Faro for marketing. Japanese idol offers service to fans: sniffing sessions of her armpits

The economy of underground idols transforms bodies into currency. Huxley prophesied a Brave New World a long time ago, but he was far from predicting the one we live in today.

In the Japanese industry underground idolsa survival requires creativity.

Hari Matsumotoan artist from the city of Wakayama, 75 km south of Osaka, found hers: after the shows, she leaves her fans smell his armpits.

This is, by any criteria, a unconventional career strategy — if we want to say it in a nice way. It’s a bit bizarre, even in the Brave New World we live in, which even Huxley was far from guessing 94 years ago.

But we’ve long known that the Japanese sometimes have bizarre traditions—and, in an entertainment industry where thousands of young women compete for a man’s loyalty, limited number of paying admirersconventional stopped being an option a long time ago.

Matsumoto operates at a level of the Japanese entertainment industry that rarely makes headlines international. As the name suggests, the underground idols are not the polished stars and supported by agencies that appear in television advertisements and magazine pages.

They work in small concert halls, live music venues and shopping centers, building their audiences one handshake at a timeone hug at a time, one interaction at a time, says .

Matsumoto, who has more than 400,000 followers on social media, limited himself to replace the handshake with something more memorable. It can even be said that it has nose for marketing.

The images speak for themselves. In one of the videos circulating online, a middle-aged man imitates a puppy, raises his fists with childish enthusiasm and leans in to sniff. Matsumoto consents and then pulls him into a loving hug.

Many fans dedicate declarations of devotion to him on the internet. Some allegedly offered him “lifetime happiness contracts“, committing to hand over all his income to her and not to have relationships with other women.

This is the main “business model” of several underground idolstransferred from oshikatsuthe subculture of obsessive fans who live to financially support their idols, or “oshis”, which ZAP reported in May last year as the ““.

The transactional nature of idol fandom, usually disguised in the language of admiration, appears here exposed with uncomfortable clarity. Not everyone likes it. “It’s disgusting. This is more like cheap adult entertainment than an idol.”

But the real story is not what Matsumoto sells. It’s what the industry has built around it — and around thousands like her. According to the documentary Youth of Japanese Underground Idolsaround 80% of idols in Japan operate in this underground sphere.

E This economy is ruthlessnote a . While a Japanese office worker earns, on average, around 300,000 yen (approximately 1,600 euros) per month, underground idols typically receive 120,000 yen or less — about 640 euros per month. Some agencies do not even offer a base salary, delay payments and dismiss artists without any justification.

The human cost is equally heavy. A survey carried out by the Japanese company Tsugisute among 102 idols active revealed that more than half had suffered mental health problems throughout their careers. Almost half reported bullying in the workplace; 12% reported sexual harassment.

Artists are systematically pressured to remain single, since the illusion of availability is considered essential to its commercial appeal.

Matsumoto does not give any public explanation for your chosen career strategy. No need. The industry you work in has been quietly normalizing the commodification of intimacy for years, and armpit sniffing is simply the point at which logic reaches when artists are forced to outdo each other in the competition for attention.

As the culture of idols Japanese economy expands and economies livestream globalize, scenarios underground similar ones began to appear in China, namely in Shanghai and Hong Kong.

The model is traveling. It wouldn’t be surprising that sooner rather than later it would knock on our country’s door, as other fashions or customs from Japan and South Korea did before. And who today in Portugal still finds eating raw fish bizarre?