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Music

Trying to Make Sense of British J-Pop Fans

Going to see Kyary Pamyu Pamyu was like a Boobar gangbang at Creamfields.
Ryan Bassil
London, GB

Sub-cultures used to be really easy to find; all you had to do was the ride the bus into town and use your eyes. Emo kids in Say Anything t-shirts loitered on the upper-decking of provincial shopping malls, hard-boys in Ecko tracksuits with drawstring JD Sports bags sat outside Londis waiting for someone to “lend them a phone”, and indie children littered war-memorial parks with liquorice papered roll-ups and discarded library cards. Everyone had their own fashion trend and their own hang-out spot. It was fucking brilliant.

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These days though, we’re no longer defined by our interests because our interests are scattered all over the place. You may be a Twitter feminist but you’re able to enjoy the ScHoolboy Q album, NME covers Skrillex and the Arctic Monkeys, and sentient Ken dolls from Chelsea wear skinny jeans. We’ve all read at least one Buzzfeed listicle. The internet opened up the world; we do what we want and we cannot be boxed in.

However, small pockets of sub-culture still exist - they just venture far away from your local Nandos, only appearing in real life when an appropriate event takes place: like a pystrance rave in a forest or a Don’t Flop event in Leeds. Even if it’s only for a couple of hours—a small pocket of time in between eating a microwave dinner and going back to work—people devote themselves to a fashion statement and way of life.

Kawaii—which can literally be translated to “cute” “loveable” and “adorable”—is a Japanese sub-culture that, fuelled by the internet, has slowly taken over Japan and the rest of the world. You’ll find it in things like Hello Kitty, Sailor Moon, and J-Pop - non-threatening entertainment that has a loveable aesthetic. However, while Kawaii’s spread across the world cannot be denied, except for looking at cute pencil cases in primary school, I’ve never witnessed it first-hand. Does a Kawaii sub-culture exist in Britain? At the beginning of the week I received an email inviting me to a J-Pop show in West London so I went along to find out.

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Is that Lorde on the left?

Beyond that Avril Lavigne video, Babymetal, and a couple of weird things on YouTube, J-pop has received little press in the UK. It seems like the sort of thing enjoyed by emotionally immature men, people who wank on 4Chan and (obviously) Japanese people - not British teenagers who are known for attending anywhere with VIP entry, glow in the dark shots and music that has a feeling tonight’s going to be a good night.

Yet, clearly, a small-portion of British teenagers do like pop music with words that they don’t understand because two-thousand people turned up at a sold-out Shepherds Bush Empire to see Kyary Pamyu Pamyu, a Japanese pop-star who regularly clocks up YouTube plays in the realm of sixty million; triple what Drake’s last single, “Worst Behaviour”, received.

I walked around outside the venue for a little while, trying to figure out why British J-pop fans like Kyary Pamyu Pamyu instead of Katy Perry. I’d transcribe all their interviews but TBH the majority answer sat somewhere between (A) the music is so cute and cuddly and (B) it’s really happy and I really like it.

I can't argue with that - they're just being honest. You could call it naivety but at the end of the day, the reason why the majority of us are into music is because it makes us happy and we really like it. It's just that the J-Pop fans don't feel the need to legitimise their interests in the way that, say, a Guardian reader who listens to Beyonce would. They're unafraid of judgement.

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I asked one girl, who was holding a stuffed lamb toy and wearing a harajuku dress, if you can compare Kyary to any British pop star. “Lily Allen”, she replied.

Kyary is on stage early - 8:30pm. The show, which includes the contents of a toybox, back-up dancers, and people in bear costumes, is like a children’s TV programme but if the TV programme only included all the parts that used to give me nightmares - like this fucked up Rugrats video that I found on YouTube.

It’s strange. It’s not that the music is bad; it just sounds like a trip to the circus if I had ADHD and ate the entirety of Wilkinson's pic’n’mix counter. I wonder how anyone could listen to it for hours but then I remember that, for the J-Pop fans, Kyary's music is what makes them happy. It’s symbolic of reckless abandon and a want to be transported away from reality. They don't want to listen to social commentary when they can forget about everything bad in the world and be transported to a place full of teddy bears, merry-go-rounds, and every pink emoji on the iPhone keyboard.

Kyary, who exclaims like someone that’s just baked the best fairy cake in the entire world, speaks limited English and talks, for the most-part, in Japanese. This is okay - languages are hard and English people are dickheads for assuming that the entire world will understand us when we ask for a beer in whatever country we’ve just arrived in and she's just giving us the flipside. But the strange part is that everyone in the crowd seems to understand what she’s saying, or atleast they pretend to, because each time she interacts with the crowd they react with glee.

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Kyary is the crowd’s Queen. They respond when she addresses them, punching the air when instructed and clapping in unison like they’re at a political rally. But when she doesn’t, we’re stood stock still; there are no mosh-pits, no pushing and shoving, and no call-back of lyrics. It’s very different to a show by a British artist - no one shouts “get your tits out” or throws a beer onstage. Kyary is the performer and we give her our respect.

The crowd is very eager to have their picture taken. Unlike, say, a rap show, where someone will neglect to be in a photo because it will ruin their street-cred (whatever that means), Kyary’s fans love it. Tonight is the ultimate amalgamation of show-off, performance and escape; a chance to emulate a Harajaku lifestyle which, in their daily life of working in a supermarket, trying to complete A-Levels, and scrolling through Facebook, would be impossible.

Here’s a bunch more people that were really happy to pose for both our camera and iPhone (Shepherds Bush Empire wouldn't let Jake use his camera inside the venue once the three-song rule was up).

I still don’t get Kyary Pamyu Pamyu’s music - it’s pretty and cute and loveable and sparkly and wow but I wouldn’t be able to listen to it on my iPod. It’s like an energy drink; something that you want every once in a while but not every day.

However, it’s evident that everyone in attendance tonight is devoted to her. Her fans don’t just wear Lolita costumes and clap when asked, they also pay with notes for posters and marinate around the stage-door, waiting to catch a glimpse of their heroine. I understand that this happens with bands like One Direction but Kyary is different. She isn’t played on daytime radio or featured on MTV. She’s never been on the X Factor. Your Mum doesn’t know who she is.

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We may not have a visible subculture in Britain but, behind closed doors, a Kawaii contingent exists. They’re passionate and supportive - travelling hours to catch an artist that holds the same importance as Pete Wentz did to the Myspace generation, or Pete Townshend to the Mods. We may be past the point of people visiting the beach to throw chairs at each other, or chavs setting someone alight because they like My Chemical Romance, but small subcultures still exist and British Kawaii fans are one of the newest. They spend vast amounts of money and time on something that the majority of the general public hasn’t heard of, will proably never hear, and they're happy doing so.

People that sweat buckets at lowkey punk rock shows by bands like Perfect Pussy, oscilliate at vapour-wave and deeper-than-deep-house nights, or wear bucket-hats to shows by blogcore rappers like Yung Lean will like to think that they're part of a counter culture but they're not. Though the coverage is limited, the majority of newer genres generally recieve positive ticks across the internet, recieving a bunch of Instagram likes, re-tweets, and favourites, and are about as anti-establishment as drinking Pepsi out of a Coke glass. Like previous sub-cultures—scene kid springs to mind—the J-Pop fans don't give a fuck what you think or if you want to laugh at their pictures; they're just having fun and it's inspiring.

The costumes are still mad as fuck, though.

Follow Ryan on Twitter: @RyanBassil

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