Japan is an attack on Japanese culture as a whole. Telling well-meaning and outspoken anonymous Japanese bloggers — many of whom read and comment on this site — that their anonymity is “crippling” to their cause is basically a very gently extended middle finger. That being said, I am adamant that the internet cannot reach full fruition — moving beyond a mere tool box of e-utilities like email, maps, and coupons — without adhering to its fundamental Western-biased premises: namely, “information wants to be free” and “individuals want to establish public identities.” There is no value in a half-assed internet. The whole crux of the internet is user participation — building a network bigger than the sum of its parts and giving voice to the voiceless. So there is a real limit on how interesting or relevant an internet can be if no one is willing to claim responsibility for their contributions. This is why Facebook destroys Mixi — no one wants to see dog and cat pictures, but people do want to see how their old classmates turned out. Companies can provide the shell, but users have to fill in the content.

A fully-realized internet will be critical for Japan achieving some of its own stated goals: prolonged economic growth, greater democracy, more transparency, greater geographic dispersion of economic activity, and equal access to knowledge. Moreover, understanding the latest stages of global internet culture is now a requirement for product development. Apple, not Sony, could make the iPod because the Cupertino-based company knew that college kids wanted to free the thousands of mp3s collected on their computers. I met a cabinet-level bureaucrat recently, who is apparently in charge of Japan’s net infrastructure, and he basically had no idea that free wi-fi was becoming ubiquitous (or at least common) in American cities. In the 21st century, protecting local idiosyncrasy and tradition requires understanding the global standard and knowing how to negotiate it. Everyone in Japan can collectively decide to hate the web and continue to use dog pictures in place of profile portraits. But the country will not be a competitive economic enterprise if its citizens treat think the internet is a Godzilla-like menace that wrecks some infrastructure and then disappears after a while. If there is one thing we have learned about the internet, the genie does not go back in the bottle.

Most measures of “internet development” put a numerical figure on basic infrastructure and use: broadband rates, number of users, number of blogs, etc. This data, however, can rarely capture a sense of how a population is using the net and the larger “internet culture” — i.e., does the internet have an impact within the broader culture and/or are users actively invested in the net as a primary cultural sphere? Most comparisons and opinions on these questions are bound to be based on subjective judgment, but are there not objective ways to measure the abstract idea of “national participation” across the globe?

Wikipedia may provide the perfect field for comparison. Almost every major language has its own Wikipedia, and in most developed countries, the site is one of the most central and widely-accessed reference sources. And since users, rather than a specific company or central organization, are responsible for adding entries, the number of pages in a certain language should reflect an overall interest in a population’s desire to contribute to the internet.

In order to compare across the board, we first need to find a ratio for “number of Wikipedia pages in language / speakers of language.” For the number of pages, I used the figures given on the front page of http://wikipedia.org. For the speakers of each language, I used the highest estimate of native speakers on each language’s Wikipedia page, under the loose assumption that most editors and writers are native speakers. To make a more-easily viewed ratio number, I then multiplied the product of the pages/language division by 1,000.

The results:

As we see, European languages like Dutch, Polish, and German show the highest proportional participation in Wikipedia content. English is relatively high, although perhaps this number is skewed by the high usage of the site by non-native speakers. Furthermore, Wikipedia began in English, meaning the English version of the site has had more time to grow and expand than other languages. Some of the difference seen above is clearly socioeconomic: languages like Spanish clearly have a lot of speakers below the poverty level, who may lack access to computers. Europeans, however, still seem to have an extremely high rate of active Wikipedia participation — perhaps suggesting a strong commitment to Wikipedia’s goals.

I initially explored this idea for a measure in June 2008, and now comparing the number of pages in each language at that point in time with those as of late Feb 2009, Spanish has the highest growth rate at a 19.84% — which means there is a growing effort to make up for the generally low ratio. Despite high page numbers, Dutch still is growing at a relatively fast rate of 16.29%. Italian is similar at 16.49%. Japanese, however, is the slowest of the pack at 13.23%.

This, of course, brings us to Japan, which has a relatively low ratio of pages/speakers and low growth rate. Japan is the most illuminating for this measure, as essentially all statements about the “Japanese language sphere” are basically statements about the Japanese nation. I personally believe the low ratio reflects a certain disinterest in internet participation, which can be seen in other aspects of Japanese internet development. This data, although not particularly in-depth or scientific, suggests that there is a relatively slow embrace of the Web 2.0 concept — including the somewhat ideological aspect that everyone, not just elites, should contribute to the collection of information and knowledge. There is a case to be made that this “information wants to be free” philosophical disposition has no real precedents in Japanese institutional ethics or philosophical values, and regardless, has yet to reach joushiki “common sense” level in Japan. Wikipedia is Alexa’s #10 most-viewed site in Japan, so many Japanese are using the site as an easy and convenient reference, but numerically-speaking, they have much less interest in contributing than most major European language groups in the same socioeconomic order. Are the low levels of participation a product of laziness, disinterest, or a belief that collecting knowledge should be left to elites? Is the prominence of mobile phone access to the net, in particular, fundamentally limiting?

Obviously, this measure is not the ultimate means to gauge abstract political feelings about the promise of the internet, but in the case of Japan, I believe this Wikipedia benchmark gives some indication about the lack of net participation, not usually visible in more general statistics about web usage.

Recently there has been a fascinating media circus over the referral to prosecutors (charged without being physically arrested) of 18 internet users on suspicion of making false accusations towards a fairly minor comedian. While this may be the first case of several individuals charged at once for so-called enjo (炎上) flame attacks, the case relies on the same-old “the internet is scary!” whining from mass media dinosaurs.

For almost a decade now, internet users have been falsely accusing comedian Smiley Kikuchi of involvement in the horrific “concrete girl” murder/burial in 1989 (I previously mentioned the murder case on MF here). His talent agency was forced in the past to shut down a “bulletin board site” due to the flood of misplaced malice directed toward the tarento.

Kikuchi was mistakenly accussed of being one of the murderers due to being a similar age to the criminals (born in 1972) and hailing from the slummy areas of Adachi-ku where the crime happened. According to Smiley himself, the rumors showed up verbatim in a “taboos of the entertainment industry” book, which his tormentors then used to back up their claims. It did not help Kikuchi that he has based his whole comedy career on being a jerk. His own jimusho bills him as “a suspicious person you’ll never forget once you’ve seen him,” and Wikipedia summarizes his comedic stylings as “getting laughs by saying mean things with a big smile on his face.” Not exactly a charmer.

Now after setting up a new blog with Usen-affiliated Ameblo earlier last year, Kikuchi enabled comments between January and April, using a system specially designed for celebrity bloggers. All comments appeared immediately on the site but were then subjected to moderation, usually resulting in harmful comments being deleted after 15 minutes. During this time Kikuchi was apparently still inundated with the age-old accusations in the comments section, until he finally suspended blogging in May (it is back up now). Though Ameba initiated a pre-clearance moderation system in May, typical of blogs for websites such as the New York Times, Kikuchi has explained that he filed a complaint with the police after he started receiving threats offline and began fearing for his life.

Before I start throwing around criticism, let me first express general support for the idea of holding people responsible for these obviously libelous comments (of course, this assumes that there is no chance these commenters are somehow right). And those arrested sound like they deserve the treatment they are getting: they acted like “net stalkers” who made it the mission of their extremely petty lives to torment a minor comedian with no regard to the facts.

By all appearances, the 18 flamers were fingered because Smiley went to the police for help with the general problem of death threats, and the comments section of his blog happened to be where this group of alleged idiots left behind clear evidence. In other words, these people were arrested not because of the internet, but because they were a core group of stalkers who caused real harm.

But because the words “internet”, “anonymous”, “defamation”, and “jimusho talent” appeared in the same sentence, the mainstream media has decided to indulge in willfully-ignorant paranoia. Right off the bat — possibly out of deference to the Ota Production, who represents top talent including girl-group AKB48 — major media acted in unison to refuse to even name the celebrity the 18 people had defamed. But the open secret became an open fact when Smiley himself admitted to being the one behind the charges and offered a detailed explanation on his blog, simultaneously posted on the top of the Ota Production website. As evidence of the mass media’s take on the issue, I present this Feb. 6 Asahi Shimbun editorial in its near entirety — a masterful example of the typical attitude:

What if you become a target of groundless defamation and are labeled “a murderer” on the internet?

The damage would probably spread beyond cyberspace. Perhaps others might eye you with suspicion in everyday life, and the situation could affect your work.

Tokyo’s Metropolitan Police Department decided to send papers to prosecutors on 18 people across the nation on suspicion of libel for posting messages on a male comedian’s internet blog wrongly calling him a murderer.

Apparently, the police move is meant as a warning against such serious slander.

Furthermore, police sent papers on a woman on suspicion of intimidation for posting a message threatening to kill the comedian.

It is extremely unusual for police to collectively target individuals over entries on a blog. The situation underscores the extent of malicious messages in cyberspace.

Some people start groundless rumors to abuse and defame others close to them. Others may attack a well-known personality on the internet because they don’t like what he or she has said. Sometimes, what starts out as fun escalates into hostile attacks. The situation is all the more troublesome because there are others who incite such action.

But the people targeted are helpless.

…

One disturbing trend is that a broader range of people are irresponsibly posting slanderous remarks. The 18 people facing charges this time include a female senior high school student and an employee of a national university.

In 2007, police across the nation received nearly 9,000 reports of Net-based defamation. In South Korea, an actress who was slandered on the internet committed suicide. The situation can no longer be overlooked.

Behind the trend is the characteristic of Net society in which people can easily say anything without identifying themselves. But it is an act of cowardice to hide oneself and make abusive or untrue statements one-sidedly without giving the targets a chance to defend themselves.

Of course, we wish to recognize in a positive way the role of the internet itself. Everyone can express his or her opinions to the world. Thanks to this medium, opportunities for expression and speech have opened up extensively. We must firmly protect such opportunities.

But that is all the more reason why we need to be responsible for our words. Abusing others without reason is different from properly expressing one’s opinion. If we want to criticize others, we must calmly state our ideas based on facts. Unfortunately, such a custom has yet to take root in the ever-expanding Net society.

This time, police moved in response to a complaint filed by the victim of abuse. But to create a sound Net society, the public as a whole must make an effort. It is time for both schools and homes to properly teach how to use the internet and drive home the responsibility of message writers.

There you have it — whenever someone says something mean on the internet, the target becomes a “helpless” victim, even when the cops step in and arrest 18 perpetrators. Most TV commentators expressed nearly identical views about where our sympathies should lie.

What might not be immediately clear to the middle-aged men at the editorial board who have never held employment outside their firm, vicious comments and abuse simply come with the territory. If we are going to have an internet, we have to deal with the bad eggs who want to muck things up. And without (1) discussing the particularly pernicious nature of this case and (2) mentioning that rowdy commenters are common and need to be moderated, you paint a picture of a completely unruly and incorrigible internet population, which just is not the case.

If blogs and the internet consisted of nothing but nasty comments and abuse, no one would enjoy reading it. Most people find their own most comfortable way to use the internet, even without blogging, but there always exists the risk of some unpleasantness, not too far from everyday life.

In addition, the operators of blogging tools work tirelessly to try and balance the desire for active and open discourse (and blog-based brand promotion) while managing the inevitable bad apples who spoil things for everyone else. Ameblo clearly messed up here, but they have been working to improve. But to fan fears of the internet without considering this balance is just short-sighted. With the growing importance of online ad revenue to the likes of Dentsu (who just announced it is taking on a 100% stake in its online ad subsidiary), I am sure it is only a matter of time before the mass media are asked to call off the dogs.

Some often claim that there is no “custom” of rational, fact-based argument on the internet, but I disagree. My Google Reader is full of great Japanese bloggers, and just about all the major Diet members are actively arguing their positions on their blogs (often with comments turned off). Quite the contrary, the mainstream media tends to report rumors and float politicians’ and bureaucrats’ trial balloons at a very marginal service to the public. Why should we sit here and listen to lectures from people who carry the water of the rich and powerful and actively aid a highly closed and non-transparent governance system?

Dealing with irresponsible anonymous commenters is one of the great challenges of the internet age, and in Japan the enormous forum site 2ch has been symbolic as a hotbed for this sort of behavior. The Japanese legal system’s flaws have been exposed as those harmed by 2ch have attempted to seek justice. Despite dozens of civil judgments against 2ch founder Hiroyuki, he has yet to pay one yen in damages or make any serious effort to stop the flow of libelous content. It has been recently rumored that Hiroyuki quietly shifted ownership of the site to a Singapore-based company to avoid future headaches. One area where 2ch has been cooperative is in open threats to commit murder or other serious crimes, but that’s about it. So considering the wide berth given to commenters on 2ch and similar sites, regulating comments can seem ineffective. In fact, police cooperation in prosecuting the most egregious cases of harassment is a positive sign that the internet is getting safer, but that’s a point that would likely fly over the heads of the mainstream media internet-phobes.

When editorial writers and TV commentators rush to criticize the internet at every turn without first stopping to understand, they are only trying to protect their own short-sighted business interests. Simplistic internet paranoia was behind Mainichi’s boneheaded reaction to the WaiWai scandal, and it’s this behavior that will further alienate their audience. While the internet has often been a negative development for the mainstream media institutions themselves, the free flow of information has undoubtedly positive influences on society as a whole. There may be unfortunate side effects such as the Smiley Kikuchi episode, but the day the TV stations and newspapers realize that the internet is their friend will be a major step forward.

(Thanks to J-CAST, which got this story spot-on, for most of the facts underlying this essay. Keep outperforming the mainstream media and one day the same people who disparaged the internet will be begging you for a job!)

This piece is published in collaboration with writer Nick Sylvester and his blog Riff Market. For those wanting more background on how we came to write this extremely long essay together, please read Nick’s more extensive introduction here.

Gregg Gillis, a 26-year-old college graduate who likes pop music and owns a laptop, became Girl Talk in the first year of the 21st century. Taking cues from Britney Spears’ self-positioning circa 2001 — when she was famously “Not a Girl, Not Yet A Woman” — Gillis is not a DJ, but not a traditional musician either. With the aid of computer editing software, he creates danceable sound collages that often incorporate over 15-20 audio sources: namely, popular and less popular rock, rap, dance, and electronic songs, no era or genre excluded. The sources are mostly recognizable, and his songs — Gillis calls them “songs” — carry the force of nostalgia but are reconfigured and “mashed up” enough so as to sound fresh and new and free of the groan that collects when somebody insists on playing all four minutes and seventeen seconds of MC Hammer’s “U Can’t Touch This” at the holiday party. With Girl Talk, we get that blissful moment of recognition without having to suffer through the next three minutes and thirty seconds remembering exactly why it hasn’t been Hammertime for more than a decade now.

Like many others before and after him, Gillis found his success after the indie music website Pitchfork Media bestowed positive reviews upon his third album, 2006’s Night Ripper. “Pittsburgh native Greg Gillis (Girl Talk) absolutely detonates the notions of mash-up,” wrote reviewer Sean Fennessey. “As an illegal art form, it’s surprising no one came along with an idea like this sooner.” The review came out on July 17 — so maybe the summer heat kept the typically spot-on Fennessey from remembering John Oswald’s Plunderphonics, the all-stolen-sample recording from 1985.

Either way, for Pitchfork and many others, Girl Talk raised the bastard-pop bar. He was not just playing two songs on top of each other like 2ManyDJs or Freelance Hellraiser, nor was he playing two songs next to each other in an anything-goes free-for-all DJ set a la Optimo or Erol Alkan. Instead Gillis is something of a surgeon, scalpeling out drum breaks from one song, vocal melodies from another, a guitar riff from another, and stitching them into some danceable semblance of a new song. These Frankensteins were emblematic of the indie-rockcentric Pitchfork’s growing appreciation for Southern rap, modern pop, and dance music too, so it was no surprise when the site took the opportunity to award Gillis’s album Best New Music, its highest honor — to celebrate Girl Talk was, in a way, to celebrate the site itself.

Around that time, Gillis hooked up with the Chicago-based Windish Agency. He quickly began touring the world with his sweaty dance parties. He had a well-blogged reputation for inviting people on stage to dance with him as he huddled over his computer, triggering his samples live, and soon he became a festival headliner. A career in music firmly established, soon Gillis quit his Pittsburgh day-job as a biomedical engineer. And now Gillis is at the point fame-wise where MTV News is more than happy to run a story about his last show, to take place on December 21, 2012. That date counts for the end of the Mayan calendar — believed by some to be the day the world will end. For a guy who plays others people’s music, more or less, Gillis is not doing so bad for himself.

I’LL BE YOUR WHATEVER YOU WANT

Girl Talk, to his immense credit, is an avatar of the most important musical-technological developments and music-industrial complications from the last decade: (illegal) music hyper-consumption in the face of record industry meltdown; the blurring of distinctions in major and indie labels; the plumbing of indie cool; an indie-rock about-face towards “selling out”; an unprecedented participatory music culture, a next-next-level fan club. (i.e.: It’s not enough just to go to the shows, or buy the t-shirts, or track down the seven-inches.) The mega-fans are remixing their favorite songs, lacing them with dance beats and synthesizer presets, posting their remixes on their blogs, commenting on those of others. Even if there were precedents for these complications, the 21st century form of mashups is a very palpable convergence: an internet-mediated, meta-pop moment.
Continued »