A few days ago I posted a simple "10". The reference was to the tenth birthday of TenguLife, not long until she's a teenager... With over 600 articles out there it's been a real kick when people come to me and say "I didn't know that". My audience went from 90% overseas to 60% international as many in Japan started to tune in for the information they'd missed and enjoyed reading. So what has changed in the last ten years? (And I'm going to deliberately avoid the negatives of the world today before you ask)
Japanese social media went the way of MySpace and Toshiba the way of the Dodo (with Sony being a shadow of its glory days). Springsteen hasn't toured here in that time so there's an entire generation that's missed out but we live in hope. We didn't have "Baby Shark" back then (and if you're a new parent, just don't, you'll really regret playing it to the young ones, try listening to the "ABC" song in a car for three hours to Niigata...). And U2 are still going strong proving in 2019 that Japan has changed as the audience engaged with a passion (something they couldn't persuade them to do in 1994 when I saw them last). Oh, and we had no Ads on FaceBook!
We had a little pandemic but Japan led the world in not complaining and getting on about it, putting on a mask without a fuss and staying quietly at home when asked and not mandated (though the vaccination ball was somewhat dropped but soon caught up). We also had an Olympics where pretty much everyone (I'm exaggerating but you get the point) broke quarantine, athletes, officials and Presidents alike. It's been an up and down decade, I wonder what the next one will bring...
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| U2, Saitama Arena 2019. Japan showed it had changed. |
