世論 What Japan Thinks

goo Ranking recently took a look at one of my most disliked things on Japanese television, fortune telling, and in particular what things make people hate a fortune teller.

Demographics

Over the 22nd and 23rd of July 2011 over 1,000 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. However, the link to the sample demographics does not work. Note that the score in the results refers to the relative number of votes for each option, not a percentage of the total sample.

I think this survey refers to when people visit fortune tellers themselves, or read books about their own star sign or whatever, rather than watching someone on television. Here’s a photo from flickr by Janne Moren of a palm reader in Osaka:

By the way, Japan does not have the typical US (and UK) big-time television cold readers fishing their audience for someone to whom the letter “T” is important. Instead we get hot readings with celebs getting their palms read and egos stroked by other celeb readers.

I did see ads for Uri Geller on my phone recently, which was not very nice in the slightest.
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I’m in the wrong business – I should instead by promoting fortune telling, as according to this recent survey from goo Research and reported on by japan.internet.com a not insignificant percentage of computer users have paid real money for a reading.

Demographics

Between the 4th and 6th of March 2010 1,075 members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 51.5% of the sample were male, 16.5% in their teens, 17.6% in their twenties, 20.7% in their thirties, 16.6% in their forties, 16.2% in their fifties, and 12.5% aged sixty or older.

I was very tempted to insert an advertisement for some kind of paid fortune telling service, but sadly my morals overrode my wallet, although I wouldn’t be surprised if Google overrides both of them and sticks some suitable astrology adverts along with this post…
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Following on from some news from the Yomiuri about religious belief, this time it is BlogCh and iShare looking at two types of fraudulent nonsense, blood typing and fortune telling.

Demographics

Both surveys were conducted between the 22nd and 24th of May 2008. For the blood type survey, 506 people completed the online survey, including 30 people who didn’t know their blood type. 55.7% of the sample were male, 12.3% in their twenties, 48.2% in their thirties, 28.7% in their forties, and 10.9% of other ages. For the astrology survey, 504 people completed the online survey. 55.3% of the sample were male, 12.3% in their twenties, 48.2% in their thirties, 28.6% in their forties, and 10.9% of other ages. All respondents were members of the free mail forwarding service CLUB BBQ.

It should be rather obvious where I stand on the issue, but I must admit to watching and enjoying the blood type race every weekday morning at about 9:50 at the end of Toku Da Ne. It’s quite fun to watch just to see if my wife or I win, and the advice is usually quite silly, although I always suspect she takes it rather more seriously than me.

Regarding Q2, my wife was convinced that I was type B, and she knew she was an A, as they both fitted her image of our personalities, but when we had a health check a few years ago, the results came back with different blood types for both of us.

Oh, I nearly forgot my two contributions to the world of divination, My Buddhist Name and brainscannr.
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japan.internet.com recently published the results of a survey conducted by goo Research into the use of on-line fortune-telling sites and services.

Demographics

Between the 23rd and 25th of March 1,079 members of goo Research’s online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 51.7% were male, 24.2% in their twenties, 22.5% in their thirties, 22.1% in their forties, 20.8% in their fifties, and 10.5% in their sixties.

The demographics are worth bearing in mind when reading the results; one has the impression that women are more interested and more believing of horoscopes and the like, so perhaps this survey suggests a majority of women may read their fortune online regularly. I would love to see the full data.

I did look at this topic last year, so it may be useful to check that data out too. Sadly, in a way, I believe astrology is all bunk. Sadly, as I do get a noticable amount of traffic searching for “japanese astrology”, so if I had no scruples I could monetize this traffic quite easily!

One thing I find interesting is that with the fuss over television programs making stuff up, there seems to be little or no collateral damage on these frauds, including the chief witch, Kazuko Hosoki, who still gets prime-time coverage, although I suppose people do enjoy her as much for her sharp tongue as for her divination. Still, at least she doesn’t seem quite as irresponsible as Sylvia Browne.


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