Brett Bull of Tokyo Reporter
Between 2008 and 2022 Tokyo Reporter translated the juiciest stories from the Japanese gutter press -- nightlife, crime, prostitution, sleaze, scandals, etc -- occasionally turning up nuggets of gold that connected to the "good and the great." It provided an alternative picture of Japan to the World, one that the Japanese may not have been that keen to share.
The site was founded by then 39-year-old Brett Bull who had first come to Japan in 1999 and was working at a construction company at the time.
The site got in early on the internet blogging boom, offering viral-ready content to a wider world, hungry for "less filtered" takes on Japan. It must have been like shooting fish in a barrel for a time, and once established it led to various spin offs for Bull. He got a gig at the Japan Times (until 2013) and became a talking head and source on Japanese topics for the international media.
But, in January 2022, it all ended, with Bull posting a Looney Tunes video of "That's All Folks".
The site got in early on the internet blogging boom, offering viral-ready content to a wider world, hungry for "less filtered" takes on Japan. It must have been like shooting fish in a barrel for a time, and once established it led to various spin offs for Bull. He got a gig at the Japan Times (until 2013) and became a talking head and source on Japanese topics for the international media.
But, in January 2022, it all ended, with Bull posting a Looney Tunes video of "That's All Folks".
The question remains: Why did the site, which was well established, had a healthy number of hits, and was generating income and opportunities for its owner, have to shut down?
Maybe age (Bull was 53 at the time), maybe illness, maybe he was just too busy, or it might be that it's just harder to make blog content go viral nowadays.
Still, none of these plausible explanations are quite satisfying. After all, to build up the site in the first place, Bull couldn't have cared that much about the hard work and the lack of attention that he initially faced. The site was clearly the result of his own interests and inclinations. For it to suddenly end, therefore, requires a stronger reason.
Maybe age (Bull was 53 at the time), maybe illness, maybe he was just too busy, or it might be that it's just harder to make blog content go viral nowadays.
Still, none of these plausible explanations are quite satisfying. After all, to build up the site in the first place, Bull couldn't have cared that much about the hard work and the lack of attention that he initially faced. The site was clearly the result of his own interests and inclinations. For it to suddenly end, therefore, requires a stronger reason.
Just listen to him here in 2020. Sounds like he's still in for the long haul:
So, what happened here?
On Reddit there has been a little discussion:
This sounds better or at least more convincing, but it is also clearly uninformed speculation.
Possibly the best explanation for the demise of TR is that it is somehow mixed up with the Tokyo Olympics, which happened in 2021. During the run-up the nation went through one of its spells of worrying what foreigners might think of "sleazy Japan". It is not difficult to imagine the kinds of pressure that could be brought to bear on a "gaijin" working for a Japanese company and using content "borrowed" from Japanese media sources.
But it's not a perfect match: TR kept running for a few months after the Olympics. Still, I don't know a better reason for it to stop kind of when it did.
UPDATE (1st April, 2023)
Some weeks after this article was published the Tokyo Reporter site flickered back into life.
But it's not a perfect match: TR kept running for a few months after the Olympics. Still, I don't know a better reason for it to stop kind of when it did.
UPDATE (1st April, 2023)
Some weeks after this article was published the Tokyo Reporter site flickered back into life.
0 comments:
Post a Comment