23 years ago today, nearly 3,000 people lost their lives in the deadliest terrorist attack in world history.

I've been researching 9/11 for awhile.

The following is a thread highlighting some of the lesser known aspects of the event.

Never forget. First, I wrote this lengthy piece last year about the search for 9/11 lost media.

Despite being dubbed the most photographed event in American history, much remains left to the imagination.

I tackle the question of what media should be made public.
foreignperspectives.net/p/the-search-f…

I feel like the fitness YouTuber/social media influencer space has an anti-running bias.

Lifting weights is great of course, but people in those circles seem to hate jogging as cardio. I didn’t realize there was such a huge lifting vs. running conflict until relatively recently. I think this Reddit thread sums it up well.

You can’t really monetize running unless I guess you get some kind of lucrative sponsorship from a shoe company.

Jogging is completely free and anyone can do it. No gym membership required.
reddit.com/r/running/s/zw…

Finally got around to watching She-Hulk as part of my watch of the MCU slop, I mean shows I haven’t seen. Yes, I hate myself.

While there were some enjoyable parts, this series is a total mess and has some of the worst CGI I’ve seen in a modern television show or film. The whole time I was watching She-Hulk, I couldn’t help but keep asking myself “How the hell did this cost $25 million per episode to make?”

Because it certainly doesn’t show it. There are PS3 cutscenes that look better and carry more weight than this.

Rewatched Once Upon a Time in Hollywood yesterday for the first time since it came out 5 years ago.

I think it’s held up beautifully and represents a stellar filmmaking achievement for Tarantino. More of a vibes movie than a plot movie, but the vibes are immaculate. There are people who’ll criticize Hollywood for being too slow or boring, but I loved its pacing and how it takes its time bringing you into the world of 1969.

You believe it from the first scene. The attention to detail is something Tarantino always excels at.

Utterly ridiculous. Why is it that Yasuke was never classified as a samurai on Wikipedia *before* the Assassin’s Creed controversy?

Why all of a sudden now? This is pure ideological capture and the prime example of why Wikipedia is utterly useless for these topics.

https://twitter.com/iinchou125/status/1806581266390651324

I’ve already established how Thomas Lockley is full of shit.

His entire book is basically just this extended over 400 pages. If anyone takes his fiction seriously, they’re not an academic. They’re an unreliable crank.

https://twitter.com/oliverjia1014/status/1733462912122163708

Man this exchange has everything:

-A British guy pretending he lives in Japan
-Said LARPer posting a picture of Kyoto’s Kiyomizu-dera, a crowded tourist spot, and calling it a “Japanese village”
-An Islamist blaming the Jews
-A racist tankie spouting more nonsense about Japan





This the “village” in the photo Cringelord Otaku Gatekeeper posted.

Of course if he had actually stepped foot in this country once, I’m sure he’d immediately recognize it as a tourist spot.

Instead he just pretends he lives here.
en.japantravel.com/places/kyoto/k…

Most anime, like all other media, is garbage. 10% is passable and maybe 5% is truly worth watching.

It’s understandable why many are turning to it because most Western media is horrible now, but I don’t give bad writing or cringe characters a free pass because it’s Japanese.

https://twitter.com/rinnegoddess/status/1800294793836413115

Like many I went through my high school phase of being obsessed with shows like Steins;Gate and Haruhi Suzumiya. Some of it was good, some of it in retrospect wasn’t.

I don’t regret enjoying anything I watched back then, but with age I’ve gained a more critical eye.

Not saying that there aren’t gender issues in Japan, but a lot of this boils down to many Japanese women looking at what Japanese men go through to be CEOs or politicians and responding with “No thanks, I’m good.”

https://twitter.com/japantimes/status/1800846078276735334

Most gender equality surveys are extremely flawed. If you believe them, many Middle Eastern countries have more gender quality than Japan which is of course total rubbish.

Again, I’m not saying that such issues don’t exist here. But the framing doesn’t tell you the whole story.

Wikipedia’s obsession with social justice has always been bizarre because literally anyone with an internet connection can use it.

The site has been compromised for years by zealous admins who like going on power trips. I never use it to research politically contentious topics.

https://twitter.com/msmelchen/status/1800318493851537578

A left-wing Western journalist or academic can write an article or book on a Japanese topic and it’ll be included as a citation on Wikipedia.

Because there’s often very little other English-language sources, that person’s opinion will be considered a “reliable source.”

Some rando recently DM’d me saying that my publicly expressed views and opinions here are going to cost me my future academic career.

I told him to shove off. I’m not censoring myself for anyone. There are people in Japan with way more extreme views than me who are doing fine. If you Google my name, my Twitter account, Substack, and bylines for The Spectator and other sites are the first results.

I decided long ago that I would publish all my opinions under my real name and face. I have no regrets doing that and I knew what the tradeoffs would be.

How politically extreme foreigners on this dumpster fire site discuss Japan.

Leftists think Japan is one of the most racist countries and has never progressed on anything, while alt-righters think it's a based ethnostate that's hostile to all foreigners.

Both are wrong. I've spoken to many Japanese in my six years of living here. People have been nothing but encouraging of my desire to be a part of this country.

They just want foreigners who stay to learn the language and respect the existing laws/culture. That's the bare minimum of any place.

Sub fans: “Subs are better! It’s more authentic and those English voices are terrible!”

Dub fans: “You don’t even speak Japanese, what do you know!?”

People who can actually understand Japanese: My non-meme, non-intentional strawman take on this subject is that it depends.

If a show or film revolves around Japanese culture, then I’m not interested in anything other than subs.

If it’s a more generic fantasy setting, I can do either. Sometimes both are ear-piercing.

I deleted Twitter off my phone and it honestly made my evening much better and more focused.

Probably going to start cutting off my access to this site past a certain hour. While I'll still be here, you're going to start seeing less of me. I have more important things to do. I've made Substack a priority this year and I'm already at nearly 600 subscribers.

So please follow me there to keep up with my work. And if you want to support my writing, consider a paid subscription.

You'll get access to exclusive, in-depth articles.
foreignperspectives.net

I find it funny how everyone on both sides of the culture war were tweeting last month how "GamerGate 2" was about to happen and... nothing happened.

I dunno what people were expecting. Everyone involved already hates each other and has drawn their lines in the sand. Almost no one from the OG GamerGate days is still relevant now.

No one takes games journalists seriously anymore, so in that sense it was already long over.

The culture war stuff is a new thing every week that people quickly forget before moving on to the next thing.

Interestingly, this is what Capcom previously said about localization, which appears to be a contradiction of what they just posted here.

In fact, it’s still on their official website.
capcom.co.jp/ir/english/csr…

https://twitter.com/capcoml10n/status/1778657301551038721

The above tweet by Capcom is only going to throw more gasoline onto the fire around the localization discourse and there’s a lot there that I disagree with.

See my article from earlier this year which dives into good, bad, and controversial localizations.
foreignperspectives.net/p/ai-is-not-th…

These anecdotal stories don’t tell the whole story of the time period they were in.

Even my dad who hated the Cultural Revolution noted that because life was simpler back then, Chinese people were generally kinder.

Doesn’t mean life was good though. Everyone was dirt poor. If you showed talent for math and science, then you probably didn’t get the worst education in communist China or the Soviet Union.

Those regimes needed scientists and engineers, but everything else taught was propaganda. You’d usually never get the job you wanted anyways.

After the mixed initial reception, I’d be wary too.

I’ll definitely see the film, but I think Francis Ford Coppola lost his touch years ago.

He’s responsible for some of the greatest works of cinema, but he peaked in the 1970s. Coppola is no Scorsese.

https://twitter.com/discussingfilm/status/1777458966441738591

I’ve heard good things about The Rainmaker and Tetro, but they didn’t exactly light the world on fire.

It’s honestly a shame that Coppola has spent the last 30 years making films hardly anyone knows about or sees. This is the guy who directed The Godfather.

That headline is fake.

-Japan expects 820,000 skilled workers over five years
-They are not “inviting” anyone
-The vast majority of these workers can only stay for a max of five years
-Staying longer requires a skills test

Better article here:
asahi.com/sp/ajw/article…

https://twitter.com/steve_laws_/status/1776553803963109600

Immigration to Japan has already increased over the last 20 years.

But the Japanese government is eyeing skilled workers with specific qualifications, not any migrant who wants to come to the country.

To stay more than five years, they have to demonstrate their worth.

The people in the replies telling me Japan is the way it is specifically because it’s a homogenous country are probably the same ones who refused to wear masks or take vaccines during the pandemic.

Guess what? It’s because people follow rules that Japan is the way it is.

https://twitter.com/oliverjia1014/status/1775938022317695447

Japanese people are not inherently better or worse than Americans.

But the social pressures that exist here are different and few people want to rock the boat.

A gun-toting MAGA supporting Christian Republican would never want to live in Japan. And neither would a woke person.

https://twitter.com/oliverjia1014/status/1775821732861165664

Which was the best era of Star Wars? Note: this is specifically referring to the pre-Disney era of 1977-2014. Being born in 1997, the first Star Wars I saw in theaters was Ep. III in 2005, though I watched all the films that existed at the time beforehand.

I loved all six films, went through the phase where it was cool to hate the prequels, then went back to appreciating them all.

Going off this theme of Japan being more of a collectivist society than America, I think there are two major exceptions:

1. People who run their own individual businesses

2. People who are in arts/creative fields

In those cases, you often find more similarities with Americans.

https://twitter.com/oliverjia1014/status/1775821731288236341

The best Japanese media is good usually because it’s made by nonconformist people who go out of their way to criticize Japanese society or standard ways of thinking.

Akira Kurosawa, Hayao Miyazaki, Hideo Kojima, etc. are all deep thinkers who have a specific vision.