
Hikikomori: The Postmodern Hermits of Japan - marsrover
http://www.warscapes.com/opinion/hikikomori-postmodern-hermits-japan
======
navs
I sure found that article difficult to read. Considering it was done by
someone with a PhD in Literature, I guess it's just me.

Welcome to the NHK was a great watch. Someone would call it terribly
depressing but surely not to the degree of Elfen Lied or Neon Genesis
Evangelion.

The author mentions:

> An identikit of an average Hikikomori: likely a school dropout, may or may
> not have specific skills, most likely unemployed unless he has an online gig
> of sort, lives in his room in his parents' house, never steps out of the
> house, spends the day daydreaming, reading, roaming the internet, flipping
> TV channels, floating in his room.

It's comfortable being at home, especially your family home. I could spend all
day reading online, offline, watching adultswim's marathon streams or just
taking naps. When I walk outside the safety of my home I meet people that are
different from me.

These people don't speak by reciting lines from early Simpsons episodes. These
people don't think my jokes are funny. These people don't talk about the
things I like to talk about.

The Internet solves this. Reddit gives me subs. IRC gives me channels. Twitter
gives me the ability to follow only those that interest me. I'm able to be
someone else online, the best extension of me or the me that I want seen.

Now if my parents continue to pay and let me stay at home, I'll do just that.
Eventually, that routine will be too difficult to break.

In my darkest moments, I thought exactly that. It was simply easier and more
comfortable being at home and socializing online. When I read articles like
these I relate and think back to those dire moments when my room had a leaning
tower of pizza boxes and I hadn't showered in over a month.

~~~
da02
When you skip showering, is it because of lack of energy or you just "don't
feel like it"? What did you use for money? Savings?

~~~
navs
For me it was a lack of energy. I wanted to be clean I just couldn't deal with
expending energy on the task.

As for money I had savings and my father.

------
salich
I appreciate the article--I spent about a year as kind of hikikomori.

Nevertheless I feel the need to make some minor critiques...I feel the author
makes a number of small errors in trying to prove their point. For example,
the author says:

"The Hikikomori phenomenon is now finding a form of narrative legitimacy in
cinema, manga and pop culture. It is creating its own iconography. The novel
Welcome to NHK (acronym for Nihon Hikikomori Kyōkai or The Japanese Hikikomori
Association) plays with the name of Japan national broadcasting giant (NHK)
and a story of a conspiracy to create the Hikikomori. The novel became a manga
series and a twenty-four episodes anime series. Since then Hikikomori
characters multiplied in anime and manga: Rozen Maiden, Serial Experiments
Lain, Tatami Galaxy, Anohana: The Flower We Saw That Day, to name a few."

Welcome to the NHK is a novel from 2002, and the anime came out in 2006 iirc,
so "now finding a form of narrative legitimacy" is maybe a bit
disingenuous...and Serial Experiments Lain, which is from 1998, predated it
and to my mind more properly fits alongside other cyberpunk meditations on
technology and identity (interestingly, though, there is an 2channel-styled
imageboard that has adopted Lain as its mascot). Similarly, I don't think
someone would watch Tatami Galaxy or AnoHana and come away from those thinking
that the "dominant theme" is about hikikomori-ness. At least, I didn't. You
could certainly contest these points, though--the author's method of speeding
through points that, if more properly explored, might not fit so cleanly into
the essay's thrust, just left a bad taste in my mouth. Just my 2c.

It just crossed my mind that the American writer Tao Lin makes a number of
explicit references to this lifestyle in his work; he has an ebook called
"Hikikomori", which I haven't read, and his novels almost always have the main
character spending days or months not really talking to anyone, feeling
depressed, and just "doing things" on the internet. He has a book coming out
in the future called "Leave Society".

If anyone knows of other American authors who treat this topic, would be
interested. I feel like it has certainly come up in literature, just not under
this name.

~~~
uxp100
Yeah, Lain jumped out to me as a questionable inclusion in that list as well.
It has hikikomori themes, though I wouldn't have thought of it that way
before, but no major characters are hikikomori. OTOH Tatami Galaxy makes sense
to me, given the analysis paralysis sort of thing going on in that, even if it
isn't always directly about hikikomori. Rozen Maiden is really the only
straightforward choice there.

~~~
johnchristopher
Don't you feel the Lain character was on the fast track to become an
hikikomori if the in-story universe didn't follow through with the
scifi/fantasy storyline ?

~~~
aidenn0
I don't because Lain became steadily _more_ outgoing with each episode.

~~~
johnchristopher
Ah, you are right. I forgot about that.

------
pmoriarty
I strongly object to insinuation that people who are socially isolated and
dependent in the physical world are almost by definition wasting their lives.
Not everyone's spending their online lives doing nothing but surfing porn and
Facebook.

They could have very rich online lives, where they are able to socialize -
even very freely, competently, and confidently. They could be very creative
online, or learning, producing, and contributing to all sorts of projects,
from open source programming, bug fixing, or documenting to contributing to
projects like Wikipedia to creating art or music, and so on. They could have
many friends online, or perhaps the focus of a scholar. They could even be
helping others on all sorts of online forums.

What's missing is the ability to support themselves and the lack of friends or
a support network in the physical world. But what a lot of people from the
old, mostly physical-only world miss is that the virtual world can often be as
rich or sometimes even richer, more full of potential and free of limits than
the physical world.

All sorts of achievements and connections are possible to a much greater
extent virtually than physically. Many people can find social and emotional
connections, creative and productive fulfilment, and a great education online,
where they could have many problems in the physical world.

That's not always or necessarily a pathology. It's an expansion of
possibilities, which are sometimes negative, but not always or necessarily so,
and sometimes can be positive, growth-promoting, and can even lead to more
physical contact -- as when someone who's active online find a kindred spirit
online and then continues the relationship in person.

I'd love for there to be more research on how modern hermits spend their time
online, rather than always fixating on a pathological interpretation of the
choice of being solitary.

~~~
clouddrover
> _All sorts of achievements and connections are possible to a much greater
> extent virtually than physically._

Like what? In any case, I don't think it matters much if you can't support
yourself. If the achievements and connections don't translate to scope and
agency then what are they worth?

It's certainly possible to do something worthwhile, generally fail in life,
and only have the value of your work recognised after your death. This has
happened to many artists who are now regarded as greats in their fields. But I
think the online world makes it too easy to delude yourself into thinking what
you're doing is worthwhile when in fact it isn't.

So much of the online world is premised on feedback loops and empty rewards,
like levels in games or even karma points on Hacker News. You get "praised" by
these systems just for using them. It can become an addiction like gambling
can become an addiction. It becomes easy to lose perspective and waste time
pursuing something that is ultimately valueless.

You gave the example of helping others in online forums. Let's say that's, for
example, helping people with Microsoft Windows. I'd say all you're doing in
that case is taking on the cost of Microsoft's software support. You're making
the cost of doing business cheaper for Microsoft with no real return for
yourself. Altruism is good, but I think too many people do it at too much cost
to themselves.

In the end, if the expansion of possibilities doesn't result in real world
returns then I think they cannot be called opportunities. They must be
recognised as merely distractions.

~~~
pmoriarty
_> Like what?_

This is not the best example, but things like helping hundreds or thousands of
people on something like stackoverlow is an achievement in the virtual or
online world that is simply not available in the physical world because
stackoverflow only exists online. The same thing could be said of Wikipedia,
which is essentially an online-only phenomena that you can not participate in
in the physical world.

You could argue that people could be helped in the physical world instead of
online on a site like stackoverflow, and one could contribute to a physical
encyclopedia like the Britannica instead of Wikipeida: but the dynamics of
these sites and media are very different, and I would argue they are not
equivalent. Things like the policies, credentials, editorial policies, social
dynamics, etc, are so different that they many ways more different than alike.

 _> I don't think it matters much if you can't support yourself_

Well, the Hikikomori are not supporting themselves, but they could and often
do manage to survive by the generous help of their families. Many ancient
hermits and some modern ones survived by help from society. There is now talk
of a living wage. All of these means of survival do not require the ability to
support oneself, and can be viable -- though they are clearly very
controversial.

 _> It's certainly possible to do something worthwhile, generally fail in
life, and only have the value of your work recognised after your death. This
has happened to many artists who are now regarded as greats in their fields.
But I think the online world makes it too easy to delude yourself into
thinking what you're doing is worthwhile when in fact it isn't._

Just because you aren't considered now or perhaps never to be a great in your
field doesn't mean that what you do is not worthwhile. Much of science and
academia is mostly the work of many non-great, ant-like contributors rather
than the work of a handful of greats -- though the greats certainly get a lot
more credit (sometimes justly, sometimes not).

Wikipedia is even more like hive mind rather than the result of the work of a
few geniuses. In the modern world, even the idea of taking credit is in many
cases collapsing and reverting to models that resemble the anonymous
contributions of the ancients, as people adopt temporary pseudonyms as they
join the hive to make their little contribution or edit and then exit again,
to possibly reappear under another pseudonym for another contribution later,
or not.

For all we know, Wikipedia could have been built mostly by Hikikomori.

 _> So much of the online world is premised on feedback loops and empty
rewards, like levels in games or even karma points on Hacker News. You get
"praised" by these systems just for using them. It can become an addiction
like gambling can become an addiction. It becomes easy to lose perspective and
waste time pursuing something that is ultimately valueless._

Sure. Absolutely. Completely agreed here. But just because that's possible
doesn't mean that that's the only way to interact with these media and
phenomena, nor that it's even the most prevalent way. Also, man "great" men
and other prolific contributors to many things that are considered "great"
could be said to have been obsessed or addicted. It's just that the successful
ones and the ones societies value get the praise, while things unvalued (even
if only temporarily) are ignored or even denigrated. But who really has
perspective on the worth of some endeavor, especially a long-term perspective,
as in how valuable your efforts might seem to someone hundreds or thousands of
years in the future.

Look at all the minutia collected on Wikipedia. Much of it is considered
garbage, but it could be a gold mine for pop culture scholars or future
archaeologists or anthropologists.

 _> You gave the example of helping others in online forums. Let's say that's,
for example, helping people with Microsoft Windows. I'd say all you're doing
in that case is taking on the cost of Microsoft's software support. You're
making the cost of doing business cheaper for Microsoft with no real return
for yourself. Altruism is good, but I think too many people do it at too much
cost to themselves._

I'd still take the position that providing free support for Microsoft is less
of a waste of one's life than the typical view that the mass media has of
online solitaries: that all they do is surf porn or Facebook all day. At least
in the support case, they're helping people. That's constructive.

But there are tons of other ways of helping people on stackoverflow and online
in general. Providing free support for corporations is just one very minor
option. But even there, you're providing support not just for the corporations
but for the users, which is a noble goal -- especially when it's done for
free.

~~~
clouddrover
> _which is a noble goal -- especially when it 's done for free._

Nothing is free. Everything has a cost. It's one thing to expend your own
resources writing articles or helping people on Internet forums. It's quite
another thing to impose that cost on other people. Sitting in your bedroom and
living off your parent's resources is not noble.

There's nothing wrong with trying and failing. It's good to try, even when you
fail. But there's nothing good about a situation where you're not even trying
to find a way to support yourself.

~~~
qplex
So who owns the air that you breathe?

~~~
clouddrover
The Universe, man. As I consume resources in the process of maintaining a
highly ordered state for the duration of my lifetime, I cause an increase in
the overall level of entropy in the universe and hurry along the heat death of
everything. Nothing is free. Everything has a cost.

~~~
qplex
Life does not take the shortest route to entropy.

The original point of the parent was obviously cost as in money.

My point was that "only expending your own resources" as in "you need to pay
for your resources (with your own money) before you can morally do thing x" is
rather problematic.

------
TorKlingberg
I have a theory about Western and Japanese nerds. It's not really worked
through, so don't get too angry if something is wrong.

In the western, and especially American, stereotypical school environment of
the '90s, the bookish nerds were social outcasts and bullied. There was a
strong connection between nerdyness, not fitting in and intelligence. The
nerds sat at home and learned programming on their own. Of course it turned
out intelligence is very useful. The nerds ended up producing a lot of
valuable things, such as much of the internet.

In Japan, there wasn't the same too-cool-for-school attitude, and the smart
kids did alright socially. Good for them, but it meant they didn't spend their
high school and college years programming alone. That eventually hurt the
Japanese tech industry, who couldn't just hire self-taught programmers and had
to wait for the school system to figure it out or teach their employees to
program from scratch.

Back in school, there will always be social outcasts of course, but in Japan,
the average "nerd" was no more intelligent than people in general, maybe the
opposite. I think they were more artistic than their western counterpart. The
Japanese nerd-sphere were making amazing amateur manga (dōjinshi) back when
art on the western web was little more than scribbles in Ms Paint. Sadly for
them, making manga porn doesn't pay like programming. With no way to support
themselves and no social status, the Hikikomori hide from the outside world.

What makes all this interesting for us is that the west appears to follow in
Japan's tracks. Today's high school students are much more diligent and better
behaved than 20-30 years ago. Meanwhile nerd culture isn't as intellectual any
more. Japan has a group of online right-wingers that love to harass opponents.
They are called netto-uyoku and are just like the alt-right, except they
appeared a decade earlier, and their racism is directed at Koreans and
Chinese.

I have no doubt we will see a wave of Hikikomori in the west. They may be
different. Maybe they will live alone and survive on delivery food instead of
living with their parents.

~~~
WalterSear
No parents, no hikikomori. America's is more likely to have rampant
homelessness, particularly as boomer parents start to hit peak insolvency.

~~~
TorKlingberg
At least in Japan, that hasn't happened. The homeless and semi-homeless are an
entirely separate group of mostly 50+ (former) construction workers and day
laborers. The hikikomori-likes who cannot live with their parents stay in
manga cafes that offer cheap overnight rates for a comfy chair and a PC in a
booth. They need some kind of job to pay for it, but not much.

~~~
WalterSear
There won't be jobs for america's drop outs. There aren't jobs for america's
graduates, right now.

I'm guessing this will be very slightly motivating for the few that can get
their shit together and get haircuts and real jobs. But for most, it's going
to be even more disastrous than a lifetime in one's parent's basement.

------
Animats
This ties in with yesterday's article about young people staying home and
playing video games.

The article mentions " _Welcome to the NHK_ "[1], which is an unusually bitter
anime.

[1] [http://www.gogoanime.to/welcome-to-the-nhk-
episode-1](http://www.gogoanime.to/welcome-to-the-nhk-episode-1)

~~~
flyingfences
While there are much better sites than gogo for watching anime (Flash? ugh), I
absolutely second the recommendation to check out _Welcome to the NHK_.

~~~
manveru
Check out animeftw

~~~
astrange
If you're going to pirate anime, please don't do it on a streaming site with
ads.

~~~
ihuman
Unless you use adblock, there isn't a pirate streaming service for anime that
doesn't have ads. Even the non-streaming bittorrent trackers have ads. How can
you pay for a server to host anime if pirates are trying to avoid paying
money?

~~~
astrange
Some of them run on goodwill, it's not very expensive to host a tracker. Nyaa
runs on JList ads.

------
deskglass
Gwern discusses this in his essay at
[https://www.gwern.net/The%20Melancholy%20of%20Subculture%20S...](https://www.gwern.net/The%20Melancholy%20of%20Subculture%20Society)

He makes an interesting point that by withdrawing from larger society into sub
cultures, people can return to dealing with groups of a size our minds are
more comfortable with. It's the same reason small towns are (I hear) less
socially stressful. I am not convinced though. In larger society I end up
dealing with relatively small groups anyway - friends, family, and co-workers.

It seems pretty straight-forward that people would want focus on their
interests and spend their time communicating with people that share those
interests. It's definitely unfair and unfortunate that other people end up
supporting them financially. With that said, we'll eventually have to come to
terms with vast numbers of people not being economically productive anyway.
People will have to do something. Withdrawing from society at large in favor
of the parts of it that interest them seems like a fine choice.

~~~
rustynails
"It's the same reason small towns are (I hear) less socially stressful. I am
not convinced though. In larger society I end up dealing with relatively small
groups anyway - friends, family, and co-workers."

There's a fundamental difference. In a small town, most of the people around
you are usually known to you and friendly. In a bigger town, you tend not to
know/trust more people directly around you. Kids spend much less time at the
local park and more time indoors. I wrote a posting recently talking about
social pressures of our modern day and part of my post was comparing the
communities around us today vs 50 years ago.

I'm lucky that I live in a suburb where I know many people around me. My
friends (who don't live locally) and extended family are both surprised and
envious at how lucky we are being surrounded by friendly and generous people.
Frequently popping in, bringing home made cakes, jams etc. I love it! As an
example, I had a neighbour bring my wife some flowers recently for no
particular reason.

I am fairly certain that our modern lifestyles and socialisation with
neighbours is far more stressful than it used to be, judging by most people I
know.

------
wje
There's a solo RPG titled after the phenomenon that, I feel, pretty well
captures he idea and feeling of being a hiki. It's a kind of 'week in the
life' game, where the narrative occurs entirely in the form of journal entries
that you write to make sense of your rolls. Very chilling, in some
playthroughs.

[http://dsg.neko-machi.com/hikikomori.pdf](http://dsg.neko-
machi.com/hikikomori.pdf)

~~~
jmcgough
There's also Yume Nikki, which is surreal and fascinating, about a hikikomori
girl who travels through her dreams.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yume_Nikki](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yume_Nikki)

~~~
xkxx
And, as far as I understand, it's a story about suicide.

------
chobytes
i was a bit of a hiki for awhile as a teen. i didnt goto HS or anything, i
just stayed in my room and sat on 4chan for years. for me i think it was that
the combination of some unmedicated mental issues i didnt know i had yet, and
a bad family situation, had left me barely able to cope with being alive.

on the bright side i got my start with tech/programming/etc with all that free
time. thanks /g/ haha

~~~
brilliantcode
I guess when I was working on my SaaS, I was in a similar situation for a few
years. I didn't have any social interactions. Just coding and peddling monthly
subscriptions for years and years.

Were there underlying issues that drove me to such extremes? I think so.

But I really thought that I could pull it off.

------
kerbalspacepro
I didn't read _Escape to Another World_ [0] until today, but it has a similar
point. Could it be that the West, as has been the case in other areas, is
following the same path as Japan as it turns around the demographic
transition? Does Japan have the same pseudo-sociopathic self-help movements
that grew up in the US in response to people leaving society?

[0] [https://www.1843magazine.com/features/escape-to-another-
worl...](https://www.1843magazine.com/features/escape-to-another-world)

------
a-guest
Escape from reality is not limited to culture, race, economic background, or a
society's technological advancement; it has always been a part of the human
condition. In modern times, a unique form of escape presents itself with great
force in affluent societies, even though the "escape artist" him/her-self need
not live in an affluent environment. The escape artist requires these basics:
(1) shelter, however primitive, (2) a food source, and (3) either a television
(TV), video games (VG), or internet connection (IC).

TV/VG/IC is the escape mechanism, and the escape artist, whether he/she stays
in the 4 walls of his/her room or occasionally ventures out, lives in the
confines of his/her escape world.

Perhaps we can consider aspects of "Hikikomori" as a uniquely Japanese
manifestation of this condition, mingling itself in fascinating fashion with
Japanese cultural nuances.

Thought experiments: Would Boo Radley have been a hikikomori if he lived in
Kyoto rather than Maycomb, Alabama?

What are the differences and similarities between: (1) a hikikomori living in
Kyoto, (2) a person living in inner city Detroit, MI, living from welfare
check to welfare check and watching TV 16 hours a day, and (3) a college
dropout living with his parents in suburbia and watching TV 16 hours a day?

In what ways is a hikikomori who programs different than the TV/VG/IC escape
artist?

Would Boo Radley have saved Jem and Scout Finch in "To Kill a Mockingbird" if
he had been playing video games 16 hours a day?

Find two studies whose authors claim watching television: develops a sense of
wonder, encourages critical thought, benefits interpersonal relationship
skills, solidifies familial bonds, promotes physical well-being, reduces the
objectivization of persons, cures depression, increases patience and self-
control, reduces sense of entitlement, grows positive self-worth, and
decreases worry, sense of isolation, and self-pity. Next, find studies coming
to the opposite conclusion.

------
greggman
This article bugged me. It seems like a Columbine style which hunt. Some
people killed some other people. The killers played video games. Therefore
beware evil video games. In this case it was some people killed some other
people. Those people were hikkikomori. Therefore hikkikomori equals latent
murderer.

There were lots of other stereotypes, judgements, misunderstandings etc...

It felt very much over sensationalized, exaggerated, and wrong on so many
levels

------
chridal
I just saw [https://youtu.be/Jyfnl8K8fJM](https://youtu.be/Jyfnl8K8fJM) which
covers this topic quite well

------
fallingfrog
Alienation, atomization of communities, and commoditization of people are
features of capitalism, not bugs. Just saying.

~~~
pottersbasilisk
Sad, and socialism and communism has starvation and death.

The god of biomechanics is too cruel.

~~~
fallingfrog
Totalitarian communism is not the only alternative to capitalism.

------
BrailleHunting
Related topic: [https://news.vice.com/video/schoolgirls-for-sale-in-
japan](https://news.vice.com/video/schoolgirls-for-sale-in-japan)

------
robobro
site appears to be down...

------
brilliantcode
I feel like this is the future for tomorrow's generation. As artificial
intelligence's economies of scale proves to be far more seductive than
exploiting human labor, unskilled white/blue collar labor will disappear.

As jobs become scarce like they have become in Japan and Korea, intense
competition will inevitably produce 'losers'. Losers in the context of a
structural pressure imposed on those that fail to keep up.

I feel like there's a connection between neo-Confucian societies and
hikkikomori. It's also a rising phenomenon in South Korea.

~~~
Florin_Andrei
How about the United States, where a person's value depends to a large extent
on the amount of money they make, and "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" is
the prevailing mentality?

~~~
cell303
saw this recently on HN: Men not at work: Why so many men aged 25 to 54 are
not working[1]. I know that "not working" and "not leaving your bedroom" are
differnt things, but maybe that's what makes it "American".

[1]:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13795397](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13795397)

~~~
Florin_Andrei
A really interesting question:

Let's assume that AI does explode, and it does obsolete jobs like a
steamroller in a glass sculpture exhibition.

Which culture is best prepared, by its nature, to face the tremendous tsunami
of unemployment in a way that minimizes overall suffering and leads to the
best long-term outcome?

Take your pick from: american "bootstraps culture", asian post-confucianism,
west european "humane capitalism", east european post-communism, south asian
(okay: indian) semi-socialism, etc, etc.

P.S.: The designations are a little bit tongue in cheek, don't take them
literally.

~~~
visarga
With the trend towards automation, hikikomori are just ahead of the curve. I
am sure there will come a day when almost anyone will be able to "retreat" in
their own space and never leave again. The recluse will create worlds and
experiences where they spend their time, and it will become very difficult to
reach them, if not impossible.

Before automation, people had to reach out, to meet other people in order to
survive. Maybe in Japan they used "parents" as an automation of sort, in order
to separate themselves from other people, but with the advent of internet and
home deliveries, it becomes easier and easier to be a recluse. Especially that
there is company and a whole culture around this lifestyle.

~~~
Animats
_I am sure there will come a day when almost anyone will be able to "retreat"
in their own space and never leave again._

"The Machine Stops", by E. M. Forster, is the classic on this. Published in
1909, it doesn't sound dated today.

 _" Imagine, if you can, a small room, hexagonal in shape, like the cell of a
bee. It is lighted neither by window nor by lamp, yet it is filled with a soft
radiance. There are no apertures for ventilation, yet the air is fresh. There
are no musical instruments, and yet, at the moment that my meditation opens,
this room is throbbing with melodious sounds. An armchair is in the centre, by
its side a reading-desk - that is all the furniture. And in the armchair there
sits a swaddled lump of flesh - a woman, about five feet high, with a face as
white as a fungus. It is to her that the little room belongs."_

...

 _" Vashanti's next move was to turn off the isolation switch, and all the
accumulations of the last three minutes burst upon her. The room was filled
with the noise of bells, and speaking-tubes. What was the new food like? Could
she recommend it? Has she had any ideas lately? Might one tell her one's own
ideas? Would she make an engagement to visit the public nurseries at an early
date? - say this day month."_

------
tn13
This might be just an oriental way of living. I am not sure why researchers
are hell bent on classifying almost anything as some kind of mental issue. I
frequently stepped out of workspace to grab a hot coffee and my psychologist
friend told me that drinking hot beverages frequently is a person's way of
coping to the lack of emotional warmth in life by replacing it with material
warmth!

~~~
wallacoloo
I think it's more that these roles seem to prefer studying phenomena from an
outside point of view - some believe that by immersing themselves in the
culture, they would lose their objectivity (also, this appears to be a
_particularly_ difficult culture to immerse oneself in, as by the definition
presented in this article, having deep social interactions with a Hikikomori
makes him/her less of a Hikikomori).

I think really the key is to work your way into the place where you can relate
to the people you're studying, but still understand the person you were before
/ the status quo.

~~~
xkxx
> (also, this appears to be a particularly difficult culture to immerse
> oneself in, as by the definition presented in this article, having deep
> social interactions with a Hikikomori makes him/her less of a Hikikomori)

Anonymous communication doesn't count as "social interactions". Imageboards
are where the hikikomori culture thrives. I doubt many would remain hikkis if
they were deprived of internet access.

