Poor Humored Young Dudes

In this extremely hot summer, a lot of kidding picture on social networking service posted by part time employees annoys business administrators. Were those the craziness of those young dudes, who suffered from hot weather? They actually wanted to make their life fun, sharing pictures with friends who were watching the site. One thing they could not imagine was that those pictures would be always open to the public. Unfortunately, most people did not like that kind of joke.

It was mid-July when a picture of a part time male worker in an ice cream case of a convenience store in Kochi City was uploaded on Facebook. The store chain company removed all the ice cream, replaced the refrigerated showcase and broke off the franchise contract with that shop.

The funny picture incident caused a chain reaction. Later last month, a customer of a convenience store in Muko City, Kyoto, sneaked into a refrigerator and that picture was uploaded on Twitter. A young female staff of noodle shop in Kadoma City, Osaka, posed with three sausages, prepared for serving to customers, in her mouth and another female staff uploaded on Twitter.

Those fusses on networks spread to some criminal degree. Two young fishermen were arrested after a picture of them chanting on the roof of police car was uploaded on Twitter. In Osaka, two high school students took a picture of one of them on the railroad of subway, resembling him as a victim of running over.

A common phenomenon of those young people was that they apologized about what they had done. They just wanted to upload funny pictures for their friends in small community, not realizing the social impacts of their activity. In the cases of shop staffs, it can be said that there was a frustration of part time workers to their employers. As its result, those young people had to face a consequence, in which they would be fired or even sued for compensation.

This immatureness of the young is based on Japan’s social characteristics. In this bureaucratic nation, the people are supposed to be so innocent that leaders can easily control. Pretending to be innocent and obedient is a way to avoid intervention of public authority in their lives. Young people in Japan do not have much disturbance in their behavior like a child.

They need to recognize that advanced humorous expression harms nobody. Funny videos in foreign countries are often based on self-sacrifice, not sacrifice of others. This needs to be understood as a process of this nation to get to a higher level of sense of humor.