Pop and Individuality

Last week a flood of news sprang up about the Japanese pop supergroup AKB48 and its member who is not an actual person, but a computerized conglomeration of several of the group's seventy seven (!) members created to market a candy product. I've been working at forming a clear opinion of this for several days, and I keep thinking of America's spray-tanned, plastic-surgery laden pop stars and wonder how much different they are from a computer program. It seems we are moving toward an era when there will be no "talent" to pay except for the computer programmers creating it, and that this state of things will be much more lucrative for the parties in charge. Just think how much easier seventy seven virtual teenage girls would be to manage than seventy seven real ones! However, it also strikes me that the consumers will be bored. We pay attention to celebrities as much to emulate their perfectly quaffed hair-dos as to sympathize with and/or deride their true, human foibles. Aime Eguchi can only have made up flaws, and screaming fans can never hope to meet her. Her face might sell candy, but I expect that this week will be the last one we hear much of her.